The world in which the heroes of Victor Pelevin’s novel live is a claustrophobic world. The author situates his characters in a destructive space. A Yellow Arrow, a train on the deck of which the action takes place, flashes without stopping at the destroyed bridge. It can be read either as a metaphor for human life marked by the absurdity of existence, or as a grotesque image of Russia’s transition. Turning to what is twisted, Pelevin states that the absurd can be overcome when one realises its existence and communicates with the world of absolute values.
The main purpose of the analysis performed in this article is to point out the presence of an element of the absurd in Daniil Kharms’es works. The subject of authority-individual relation’s absurdity is a relevant aspect of Kharms’es drama Elizabeth Bam. The author’s creation refers to the motive of ridiculous arrest known from the Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial. Both incidents make completely no sense at all. Neither of them has any argumentation or justification. The process, however, is not altogether identical. To highlight absurdity of the arrest Kharms reaches for literary devices like: satire, hyperbola, irony and even grotesque.
The subject of enslavement is a relevant aspect of Nabokov’s prose. In his works, however, we do not find the history of totalitarian states. The author’s literary creation can be generally defined as an attempt to describe a process of seeking freedom by an individual. Freedom in the world presented by Nabokov is born when protagonists of his books start to realize unreality of real life surrounding them. The idea of freedom in the prose of Nabokov is fulfilling itself in epiphany of his main characters that become conscious of absurdity and seem to recognize authenticity in the outside world.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.