Features of the parable in the structure of A.P. Chekhov’s “A Story Without a Title”

Abstract

The study deals with the composition of “A Story Without a Title” by A. Chekhov in the aspect of its genre affiliation. The methodological apparatus of narratology is involved in the analysis of the text structure, which makes it possible to describe the implementation of the parable plot model in Chekhov's story. Of all Chekhov's stories, “A Story Without a Title” most consistently reproduces the genre features of the parable. The characters are referred to with common nouns, the plot is schematic, not overloaded with events and details. It is based on the antithesis of two worlds: a monastery and a city. However, behind the outwardly simple text of the story there is a system of narrative entities, where each narrator differs in point of view in terms of space, time and ideology, the events they cover. At the same time, the point of view of the author-narrator remains spatially static. The world of the city, external to the characters, is described by two diegetic narrators, so that the burden of value judgments is removed from the author. Thus, the composition structure of the text causes direct edification avoidance. At the same time, the rejection of the authoritarian narration type makes it possible to introduce into the story the theme of art, also built on the opposition of descriptions of the same world by two different characters.