АВТОРСКОЕ МАНИПУЛИРОВАНИЕ КАТЕГОРИЯМИ ПРОСТРАНСТВА И ВРЕМЕНИ КАК ФАКТОР ОТОЖДЕСТВЛЕНИЯ ЧИТАТЕЛЯ С ОБРАЗОМ ПЕРСОНАЖА

Introduction

The literary character’s images the author reproduces in narrative texts can cause ambiguous emotional responses in the readership. This kind of empathic contact with the actors of imaginary eventfulness is reflected in the multidimensional way in the semantic content of the term «reader’s identification with the literary character’s image», which involves the perception of the author’s virtual reality, based on the subjective perspective of a particular literary hero, penetration into the system of his views and beliefs, values and life goals [1, P. 2].

In this regard, the actual problems of text linguistics are such as:

1. detailing the methodology for studying such cognitive processes as the perception of the character’s emotional-volitional sphere, identifying analogies between the reader’s individual self and the personal characteristics of the acting person in the literary text [2, P. 9];

2. identifying the stable correlations between the linguistic means of the author’s re-creation of the character’s image and the reader’s identification with this image [3, P. 24–27].

Currently, the priority research programs include, among other things, modeling the reader’s experience of a literary text perception and interpretation, a complex of imaginary characters involved in the development of the plot perspective of this text [4], [5], [6]. The models proposed in text linguistics integrate theoretical concepts and methodological guidelines developed in the science of cognitive cycle. The hypotheses put forward are tested and confirmed taking into account both the empirical analysis of specific textual data and theoretical generalizations, which, in turn, provides an opportunity to determine the specifics of the impact of the text linguistic distinctiveness upon the processes of readers’ immersion in the narrative virtual settings and worlds [7], [8], [9].

The approaches to the literary text study, undertaken in the framework of this work, details the theoretical attitudes developed in contemporary concepts, which trace the specifics of establishing relationships between such categories as «the author», «the narrator», «the character» and «the reader». In particular, there is an  the opinion that the stylistic analysis of the literary narrative texts underlies in putting forward the hypotheses concerning the reader’s interpretation of the text, which are proved, among other things, based on the neurocognitive research methods [10], [11], [12]. The study of the processes of the readership’s immersing into the literary narrative texts, as well as this kind of text aesthetic evaluating, also involves the identification of the linguistic originality of the literary work. In this regard, the phonological, lexical, grammatical, and semantic levels of the text are extensively and intensively studied on the material of prose and poetry in terms of correspondence / inconsistency with the particular rigid linguistic system.

Methods

Both the purpose and corresponding objectives of the research project predetermine the holistic methodological principles of the linguistic and pragmatic analysis of the collected material. Along with the basic method of the text interpretation, aimed at determining the pragmatic specificity of the readership’s likening to the images of both the narrator and / or the main character, such research methods relevant to modern Russian studies as induction and deduction, transformation of fiction utterance, contextual analysis of the pragmatic potential of grammatical categories, developed in general axiological linguistics, are simultaneously used.

A fragment of Boris Yulievich Poplavsky’s novel «Apollo Bezobrazov» (1932) is chosen as the material for the study. We focus primeval attention on the first four chapters of the novel [13]. The choice of the specified fragment of this text is determined by the narrative peculiar storyline. In this particular text passage the narrator from the first person introduces the main characters of the story, while the defining point of reference is the situation of acquaintance with them.

The narrator expresses a pragmatic attitude to the characters:

● before getting to know them directly (watching the characters from the side);

● at the moment of meeting;

● in the subsequent presentation of the events in which the characters participate (in particular, in the episode of the ball).

The narrator extracts all these circumstances from his long-term or operational memory, reconstructing a special space-time continuum. At the same time, the deictic means, the particular characteristics of the perfect / imperfect form of verbal predicates, and their relationship to the moment of the narrative imply an important semantic content that sheds light on the specifics of the characters’ empathic perception by the narrator and his indifferent attitude to the secondary characters. In all these contexts, the reader is stimulated to recognize the subjective perspective of seeing the space and time of events, and as a result, to identify with the narrator and the main characters’ images.

