Angel, Heroine and Demon: Feminine Cultural Types of American Discourse at the Turn of the 20 th Century

Abstract

Considered in the article from Lotman’s semiotic of culture, female cultural types are represented by angel, demon and heroine in American literary discourse at the turn of the 20th century. Condensed and coded information of a cultural type develops on the background of a cultural context, in which literary texts fulfill the function of descriptive mechanisms. Cultural types are symbols of a national cultural experience. In the discourse, they are represented by sets of moral and physical qualities attributed by the society to a certain kind of women. Cultural types modify under the influence of social changes and at the same time, they affect standards and norms accepted in the society. The alteration of feminine cultural types means profound social and cultural changes.