(Con)text» of the Philosophy of Subject
The starting point for the present research is Tolstoy’s short story
«Master and Man» in which the author finishes his elaboration of one of the
archetypal plots of the Russian literature, initiated by him in the short story
«The Snowstorm» and then continued in «Anna Karenina». Since Pushkin’s
times this plot had been focused on the story of interaction between the two
characters who personified what conventionally might be called «people» vs
«power» juxtaposition, whereas the snowstorm itself symbolized a social revolt
and/or some moral errors, illegitimate deeds. In 1890s this plot was fully revised
by Tolstoy: in the foreground of the scene the reader now sees the pair of the
two interconnected figures while the allegorical semantics of the snowstorm is
reduced. The winter hurricane is left with the only function given to it by the
author – to bring death. Within this frame Tolstoy sets up an artistic and ideological
experiment representing how the psychological transgression is done and
how the consciousness of one character morphs into the consciousness of another:
Brekhunov saves Nikita, and by doing this he rejects his own subjectivity
which is assessed by Tolstoy in his late years exceptionally as the trap of egoism.
According to Tolstoy, to overcome one’s ego means to reach immortality,
because isolation, as the novelist believes, is a synonym to the helplessness in
the face of death. Finding himself in a new historical and cultural situation Bunin,
who in this sphere of plots and motifs was Tolstoy’s obvious successor, had
to reorganize his great ancestor’s poetic devices yet again. Thus, the very idea of
the impossibility to cover a cultural and linguistic distance in the interaction
between different social agents was totally unfamiliar to Tolstoy who always
relied on Rousseau when dealing with this theme. Tolstoyan moralistic demand
of any individual to descend into a «simple life» (oproschenie) presumed the
construction of an ideal position which makes possible the expression of a
«defamiliarized» (ostranennyi) view of the world around, a view that can resolve
any communicative problem. Animal as a character, antisocial and remote
from the world of humans, was a suitable paragon for this, as we see it in
«Kholstomer». Bunin analyzes the problem of an animal not in terms of social
life, but in the ontological perspective – seeing in animal first of all a flesh
which is doomed to die. And if the link between peasant and animal, which Tolstoy
had in mind by default, made both of them the possessors of an ideal
«defamiliarizing» language, for Bunin, who emphasized ties of an animal with
death, the imminent step was to put both – the beast and the peasant, bonded by
Nature itself – under the lens of exoticism, transforming them from subjects,
into vice versa objects of «defamiliarization». Of course, this device produced
superficial effect: the writer of the 20th century chooses the strategy to overcome
the exoticism in order to connect the opposed social forces and therefore to
solve the problem of a subject – but on different ways as compared to Tolstoy.
Thus, in the narrative structure of the short stories where the snowstorm plays a crucial role Bunin reduces the status of a hero associated with the social power
and culture and converts a moujik into a protagonist who sometimes also becomes
the subject of narrating. The linkage between the opposed poles is set
with complex system of motif allusions, which refer to the idea of the common
life. Such stories as «Pines», «Celestial Birds», «The Cricket» and «Bast Shoes»
are attracted for the narratological analysis.
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(Con)text» of the Philosophy of Subject // Критика и семиотика. 2018. № 1. Pp. 187–215. DOI: 10/25205/2307-1737-2018-1-187-215.