The evening light in the works of F. M. Dostoyevsky

Abstract

Aim. The purpose of the article is to reveal the symbolic connotations and functions of the image of the evening light in the Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s works, his role in the development of the plot action.

Methods. The basic in the work is a widely understood contextual method, in which the symbolic connotations of the verbal image are explicated as a result of the analysis of the whole set of contexts of its use, beginning from the nearest contexts and ending with the vertical ones.

Results. The article reveals the«slanting rays of the setting sun» image ambivalence nature in the light of fire / light elements unity idea and the biblical fire birth concept when the Divine Light collides with the sinful world. It is shown that the disclosure of the symbolic meaning of the image is impossible without taking into account such a feature of Dostoyevsky in the depicting the objects of the natural world as interiorization, that is inclusion into the horizon and, accordingly, into the speech of the character. The nature of the connection between the image of the evening light and the childhood motif and the chronotope of the border is specified in the work. The status of the sunset motif in Dostoyevsky’s novels as a dynamic one is justified.

Scientific novelty lies in the fact that the sacral semantics of the image of the evening light and its role in the development of plot action are revealed in the light of a single approach for the first time: the biblical understanding of fire-light as a single substance, and in the aspect of the continuous interiorization of the natural world. In addition, for the first time the article expressed and justified the idea that the correlate of the sunset rays image at the level of characters in the Crime and Punishment is the image of Sonya Marmeladova.

Pactical significance of the article lies in the fact that its results can be used in further study, as well as in teaching Dostoyevsky’s works.