EXISTENTIAL PROBLEMS OF STORIES “A DREAM FROM THE SWIFT’S BEAK” BY V. DANYLENKO

Abstract

The article analyzes the stories of V. Danylenko’s collection “A Dream from the Swift’s Beak” from the point of view of existential issues. The existential states of the characters in the collection’s stories are determined, including loneliness, alienation, fear, choice, death. Volodymyr Danylenko is a famous Ukrainian prose writer in 80s, a representative of the Zhytomyr prose school, whose work is characterized by neo-mythologism, fascination with folklore, surrealist tendencies, and deep psychologism. In his stories, he reflects the real life of a modern person interspersed with the unreal, full of anxiety, fear, loneliness, tragedy and the fatality of fate. The heroes of the stories are on the border between dreams and reality, and therefore their reality is often intertwined with fantasies and dreams. The author makes sense of the philosophical, actual existential problems of modern society, modeling their consequences on his heroes. The heroes of the stories experience loneliness, fear, anxiety, internal conflicts, the absurdity of their own existence, and are on the verge of life and death. The writer masterfully reproduces all these psychological and emotional states and life conflicts of characters who fall into extreme situations. In the short story “A Dream from a Swift’s Beak”, the author described the suffering and existential conditions of the parents after the death of their daughter Lesya. Sophia’s desire from the story “Wake me up to Parypsi” to delve into an alternative reality due to dissatisfaction with real life leads to a fatal outcome – the suicide of her husband and her own death due to a road accident. Some characters in the stories feel inner desolation, alienation from life, are in search of its meaning, being on the edge. Through alienation, the author reveals the complex psychological processes of the individual, as, for example, in the main character of the story “Bird-cherry Tree Blizzard” Yulia. From the works of the collection, a whole kaleidoscope of lonely or frightened people appears: Lyusya Motychko from the story “The Taste of Peach”, characters from the story “A Christmas Tale”, Vladyslav, Lisa and her father from “Saul’s Smile”. Each of the heroes of V. Danylenko’s short prose has his own inner drama, but each of them will necessarily have to make a choice, and their life depends on what they choose.