In the kingdom of Zadukha: between oneiric visions and reality (based on Ivan Franko’s story «At work»)

Abstract

The paper deals with the short story «At Work» by Ivan Franko, in which, for the first time in Ukrainian literature of the 19-th century, the production theme is revealed. The sources of the work are indicated, among which an important place belongs to
the biographical factor (own observations and stories of the writer's acquaintances).  The presence of a synthesis of naturalistic, realistic and expressionistic features in the work is traced. It is noted that Franko is an innovator, because in this story he used
«one-way dialogue» and «stream of consciousness», which was characteristic of European literature of the 20-th century (James Joyce, Albert Camus).

The purpose of the article is to study the artistic specificity of the story, to interpret the deep meanings of the protagonist’s dreams and to determine their role in the plot of the work. The research was carried out on the basis of a hermeneutic
approach with the involvement of phenomenological, biographical, descriptive, intertextual, psychoanalytical methods. The symbolism, semantics and functions of dream details and images in the structure of the work are revealed. Special attention
is focused on the anthropomorphic otherworldly creature of Zaducha. This is a dream of a grotesque nature, which is why it creates a special – supernatural, whimsical, strange world. It’s most important function is prophetic, because it foretells the
future, and at the same time a phantasmagoric imitation of reality (allegedly foretells the hero’s death in the pit). Hrynia’s dreams and delusions adequately model his psyche, because in the fiction of an unreal state, the hero experiences something that cann’t be comprehended in reality. It is proved that in addition to understanding the main problematic aspects – moral-ethical, axiological, psychological – Franko demonstrated with this work the approbation of qualitatively new means of artistic psychologism, because he was one of the first in European literature to use the «stream of consciousness» technique. Hrynia’s epiphany dream predicts a psychological breakdown in the hero’s soul, the discovery of the true meaning of life and changes in his rational approaches to the perception of reality.