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On the border of worlds: the ontology of space in “Cancer ward” by A.I. Solzhenitsyn

V.Sh. Krivonos
$2.50

 

https://doi.org/10.20339/PhS.1-19.103

 

Krivonos Vladislav Sh.,

Doctor of Philology, Professor,

Professor of the Department of Russian, Foreign Literature and Methods of Teaching Literature of the Philological Faculty

Samara State Social and Pedagogical University

e-mail: vkrivonos@gmail.com

 

The article discusses the features of the ontology of space in A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s “The Cancer Ward”. The author studies the personal worlds of the characters, the life worlds of doctors and patients, the everyday worlds of the hospital and the camp, the existentially significant worlds of life and death, the combination of which organizes the story space. Special attention is paid to the forms and symbolic functions of the border which connects different worlds and plays an important role in the story. The author seeks to identify the symbolic meanings that are significant for the ontology of the space. The task which is posed in the article defined its compositional logic. First, the role of the threshold as a form of space and its ontological symbolism are considered. Next, the author analyzes the character's dream in which there is a symbolic transition to “that world”. Then the role of the character’s meeting with the book changing his understanding of life and death is shown. Next, the author studies the problem of mutual understanding of characters with their life experience. In conclusion, the relations between doctors and patients of the cancer ward and the specificity of the border separating and connecting them are shown.

Keywords: Solzhenitsyn, world, space, boundary, ontology.

 

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