Animalistic imagery in the short novel ‘The guardian of the trap’ by A. V. Korolev

The aim of the study was to identify the literary functions of animalistic images in the early, unexplored novel by A. V. Korolev The Guardian of the Trap. The choice of this aspect is due to the fact that the depiction of the animal world occupies a significant place in the work, appears to be fundamentally novel, original, and has a conceptual character. The paper identifies the most frequently depicted objects, establishes the patterns of their rendering, the figurative-symbolic meaning, and the ideas they carry. Animalistic tropes were found to be often used to embody the battle theme. Perhaps the most important characters in the work are two birds, a carrier pigeon and harpy, his opponent. A number of other ornithological images are associated with a certain class, ‘caste’. Parallels between human characters and their animal counterparts are clearly drawn. As the dramatic tension increases, there also increases the ‘animateness’ of the literary space. Living beings are equalized in their importance. The inconsistency of an artificial system is demonstrated - both on a scale of an individual and the entire state; the unity of what exists in the universe, the connection of times, and the primacy of the divine principle are manifested. The paper concludes that A. V. Korolev departs from the realistic paradigm already at the beginning of his literary career. His works show the writer’s particular interest in phantasmagoric transformations, collage, irony, grotesque, marginal meaning, the multiplicity of heterogeneous codes, multidimensionality. All this makes it possible to clarify the vector of the writer’s creative search and take a fresh look at the literary process of the mid-1980s.