Article

Name: The subject matter motif «Immortality»: a narrative dimension of the concept

Authors: V. I. Karasik

Volgograd State Socio-Pedagogical University Volgograd, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract: The paper deals with a subject matter motif «immortality» regarded as a narrative unit. A subject matter motif may be schematically presented as a triangular frame including notional, imaginative and evaluative constituents. Its notional constituents describe eternal life existing contrary to physical laws of the world. Its images are presented as transfigurations of human beings who turned to be eternally young, beautiful and invulnerable or alternatively became ugly and repulsive. Its evaluative features make an ambivalent combination of a dream to obtain an ever-lasting life and a horror connected with it as it contradicts the very essence of existence. A narrative dimension of immortality as developed in fiction is manifested in the scripts of travelling, transformation or staying in the point of inalterability. The idea of immortality is implemented in a number of plots in folklore and artistic fiction. Immortal gods enjoy their eternal adventures and interfere in the life of mortals who either share the divine joy of ever-lasting pleasures or are doomed to endless suffering. Usually mortals who turned inaccessible to death have a certain vulnerable place on their bodies to be hit and finally they are affected there. Immortal beings live endlessly because the secret of their existence is situated somewhere outside their bodies and the main character usually finds it and thus terminates their lives. Immortality may become a severe punishment inflicted upon people for their sins (the stories of Ahasverus, Shi Huandi, etc.) and they have to go in circles losing their identity and taste for life. An important thing about becoming immortal is that no return to natural way of thing after it is possible. The key-point of immortality in the post-modern world is the idea of endless play of life aimed at no result as such, which means that genuine immortality is understood as ever-lasing Here and Now feeling absorbing everything. Immortality in fiction as depicted in prose and poetry is associated with a lack of genuine sensations beyond the edges of this world, personality dissolution, and transition to a ludic attitude to reality. Two aspects of immortality are to be taken into consideration – the eternal life of Creator and creation.

Keywords: subject matter motif, narration, fiction, immortality

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