Функции архетипа трикстера в повести «Шут» Ю. П. Вяземского

Abstract

The paper considers the forms of actualisation and functioning of the trickster archetype as a “matrix” of the character and dominant psychologeme of the protagonist’s image in a modern young adult novella. The aim of the study is to identify the semiosis and functions of the trickster archetype at different levels of the text structure of the novella “The Jester” by Yu. P. Vyazemsky (1982). The scientific novelty of the study lies in determining the genesis of the protagonist’s emotional and psychological ambivalence associated with the trickster archetype underlying the chosen role mask. As a result of the study, it has been proved that the mythological roots of the archetype manifested in the novella at the level of the system of images, poetics and narrative strategy determine the creative potential and “shadow” intentions of the role mask of the “jester” in the area of artistic axiology. The “double” narrative technique is artistically represented in the genre form of a “literary diary”: the subject of artistic expression, the owner of a “solitary consciousness”, focused on the rhetoric and “point of view” of the trickster, “builds” the plot of reflection, which leads the protagonist to realise the destructive demonism of his own nature.