THE TRICKSTER ARCHETYPE IN THE NOVELS “I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND” BY BOHUMIL HRABAL AND “THE CENSOR OF DREAMS” BY YURII VYNNYCHUK

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to identify the features of the Trickster archetype in the characters-narrators in the novels “I Served the King of England” and “The Censor of Dreams”, and also prove their genetic kinship.

Research methods used in the study are comparative-historical and comparative-typological (typological and original features in the works of the Czech and Ukrainian writers are determined by means of comparative analysis of their literary mythological thinking), contextual (the novels are examined in the context of traditional mythology), intertextual (the texts are deconstructed to distinguish and perform a thorough analysis of archetypes, mythological intertexts and the authors’ discourses), semiological (the semantics of mythological motifs and figures is revealed), psychoanalytical (archetypal foundations and psychological principles of the authors’ mythological writing and psychologism of the characters are discovered), poetological (mythopoetics of the novels is characterized).

Results. The paper introduces the results of the comparative analysis of the literary works of B. Hrabal and Yu. Vynnychuk conducted for the first time. The study determines how representatively the features of the mythological cheater manifest themselves in the characters-narrators of “I Served the King of England” and “The Censor of Dreams”. The study finds out what attributes of picaresque literature appear in the novels of the Czech and Ukrainian writers. The research outlines the association of the charactersnarrators Ditě and Andreas Popel with the motif of erotic love as an evidence of correlation with the Trickster archetype. It detects genetic kinship of B. Hrabal’s and Yu. Vynnychuk’s novels on a stylistic level which is most vividly reflected in the ironic modus of both literary works.

Conclusions. The findings of the study can be useful in further research on the interpretation of the Trickster archetype in modern fiction.They make it possible to draw a conclusion that the reception of this archetype in the novels “I Served the King of England” and “The Censor of Dreams” is characterized by different intensity of the transformation of its semantic attributes.