Discussion

Critically comprehending various aspects of an individual protagonist’s worldview, the reader constructs a mental representation of the textual (author’s, virtual, impossible) world: the spatial plan of behavior, the order of events on the time axis, the system of characters, the goals he / she pursues and the objects at his / her disposal [14], [15], [16]. By detailing the text situational model, filling it with individual meanings, the reader takes into account the linguistic architectonics of recreating the virtual world, a complex of multi-level linguistic tools that individualize the work of art, which significantly facilitates the processes of reader immersion in the text work. The focus of our attention is primarily on the problem of the reader’s identification with the spatial-temporal coordinates of the character’s life-activity: the addressee of the text is adapted to the chronotope in which the character is embedded, chooses the starting point for interpreting the space and time of the character’s image developing. The information presented by the narrator about the character’s physical movements in the storyline is correlated with the particular protagonist’s point of view regarding the deployment of the storyline in space and time. In this respect, the perception of the narrator’s narrative about the character assumes a certain degree of the reader’s spatial-temporal identifying with the actor.

This judgment is supported by the empirical research: it is established that after reading a literary narrative, the addressee (interpreter) reacts without thinking to the names of those objects that were directly in the sphere of the character’s vision or use [17]. The results of the experiment indicate that by reconstructing the mental representation of the narrative text, the readers inevitably comply with the opinion of the protagonist that plays a significant role in unfolding the narrative storyline.

Character nominations are used primarily in the grammatical function of the subject in the narrator’s messages. For example, in statements (1) and (1*), the propositional contents are practically identical. One may say that in the statement (1) it is the male character that surveys the current situation and expresses his point of view, in (1*) the same situation is presented from the female character’s perspective. Cf.:

(1) «Then I noticed Teresa, who was looking at me curiously and calmly… Noticing this look, I immediately involuntarily changed my position…»  [13, P. 79];

(1*) «Then he noticed me, and I looked at him curiously and calmly… Noticing my gaze, he involuntarily shifted his position…».

The narrator’s grammatical subject choice, carried out while narrating of the character’s physical actions, has a constructive effect on the reader’s identification with this character’s image. The spatial and temporal specifications of the reproduced situation are interpreted by the reader through the focus of the protagonist’s attention (I; he). The interpreter focuses on the localization of the actions of the character-narrator, who performs the function of the subject underlying the fiction utterance, in terms of space and time measuring, comprehends the situation through the eyes of the person, and «appropriates» his / her personal vision of the described state of affairs. The essential role is also played by the time characteristics of the predicates that record the characters’ physical activity. For example:

(2) « ... I took two steps back and jumped into the boat with the extraordinary ease of a hysterical fit. This strange act is explained by the fact that for several minutes everything was very strange, everything was floating on an open sea of strangeness...» [13, P. 14].

Predicates in the past tense strengthen the time distance between the character and the reader; build the reader’s perspective of perceiving the situation as belonging to an outside observer. The predicate in the present time, reflecting the eternal truth (in the context of example (2), the logical explanation of the subject’s actions in the current situation), on the contrary, combines the temporal planes of the subjects in the literary communication. The illusion of the coexistence of the character-narrator and the reader at the same time point is created, which fixes the moment of the beginning of a direct dialogue between them, and conditions appear for the creation of a joint focus of perception of the space-time plan characterized for the unfolding narrative.

This type of identification is also influenced by such deictic elements as adverbs and demonstrative pronouns, which become significant in the context of perceiving the reproduced states of affairs, based on a certain space-time point. Thus, the means that indicate the objects closest to the character and the reader, the actions unfolding at the moment (here, this, now), according to the author’s plan, are designed to construct a high degree of assimilation of the readership’s perceiving the imagined situation to the subjective perspective of the character’s vision. With the activation of deictic means that mark the remoteness of objects in space and actions in the time plane (there, that, then), the degree of likeness is noticeably reduced. Cf.:

(3) «Then Apollo Bezobrazov turned his eyes away from the cooling sky and looked at me with a laugh. His eyes were not at all like the eyes of a hypnotist... these eyes were not at all sleepy... Now Apollo Bezobrazov looked at me for quite a long time… On the same memorable day … this statement seemed to me completely useless… Then Apollo Bezobraz suddenly got up slowly and ... threw the half-smoked cigarette into the water, then ... took off his cap and put it on again... prepared to jump out of the boat, but changed his mind ... calmly got off… Then I, too, clumsily jumped off the boat... and followed him, determined to keep up with this man...» [13, P. 16–18].

