Title of the article:

E. M. REMARQUE AND O. ERMAKOV: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE WAR PROSE BASED ON A STORYLINE MODEL “INITIATION”

Author(s):

Oleg E. Pokhalenkov

Information about the author/authors

Oleg E. Pokhalenkov — PhD in Philology, Assistant Professor, Smolensk State University, Przhevalsky St., 4, Smolensk 214000, Russia. E-mail: olegpokhalenkov@rambler.ru

Section

Philological sciences

Year

2017

Volume

Vol. 44

Pages

Pp. 126–136

Received

March 23, 2017

Date of publication

June 15, 2017

Index UDK

82.091

Index BBK

83.3(4Гем)6 + 83.3(2Рос=Рус)7

Abstract

The presented research touches upon the problem of the reception of the European literature of the First world war in the Russian war prose in the form of typological similarities at different levels of the text: characters, motifs and plot. The article is devoted to the comparative analysis of the structure of the image of the characters in the classic novel of war prose of the First world war “All quiet on the Western front” by Erich Maria Remarque and the novel by modern Russian war writer Oleg Ermakov “The mark of the beast” about the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The analysis presented in the article is based on a narrative model of “initiation,” which is regarded as the basis of war prose. In the course of comparative studies the events that implement the motif model (for example, the motifs of death, of the opposition of past and present, front-line friendship, social adaptation, etc.) are identified at the appropriate stages of the “initiation” of the main character. It is based on the traditional (three-part) scenario of initiation whereby the initiated is removed from the people, exercise the death-transformation, and then reborn as a new person. In the present study, the first stage, removing from the people corresponds to the stage of growing up (preparatory phase), the second front-line days, the third – revival. Presented in the study a nuclear-peripheral motif model lets us consider the motif model of the works by Remarque and Ermakov not a dynamic (from events and motifs to the events and the motifs), but a static one (i.e. considering the whole complex of motifs in general), because the movement of motifs from the nucleus to the peripheral area attests to the significance of an event on the level of the plot of the works.

Keywords

E. M. Remarque, O. Ermakov, comparative literature, motif, event, story, plot, image of protagonists.

References

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