Literary Ideals and the Absurdity of Reality as a Test of a Person’s Spiritual Foundations in the Story “The Pain” by V. T. Shalamov

Abstract

The article discusses the story by V. T. Shalamov “The pain” from the cycle «The resurrection of the larch» with a specific focus on the relationship of oral and written words and their role in the fate of the characters. It also gives an intertextual account of the story. It reveals the interaction of literature and reality as the main event of the story, when the literary themes penetrate into the reality and change it. It also shows intertextual relations at the level of images, motives, characteristics of the characters, literary allusions, including those corresponding to the characters in the comedy Cyrano de Bergerac by E. Rostand. Refs 16.