Interpreting the deictic means that reflect the narrative space-time coordinates, the reader perceives the situation of the narrator’s relationship with Apollo Bezobrazov, the main character of the text, reveals the implicitly expressed information about the narrator’s first impressions of the hero, encoded by these means. Again, we witness the author’s deliberate technique manipulating the space and time categories. The narrator mediates the reader’s identification with the main character’s image, in fact, providing this process, since the reader chooses the subjective perspective of the vision of the surrounding reality, characteristic of the person leading the fiction narrative. From this story, the reader receives information about the physical actions performed by the main character at the moment of acquaintance with the narrator, the specifics of the perception of the hero by the narrator.

The use of the verbal predicates that express Apollo Bezobrazov’s physical activity at the first meeting with the narrator is accompanied by deictic means that indicate the distance of the described actions in time (cf. then, on the same memorable day, repeating later). Such a temporal plane, within which Apollo Bezobrazov’s movements are reconstructed in the text space, indicates that his movements are in the narrator’s long-term memory and consistently activated in the narrative, perhaps only in order to comply with the chronological outline of the situation of acquaintance with the main character.

The fiction narrative takes the form of a recollection of a co-existence, which later influenced the subsequent fate of the narrator: he extracts fragments of the event from his long-term memory, forms a continuous storyline from them. Comprehending the narrative, the reader explicates implicit information about Apollo Bezobrazov’s psychological portrait through the recognition of the subjective perspective of the narrator’s vision of the event. The linguistic basis for the explication of semantic content in the analyzed context is precisely deictic means combined with verbal predicates with a concrete-actual specific meaning.

The exception to the above-mentioned pattern is the moment of establishing a phatic contact between the participants of fiction narrative, begetting friendship between them: the distance in time and space abruptly turns into the informal approximation, the concrete-actual mode of verbal action is replaced by a stative, non-short, long-lasting in the aspect of temporal realization (cf. now Apollo Bezobrazov looked at me for quite a long time).

It is obvious that this fragment of the event is stored in the narrator’s operational memory; he always remembers it, perhaps due to the fact that it represents a momentary main character’s non-hostile reaction to his individual Self, manifesting an interest in his personality. As a result, the effect of Apollo Bezobrazov’s visual perception is reproduced as indeterminately long (cf. looked at me for quite a long time), approximate in time (cf. now).

The initially distant hero’s image is instantly transformed into a subject that is close to the narrator in spirit and life attitudes. Such semantic content, in particular, is also explicated by the reader from the contextually conditioned semantics of the demonstrative pronoun this in the deictic function (cf. these eyes, (keep up with) this person): spatial closeness in the context of the narrative symbolizes spiritual closeness. Reconstructing this segment of a once-experienced event from the memory, the narrator already acts as a director of the recreated situation, projecting the possibility of a high degree of reader identification with the main character’s image.

The reader perceives Apollo Bezobrazov not from a distant perspective (as was the case with the activation of deictic means then, then), but through the prism of the subjective perspective of the narrator’s vision, deliberately approximated in time and space. A similar perspective is chosen by the reader, according to the intention of the author, who identifies his personality with the main character’s image.

The pronouns this, these and those, indicating the approximate / remote object position in relation to the speech subject, in the narrator’s discourse, imply important information about the spatial characteristics of situations reproduced in the memory, the pragmatic attitudes to facts, situational elements, and other protagonists involved in unfolding the narrative canvas. Cf. the specifics of focusing the readership’s attention on the temporal plan of describing the culminating point of the ball and the appearance of a new character on the scene of the story in the context of a single paragraph:

(4) «At this hour... the most silent were cheered up… At this hour... it is important for everyone to still drink and play something… At that hour ... a new face appeared... and sat down on the sofa. The forehead of this person was exorbitantly high… This face was pale... this head on a thin neck ... had some childish expression...»  [13, P. 77–78].

