Transformation of the myth of the Minotaur in “Gene” by Stel Pavlou

Andrey Gurduz

doi:10.34069/ai/2021.46.10.29

Abstract

Fantasy of the XXI century becomes more attentive to the socio-political realities of our time. The resultant vector of the genre's problematic spectrum becomes a widely understood problem of memory - from generic, national civilization. The genre potential of fantasy gives the writer high opportunities, primarily mythological. Stel Pavlou interprets the issues of personal and cultural memory in an original way, touches the actual problem of the “beast” in man in the novel “Gene” - a representative work of Minotaurianism of the first decades of the XXI century. The purpose of our article is to determine for the first time the features of the author's version (associative model) of the Minotaur myth in the novel “Gene” by S. Pavlou against the background of the typology of modern Minotaurians, the specifics of the author's picture of the world and the accompanying philosophical subtext. In the interpretation of the key legendary-mythological image "Gene" we turn to the teaching of C. G. Jung. We show that the reinterpretation of the Minotaur's image is organically relevant to modern trends, actualizing the question of the meaning of existence, memory, man's choice of the future. In "Gene," man comprehends his essence (the Minotaur as unconscious) and recognizes the animal in himself as evil, suffers disappointment in himself and history, but must endure through love and forgiveness. We see the precondition for this original approach in Minotauri in the universalization in the twentieth century. (J. L. Borges, R. Sheckley, S. Sherrill, etc.) of the Image of the Labyrinth. Further study of the prose of S. Pavlou promising as an important component of the new world fantasy.

Highlights

Fantasy authors of the first decades of the XXI century become increasingly attentive to the sociopolitical collisions of modernity and the XX century, directly reflecting on national identity, tolerance and gender, totalitarianism (“Half Bad” (Green, 2014), “Not people, people, non-humans” (Lishchynska, 2018)), the Holocaust (“Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children” (Riggs, 2013)), among others
Topical aspects of the state variety were originally actualized for the United States (in “modern living mythology” (Kripal, 2011, p. 330), including Superhero), the UK (in “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell” (Clarke, 2017)), reflected anti-regime performances in Ukraine (“Not people, people, non-humans” (Lishchynska, 2018)
In interpreting Pavlou's reinterpretation of the myth of the Minotaur we apply the mythopoetic method of analysis and understanding the confrontation of the personality and the bull in the work with their subsequent communication as a personality and its shadowy aspect requires turning to the psychoanalytic method of research

Summary

Introduction

Fantasy authors of the first decades of the XXI century become increasingly attentive to the sociopolitical collisions of modernity and the XX century, directly reflecting on national identity, tolerance and gender, totalitarianism (“Half Bad” (Green, 2014), “Not people, people, non-humans” (Lishchynska, 2018)), the Holocaust (“Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children” (Riggs, 2013)), among others. Intensive studies of mythopoetics and author's myth at the end of the XX - beginning of the XXI century show the main vectors of development of myth-making - the key parameter of the current literary process, which largely determines the actual and perspective artistic discourse. Such studios are especially productive on the material of corpus interpretations of legendarymythological structures (Faust, Don Juan, vampire, etc.), first of all - in the fantasy genre.

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