THE TOPOS HOME AS HETEROTOPY IN THE NOVEL BY M. PETROSYAN “THE HOUSE IN WHICH…”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the topos home as a stable image with spatial characteristics in the book by M. Petrosyan “House in Which ...”. The aim of the article is to identify the possibility of functioning of the topos home in the novel as a heterotopy, i.e. a space that is outside other places, but certainly interacts with them according to the principle of juxtaposition or opposition. To achieve the aim, a complex method was used, including structural-semiotic, mythological, cultural-historical methods, which made it possible to describe the structural and semantic features of the topos home (basic binary oppositions and metaphors that make up the core of the topos), as well as its role on the real, perceptual and conceptual levels of artistic space. The main results of the study include the following statements. The topos home in the book of M. Petrosyan is presented both as a place of action of the characters, as an anthropomorphized environment, and as a space of the author’s consciousness, and as an image-symbol, a space of memory. The concept of “house“ is associated with all aspects of human existence, and therefore the main oppositions that form the structure of the topos home in the novel reveal ontological, axiological, social, psychological, epistemological problems. The topos home approaches the topos world and the paradigm of its subtopos (world is a book, world is a temple, world is a garden, world is a person) and performs a world-modeling function that is actualized in the transitional periods of historical and cultural development. It functions as a heterotopy, overcoming the principle of binarity, suggesting the “opening of time” (a break with traditional, real time, the emergence of perceptual and mythological time), isolation and at the same time permeability of spaces (House, appearance, wrong side are only relatively closed and suggest the possibility of communication), which raises the question of the degree of reality or illusory nature of space through the creation of places-heteroclites (in the novel, this is the exterior, the wrong side, the forest, the mirror, human consciousness, etc.).