A myth about twins in contemporary British anti-war literature

A myth about twins becomes relevant in times of crisis, when the old world collapses and people begin to realize the need for some universal foundation of the new world. One of the forms of this foundation is a sacrificial death of twins (or one twin). The actualization of this archaic myth in the literature of the XXI century is associated with the new comprehension of the results of the Second World War and a persistent premonition of the coming new disaster. The article attempts to analyze the mythological code of the contemporary British anti-war novel on the example of two texts: “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by John Boyne (2006) and “Two Brothers” by Ben Elton (2012). The structural-semiotic methods of the analysis enabled us to reveal the elements of mythological traditions of the artistic world of these texts. In John Boyne’s novel, the structure of the myth is implemented fairly consistently and can be easily read. In Ben Elton’s novel, the mythological code is not so obvious, but the identification of structural elements, dating back to the archaic myth about twins, is more evident. Common to both texts are motifs of the same birth dates of the characters, their external similarity, dress changing, border chronotope, and finally, their sacrificial death. Ben Elton and John Boyne, referring to the twins’ archetype, thereby reproduce the logic of the myth: the world’s immersion into chaos and its later rebirth. The myth about twins as a metaphor is deployed in the artistic text in different ideological and philosophical problems: a friend-or-a foe, I and others, a human being and the world. In the chosen novels, the teleology of cosmogonic myth is directed against fascism, which constitutes their humanistic idea.