Christian motifs and images in the short story by V. G. Korolenko “In a bad society”

The article analyzes Christian motifs and images, evangelical quotations and reminiscences that make up an important semantic layer of the work. In the center of the events is the fate of a six-year-old boy (the hero-narrator), who, after the death of his mother, experienced the “horror of loneliness” and is looking for a “soul mate.” It is established that such evangelical reminiscences as “separating sheep from goats” (Matthew 25:32), “helping others” (Matthew 25:33-46), make it possible to identify the axiological coordinates of the inhabitants of the Ukrainian town where the protagonist’s family lives. It is shown that the behavior of the townspeople explicates such a phenomenon of religious life as Pharisaism, recalling the conversion of Christ to the Pharisees (Matthew 25:27-28). The text includes an allusion to the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 13:13) and parallels the situation to that in the small town in western Ukraine which exists only by virtue of three righteous people living there, one of whom is the narrator’s father. Also, the mention of the biblical prophet Jeremiah doesn’t seem accidental: he had to convert the people who had departed from the faith, knowing well that his calls to repentance would remain fruitless (Jer. 20:8). The events of the short story show that the boy’s personality is formed under the influence of beggars and vagabonds, as opposed to ordinary people who seek to observe the moral law. It has been determined that an important place in the plot structure is occupied by the good/evil, life/death and heart/stone oppositions, which outline the main differences in the characters’ ethical systems. According to the conclusions, in the imagined world of the short story, the inhabitants of Princetown, whose hearts have hardened, are the antithesis of the boy Vasya and his friends from the dungeon with merciful and sympathetic hearts. Their very existence seems to remind readers of the well-known words of the Savior: “…unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).