Reversed femininity: the image of a mother in the novel by Oksana Vasyakina “The wound”

Statement of the problem. Modern society requires women to preserve femininity, but what is femininity in fact and how do the authors of current texts understand it? Oksana Vasyakina is one of the few writers who openly calls herself a feminist and emphasizes that her writing is feminine. She examines the problems that modern women face, including the issue of perception of femininity in society. The purpose of the article is to consider the problem of perception of femininity in modern society on the example of Oksana Vasyakina’s landmark novel “The Wound”. The research methodology was based on historical-cultural and structural-typological approaches. Research results. In the novel, we see that conforming to everyday ideas about femininity does not always mean achieving the ideal. Losing the physical attributes of femininity, the heroine’s mother begins to acquire the inner qualities that are characteristic of her. Death cuts off this path, but this allows the daughter to speak openly and without fear for the first time to her mother - the last, fifth chapter of the novel becomes the result of reflection, and for the first time in the entire story, the daughter addresses her mother directly, having worked through the wound received from this inverted femininity.