UDC

821.161.1

Authors

Oksana V. Sizykh
North-Eastern Federal University named after M.K. Ammosov; ul. Belinskogo 58, Yakutsk, 677000, Respublika Sakha (Yakutiya), Russian Federation; e-mail: 777ruslit@mail.ru

Abstract

Research on intertextual units of a literary text in the comparative aspect is one of the priorities of modern literary studies. It primarily concerns such specific links in the texts via which these text directly or indirectly refer to each other. This article examines the intertextual relationship between the stories “The Big Lady with the Little Dog” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya and “The Lady with the Dog” by Anton Chekhov. Intertextuality is known to be characteristic of Ulitskaya’s prose; it can be found even in the titles of her works (“Poor Relatives”, “The People of Our Tsar”, “The Queen of Spades”, “Sonechka”, “Medea and Her Children”). This paper deals with the author’s techniques (secondary metaphorization of the Chekhov word and allusive letter) that help one understand the unique way in which the author solves her task in “The Big Lady with the Little Dog”. This article aimed to identify the functions performed in this story by allusions and metaphors and to show that intertextuality is used to create a meaning, within which Chekhov’s classical work interacts with Ulitskaya’s postmodernist experiment. Further, this paper reveals the stylistic and semantic functions of allusions and how the name of Chekhov’s short story (“The Lady with the Dog”) is transformed by Ulitskaya into the generalized formula “The Big Lady with the Little Dog”, indicating a breakdown of traditional family ties in modern society. In addition, the article highlights the idea that the reader is reminded of Chekhov’s story through the use of mental metaphor of the female image, antithesis and portraiture by Ulitskaya. Metaphor in Ulitskaya’s text is regarded both as typization and as a way of expressing the author’s understanding of the world.

Keywords

L.E. Ulitskaya, A.P. Chekhov, intertextuality, secondary metaphorization of the Chekhov word, allusive letter

References

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