Narrative intrigue in “female prose” (on the example of the story “Avalanche” by V. Tokareva)

The article focuses on the specifics of the intrigue arrangement in the story written by V Tokareva, a bright representative of Russian “female prose”. It analyzes the intrigue formation in the story “Avalanche” (1995) from structural-typological and thematic aspects. The author pointed out a variant of four-phase liminal intrigue and revealed three intertwined thematic intrigues: love, family and professional status. Gender features of the intrigue construction in the story “Avalanche” were finally concluded. From the view of the structural liminal intrigue, after experiencing a series of cruel life changes, the hero fell into a state of mental depression, which had a devastating impact on his professional career. The hero failed the liminal test. The changes in life were also a liminal test for the female character, the hero’s wife, however, she finally succeeded in overcoming the test on herself. From the perspective of thematic intrigues, the narrative intrigue of the story interested readers at first in family daily life of the characters, and then in the development and the ending of the extramarital intimate relationship. Receptive expectation returned to the family intrigue after the death of the hero’s son. Although the professional status intrigue was the first to attract reader’s attention, on the whole, it turned out to be muted and relegated to the background. But it was necessary to complicate the plot of extramarital affair. The markers of “female prose” are as follows: firstly, the last phase of the liminal intrigue related to the hero was , but it was replaced by narrating female character’s positive transformation; secondly, the narrative emphasis was placed on the family intrigue, which crowded out the love intrigue and the professional status intrigue as the chain of events unfolded.