CHILD AND CHILDISHNESS IN THE NOVEL BY P. V. KRUSANOV «THE AMERICAN HOLE»
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2019-1-74-80
Introduction. The image of a child in art is universal because it is associated with the widest range of problems: from socio-psychological to philosophical and cultural. The aesthetic complex of childishness turns out to be highly relevant for expressing the essence of the subject of the modern transition due to the specificity of the image of the child, which is associated not only with the ideas of naturalness and creative fantasy, but also infantilism and primitivism. Aim and objectives. The aim of this work is disclosure of the symbolic content of the motif and image complex of childishness in P. V. Krusanov’s novel “American hole” (2005). The objectives of the work are studying the role of the Child archetype (“Infant-Orphan”, “Divine Infant”) and the myth-folklore motifs associated with this archetype (“children in the forest”, “initiation”). Materials and research methods. The author of the article used the structural-semiotic method, the method of myth-restoration and the method of complex analysis based on the synthesis of literary theoretic, linguistic and philosophical-cultural approaches to the artistic text. Results and discussion. To express the essence of the subject of modern transition epoch, the aesthetic complex of the childishness is very relevant, because the child’s specific image means not only naturalness and imagination, but also infantilism and primitivism. In the novel “The American Hole” by P. Krusanov, the deep symbolism of the child’s image is created by play upon the Jung’s Child archetype (“Infant-Orphan”, “Divine Infant”) and the associated myth and folk motifs (“children in the forest”, “initiation”). Despite the prevailing in the text elements of the carnival, subjecting all its ideology and axiology to inversion, the mythological analysis of the plot allows us to reveal the serious meanings that constitute the author’s “message” to the reader. The plot of the transformation of reality in the game, organized by the extremely free artist Sergey Kuryokhin and the eternal boy Evgraf, cancels the idea of the inevitable elimination of childhood and childish in adult life. Conclusion. The author of the article comes to the following conclusions. Firstly, the game inversion creates in the novel by P. Krusanov axiologically ambivalent images of the modern transitional era. Secondly, the inconsistency of the image of the child becomes a means of identifying a modern person with his infantilism, on the one hand, and the cult of creativity, on the other. Thirdly, the child for the modern man continues to be a symbol of hope and spiritual enlightenment.
Keywords: P. V. Krusanov, “The American hole”, child, childishness, play, image, motif, archetype
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Issue: 1, 2019
Series of issue: Issue 1
Rubric: CHILDHOOD IN LITERATURE AND LITERATURE ON CHILDHOOD
Pages: 74 — 80
Downloads: 712