By deliberately bringing a memorable event closer in time, by measuring what once happened with the moment of the story, the narrator, in fact, splits it into several components, each of which is a separately taken bundle of impressions. The repetition of a nominative phrase with temporal semantics, including the demonstrative pronoun this, in the position of the absolute beginning of each utterance dramatizes the narrative, creates the effect of visualizing a fictional reality. Drama and visualization, in turn, encourage the reader to accept the space-time perspective of the narrator, who activates in the memory not the whole event (the situation of the ball), but only those realities that have made an indelible impression on him.

The repetition of the pronoun this determines a high degree of reader identification with the narrator’s spatial-temporal perspective representing the situation, despite the fact that the described actions are expressed mainly by perfect predicates (cf. with fragment (3), in which the correspondingly low degree is natural when such kind of predicates are activated). The intensification of repetition leads to the particular concrete and actual meaning expressed by the perfect form captures the unpredictability of actions, their unplanned nature (cf. appeared, sat down). As a result, the narrative breaks the dimension of the action flow, creating conditions for the dynamism of the plot outline developing.

The description of Apollo Bezobrazov and Teresa’s external portraits up to the immediate moment of acquaintance with these characters is provided by the narrator in the perspective of the maximum temporal and spatial approach to the point of the actual narrative. This kind of perspective describing the external manifestation and internal life is preserved in the subsequent development of the storyline, in some contexts it is strengthened against the background of contrast with other characters’ images, distant and therefore not at all interesting to the narrator. Cf.:

(5) «... the corners of the room are still plunged in darkness, there the slain drunkards sleep and the ever-awake debauchees whisper, and here, in the middle of the hall, slowly floating out of the darkness... the lovers dance for the last time...» [13, P. 89];

(6) «Meanwhile, the holiday was dying... disfigured by fatigue, those who did not find the strength ... to escape by the rising morning still joked listlessly...» [13, P. 92].

Ordinary characters, devoid of sublime manifestations and faceless, cause the narrator to distance himself from them, take their images out of the focus of the reader’s attention. At the narrator’s intention, such characters are restored in the image of those who exist where darkness and uneventful everyday life reigns. In the picture of the narrator’s world, such characters are regarded as an alternative to the heroes of the story, which becomes the implicit content of the constructed contrast that separates Apollo Bezobrazov and Teresa, for one thing, and the other characters that are guests of the ball, from another side, in diametrically opposite spaces, despite the commonality of their location at the current moment of the story (cf. there..., here...). The contrasting relationship between the two spaces is reinforced by the oppositional conjunction but, which simultaneously marks their co-presence and dissimilarity in a single space-time continuum. The narrator deliberately delays the situation of the end of the ball in time (cf. meanwhile, the holiday was dying), since the increased physical and psychological atmosphere no longer evokes sublime emotions.

The reader, sharing the subjective perspective of the space-time vision of the final phase of the ball situation, expresses sympathy for the world here, distancing himself / herself from the world there. The deictic means noted in fragments (5) and (6), indicating the approximate / distant position of objects in space and time, concentrate the reader’s attention on the narrator’s pragmatic attitudes to the main and minor protagonists, casual attendees of the evening party, and explicate semantic content relevant for interpreting the narrator’s valuable guideline in the recreated continuum.

Conclusion

The architectonics of situations that are significant in the unfolding of the storyline, the intermediate episodes reflect the narrator’s long-term and operational memory, unfolding in space and time in the near and distant perspective. As a result, the reader perceives time and space not only as objective phenomena, but also as a manifestation of the individual experience of the narrator, who comprehends the elusive nature of reality, fixing this reality in the text. In semantic terms, deictic means are immanently associated with the particular meanings of the aspectual characteristics of verbal predicates that express the characters’ actions in reproducible situations. Spatial and temporal deixis is interpreted in the study as a pragmatic means of reflecting the narrator’s sensory-volitional sphere, his value orientations in the process of narration about the main and minor characters. Based on this tool, the reader’s current attention is manipulated, which is oriented in the space-time narrative continuum, explicating the semantic content about the narrator’s empathic / distancing attitudes to the actors (including those who are not yet familiar to him). In the process of explicating these meanings, the reader identifies his point of view on the reproducible events, identifying with the subjective perspective of seeing the spatial and temporal framework of the eventfulness that the narrator tells about.