ГЕРОЙ И ЕГО ЛИТЕРАТУРНОЕ РАЗВИТИЕ. ОТРАЖЕНИЕ ВЫСТРЕЛА В ТВОРЧЕСТВЕ ДОСТОЕВСКОГО
THE HERO AND HIS LITERARY CONTINUATION. THE REFLECTION OF PUSHKIN’S THE SHOT IN THE WORK OF DOSTOYEVSKY

Summary/Abstract: The comparison of The Shot to some motives of the Notes Irom the Underground and structural and thematic elements of The Mild is the evidence of different variants of Pushkin’s influence on Dostoyevsky. In the Notes from the Underground the whole plot line — the paradoxalist Zvierkov is the transposition, by the hero of Dostoyevsky, of the ’lot continuation related to Sylvio’. Being one of the well-known borrowings of the hero it expresses the characteristic features of the “type from the underground”, i.e. an attempt, through the literary remi­niscences, to the compensation of the lack of events, shallowness, and destitution of his actual existence; the attempt at the self-aesthetization through the comprehension of himself in the situations of literary heroes. The obvious parody of the reflection indicates in a given case not the literary source but its reflection. In The Mild we have the similarity to Pushkin’s The Shot in the prehistory of The Usurer (the motive of “the lost reputation” as a result of the renewal of the duel) the motive of revenge in a concrete, real, and philosophical and ethical plan, the motive of the repeated conflicts with the opponents (Usurer-Yefimovich, “the rebellion” of the Mild). However, in The Mild there takes place a particular split of Pushkin’s motives, the division in them of the roles or mirror reflection. As a result we may rather speak of the specificity of Dostoyevsky’s paraphrase of the ethical problems of The Shot rather than of its reflection in this tragic short-story.

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