Image of passer-by in Anton Chekhov's The cherry orchard: literary, hagiographical, and biblical aspects

The article analyses the image of the Passer-by, a character of Anton Chekhovʼs The Cherry Orchard. The methodology is based on the discoursological approach, providing for the use of extralinguistic context. It is found that the sources of the formation of the image are as follows: The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare (the Passer-by is compared to Claudius); the Book of Proverbs; George Bernard Shawʼs Heartbreak House (he is compared to Billy Dunn); the life of Saint Alexius and that of Saint Boniface of Tarsus; the parable of the rich man and Lazarus and that of the prodigal son; the work of Nikolai Gogol (in particular, his novella “Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and his aunt”); the Book of Joshua (the Passer-by is compared to the people of Gibeon; a link is established with the story of the fall of Jericho). One can draw parallels with the image of Jesus Christ (which is treated parodically), the mythopoetic ideas connected with thunderstorm, the myth of Demeter. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the image of the Passer-by is examined on the basis of the analysis of both linguistic and extralinguistic contexts.