BAZAROV AND HIS PARENTS: CAUSES OF ALEXITHYMIA OF A HERO (FROM THE NOVEL BY I. S. TURGENEV «FATHERS AND SONS»)


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Abstract

In the article, devoted to the study of the novel of I.S. Turgenev «Fathers and sons», the issue of «family circle» of the Bazarovs is viewed, the relationship of parents with their son in his infant-childhood is reconstructed, the influence of the «Spartan ethics» of the father, and of love, «lullaby of overfeeding» of the mother on the formation of psychomental structure of the personality of the hero is traced. In the light of psychoanalysis and the «practical theory» of alexithymia, the reasons for Bazarov’s restrained attitude to parents are revealed; the son returns to them that they unwittingly, without suspecting it, in love to him and in cares of him in him generated: meager empathy, stereotype of thinkng and language enslavement, actions on «archaic algorithm», «idiosyncrasy», painful reaction to all poetically sublime. Childhood thus left in the life of the hero almost no creative «memory trace». Unlike the heroes of F. M. Dostoevsky at Bazarov was not «sacred and precious memories», carried by him in life from childhood and grace echoed in his heart. Between father’s house and Bazarov lies the psychological abyss, dug by the parents. Therefore, it is clear that he does not hurry to return home: he circles near the «mother’s hearth», but does not go home for a long time, does not come even on his angel’s day, when his mother and father are especially waiting for him. For Bazarov parental home associated with a sense of boredom. Alexithymic Bazarov, who performs mechanical actions, does not find a place where there was a reunion with the soul, the body begins to take revenge and «talk» with him about symptoms of the disease. Parental home is for Bazarov «phobic» place that awakens in the consciousness of the hero images and states of boredom, emptiness, darkness, symbolically fixed in his last perception of the outgoing life – death: «Now... darkness...»

About the authors

G. Yu. Karpenko

Samara National Research University

Author for correspondence.
Email: morenov@ssau.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7045-4310

Doctor of Philological Sciences, professor, Department of Russian and Foreign Literature and Public Relations

L. B. Karpenko

Samara National Research University

Email: morenov@ssau.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1381-6992

Doctor of Philological Sciences, professor, Department of Russian Language and Mass Communication

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