MEDICAL DISCOURSE IN THE NOVEL BY YU. O. DOMBROVSKY THE MONKEY COMES FOR ITS SKULL

Abstract

The article explores the poetics of Yu. O. Dombrovsky's novel The Monkey Comes for its Skull (1943–1959) through the prism of medical discourse, which occupies a prominent place in the structure of the work. Every appeal of the novel’s characters to medical discourse indicates a situation of communicative shift, the breakdown of connections between words and things. Thus, “medicalization” becomes one of the symptoms of the new paradoxical reality of occupied and post-war Europe. Contrary to the Enlightenment paradigm, a medical view of the motives of human actions does not reveal the truth, but on the contrary, leads away from it. For Dombrovsky's work, ancient Stoic philosophy with its understanding of wisdom as therapy of the soul, the completeness of self-control and absolute spiritual freedom is also important. Sooner or later, each of the characters has to remain one-on-one with his own conscience and moral dilemmas, while auxiliary discursive practices cease to be an effective means of social camouflage. The ideological composition of the work corresponds to a specific narrative technique and motive structure, which is characterized by the use of genre techniques of detective and spy novels. In general, the novel The Monkey Comes for Its Skull offers the reader an alternative to “new prose,” with its demonstrative rejection of fictionality, its accent on documentary, factography. Dombrovsky prefers to overcome the “literariness” of literature from within the prevailing genre and aesthetic conventions, synthesizing and transforming various types of discourses, including medical ones.