Introverted Spatial Narrative: Azimuths and Linearity

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of topological models of L.N. Tolstoy. The goal is to recearch the narrative and suggestive functions of the writer’s individual spatial representations, as well as their role in creating the emotive-evaluative structure of the narrative. The material of the study was the works: “Childhood”, “Foray”, “Master and Worker”, “Resurrection”. In modern literary criticism, there are de facto no studies of the writer’s spatial reflection, which already ensures a high level of relevance of the material presented. The main research methods were comparative, structural and descriptive, hermeneutic and interpretive, historical and functional, as well as the method of semantic analysis. In modern literary criticism, there are no actually studies of the spatial reflection of the writer, which already ensures a high level of relevance of the material presented. As a result of referring to the texts of several, especially illustrative works of the prose writer, the authors of the article come to two important conclusions. Firstly, the texts of L. Tolstoy testify that the writer did not focus on the linear and distance characteristics of the described topoi, limiting himself to the degree of their completeness and detail, which made it possible to create a reliable picture of the emotional and psychological state of the characters (this was explained by the artist’s overwhelming interest in the inner world of the characters, to revealing their mental and moral and ethical dominants). The objects described in the writer’s works, although they give some idea of ​​the areas of the ongoing action, in most cases act as sets of isolated points and objects. In the first case, such references are presented as a space of stable emotional and evaluative states of the characters (“Compound”, “road”, “field”), in the second case, by means of a concentrated enumeration of them, the author creates paintings saturated with traditional everyday associations, again, in order to create an effect of emotional contrast. Secondly, the writer, in general, tended to describe limited locations, to depict the closest to the point of observation of the author and the hero. According to the authors, it’s explained, by the peculiarities of L. Tolstoy’s psychotype, which were formed in the deep childhood of the writer. The study revealed that in the formation of the topology of narrative episodes, the writer was primarily interested in the internal movement of the human soul and he could well experiment with the narrative space in order to “obscure”, dematerialize it in order to fully concentrate on the main object of his attention.

Keywords

• l.n. tolstoy’s prose
• chronotope
• temporality
• spatial representations
• topology
• narrative
• linearity
• extent