“Hoffmann's complex” in L. Andreev's stories

The article investigates the “Hoffmann complex” in the stories of L. Andreev. Romantic irony and grotesque, the problem of mechanization of life and man, embodied in the images of a game, a mask, a doll, a puppet and a double, images of mirror and eyes, which have become symbols of recognition of the true nature of a man, as well as the opposition of “living” - “unliving” reflect the spiritual decline of society in which a man loses himself, turning into a soulless doll. The destruction of the human soul in Andreev’s works occurs both from within (“Thought”, “The Story about Sergei Petrovich”, “Lies”, etc.) and from outside (“Laughter”, “Red laughter”, “Wall”, etc.). The images of the mask and a carnival costume become a way to escape from the real world (“Laughter”, “Mask”), to protect themselves from the horrors of life, but as a result reaches the opposite result, the mask only enhances the effect, it usurps the soul of the hero. The game deprives the individual of freedom, individuality, doomed to suffering. The images of eyes and mirrors become the main means of recognition of loss of soul by the person. Andreev created the opposition “living” - “unliving” with the help of Hoffmann’s method of animating “unliving” objects (wire, windows, house, etc.) and abstract concepts (lie, silence, darkness, death), as well as by representing the “living” as dead. Bouts of madness in Hoffmann’s and Andreev’s works are linked with images of laughter and accompanied by the appearance of a double that threatens the integrity of the individual. The creative irony of Hoffmann turns in Andreev’s works into the destructive irony, which as a disease covers the whole society and reaches its maximum in the grotesque-symbolic images of the wall and red laughter