The Main Motifs And Chronotopes In The Novel Maidenhair By M.Shishkin

Mikhail Pavlovich Shishkin is one of the most significant writers in contemporary Russian literature,and also is a laureate of Russia's most prestigious literary prizes-Russian Booker Prize,National Best-seller Prize and Big Book Award.He debuted as a writer in 1993 as his short story Calligraphy Lesson was published in Znamya magazine.Since 1995 he has lived in Zurich,Switzerland.Then his masterpieces The Taking of Izmail(1999),Maidenhair(2005)and Letter Book(2010)brought him a great reputation both in Russia and abroad.The novel Maidenhair,awarded the National Best-seller Prize(2005)and Big Book Award(third place,2006),is one of the most influential works of Shishkin.It has been translated into ten languages,and has received numerous awards abroad.Maidenhair,a novel about word,eternal love,the resurrection of all and the return to God,on the one hand continues to develop typical motifs,that are in the center of Shishkin's attention,and,on the other,differs from his other works by an innovative philosophical reflection on the interrelationship between language,love and resurrection,and by an unusual narrative strategy and a special chronotope.However,so far in China there are no separate literary studies dedicated to this novel.Herein lies the relevance and importance of our work.This thesis consists of an introduction,three chapters,a conclusion and references.The introduction briefly introduces the literary path of Shishkin and summarizes the previous researches on this novel both in Russia and China.This part points out the thesis's aim and task,as well as the theoretical and practical significance,showing its realistic and innovative characteristics.The first chapter analyzes narrative motifs,such as the motifs of pregnancy and death in the novel Maidenhair,applying Silantiev's appropriate theory of the motif and the model "invariant-variant of the motif" in the dichotomous theory of motif research.Pregnancy realizes female value at different levels-family,social and all humanity.Moreover,pregnancy in its way overcomes death and continues life.Death is shown in developing positions-negative,neutral and positive.Eventually,death is deduced into a sacred,metaphysical plan,becoming a transition to eternity.The second chapter analyzed conceptualizing motifs in the novel Maidenhair:motif of word,of love and of resurrection.We know,that the narrative motifs belong to the traditional paradigm of "story-plot",and the conceptualizing motifs-"text-meaning" paradigm.A meaning network,which reuses semantic equivalent or similar expressed units,forms a conceptualizing motif.In other words,conceptualizing motifs are present as any semantic repetitions,any variants of equivalent denotations or formal equivalences in the text.For example,in the novel the meaning network of word motif includes the interpreter's protocol,stories of refugees,Bella's diary entries,letters to the interpreter's son,the historical work Anabasis by Xenophon,etc.Word saves a life,and is identified with life itself.Love is omnipresent and eternal.It conquers death.Resurrection is accomplished only with the help of the Word and Love.In addition,the resurrection motif is full of vivid religious color and messianism.In fact,as Shishkin himself noted,the novel Maidenhair is an ark that will sail from a terrible life to where all of us are expected and loved,taking with it its protagonists and readers.The third chapter reveals the connection between motifs and chronotopes and analyzes such typical artistic chronotope of the novel as chronotope of a meeting,of a road and of a ship.The structure of the motif is important not only for the actant and the predicate,but also for the time and space,in which the motif unfolds and realizes;And the motif is chronotopic.Different motifs are carried out in the corresponding different chronotopes.Through the analysis of the previous three types of chronotopes in the novel,we found the specificity of the Shishkin's chronotope:The combination of different planes of time-the past,the present and the future-in one moment,and the deducing of history into a single timeless space.That is why the Chechens,fleeing from the repression of Soviet power,and the retreating Greek mercenaries met in the Caucasus valley;the refugee Anatoly and his wife and adopted son gathered together with the deceased son,sister and mother in the submarine "Nautilus" from the science fiction novel of writer Jules Verne of the 19th century.These chronotopes clearly have metaphorical,symbolic and ironic meanings.In conclusion,the general results of this dissertation are summed up.