The plot of creation in modern women’s literature (based on the novels “The Surgeon” by M. Stepnova and “2017” by O. Slavnikova)
https://doi.org/10.26907/2074-0239-2022-69-3-141-145
Abstract
This article studies the plot of creation transformation (the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea) in modern women’s prose of the mid-2000s. The aim of the research is to explore the problem of traditional plot deconstruction and to identify parallels between the two novels that were published almost simultaneously. The study is based on two novels, written in the middle of the decade: “2017” by O. Slavnikova and “The Surgeon” by M. Stepnova. The research focuses on the construction of central images, the concepts of “false” and “true” female identity built by the male protagonist, as well as on the ways of representing them in the text. These texts demonstrate how the traditional female archetypes, imposed by patriarchal culture, become a source of trauma for both the woman and the male creator, while the woman inevitably acquires monstrous features, which leads to a shift in the emphasis between “living and dead”. From an angel-like creature that brings life, love and beauty into the life of a man, a woman turns into a demon that brings death. In the first novel, the leading female archetype is based on Bazhov’s Mistress of the Copper Mountain, and in the novel “The Surgeon”, based on the myth of Pygmalion, the leading archetype is a female angel, a goddess.
About the Author
Yu. PanibratovaRussian Federation
Yuliya Fedorovna Panibratova, graduate student
420008
18 Kremlyovskaya Str.
Kazan
References
1. Rovenskaya, T. A. Roman L. Ulitskoi “Medeya i ee deti” i povest' L. Petrushevskoi “Malen'kaya Groznaya”: opyt novogo zhenskogo mifotvorchestva [L. Ulitskaya’s Novel “Medea and Her Children” and L. Petrushevskaya’s novel “Little Terrible”: The Experience of a New Female Myth-Making]. URL: http://www.owl.ru/avangard/radostnyeiraznozvetnye.html (accessed: 20. 08. 2022). (In Russian)
2. Afanas'ev, A. S. (2022). Strategii gendernoi reprezentatsii v sovremennoi zhenskoi literature : dis. … dokt. filol. nauk [Strategies of Gender Representation in Modern Women’s Literature : Doctoral Thesis]. Kazan', 420 p. (In Russian)
3. Slavnikova, O. (2017). 2017 : roman [2017 : A Novel]. 605 p. Moscow, AST, Redaktsiya Eleny Shubinoi. (In Russian)
4. Abashev, V. V. Intermedial'nye transformatsii gornoi mifologii P. P. Bazhova v romane Ol'gi Slavnikovoy “2017” [Intermediate Transformations of P. Bazhov’s Mountain Mythology in Olga Slavnikova’s Novel “2017”]. Vestnik Permskogo universiteta. Seriya “Rossiyskaya i zarubezhnaya filologiya”. No. 1 (25), pp. 145–158. (In Russian)
5. Stepnova, M. (2018). Khirurg [The Surgeon]. 316 p. Moscow, AST, Redaktsiya Eleny Shubinoy. (In Russian)
6. Savkina, I. (2007). Razgovory s zerkalom i Zazerkal'em: avtodokumental'nye zhenskie teksty v russkoi literature pervoi poloviny XIX veka [Conversations with a Mirror and through the Looking Glass: Women’s Auto-documentary Texts in Russian Literature of the First Half of the 19<sup>th</sup> Century]. 416 p. Moscow, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. (In Russian)
Review
For citations:
Panibratova Yu. The plot of creation in modern women’s literature (based on the novels “The Surgeon” by M. Stepnova and “2017” by O. Slavnikova). Philology and Culture. 2022;(3):141-145. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.26907/2074-0239-2022-69-3-141-145