The fabulous subtext of S. Dovlatov’s prose (based on the story “A Foreign Wowan”)

with regard to S. Dovlatov's works, there is a confident opinion about the autobiographical nature of the prose and anecdote, which fulfils a plot-forming function; anecdote is often considered as the leading component on which the narrative is built. Understanding the comic vision as only one of the artistic techniques used by the author to depict reality, let us make an attempt to find the meanings hidden behind the external laconism of the writer's narrative manner, which are in the subtext. We put forward a hypothesis about the fairy-tale subtext of S. Dovlatov's story “A Foreign Woman”, which is consistently proved by correlating the content components of the story's fabula with the components of a fairy tale (based on V.Y. Propp's work ‘Morphology of a Fairy Tale’). The following, according to V.Y. Propp's definition, fairy tale functions reflected in the story of Marusya Tatarovich were described: excommunication, violation of the prohibition, kidnapper, sending on a journey, mysterious forest, initiation rite, the Faraway kingdom, magic givers, prince, princess, wedding, etc. The story of Marusya Tatarovich is based on the following elements of the fairy tale. The image of Marusya is built on the contamination of such types of heroes as the simpleton-luck seeker and the fortune-tester. According to the tradition of the magic fairy tale, the heroine leaves her native home, passes various tests, for overcoming which she receives a worthy reward – Marusya marries the ‘prince’ Raphael and receives, if not half a kingdom, then citizenship in America, that is, she stays in someone else's kingdom. The narrator acts as a storyteller (the fictional world lives according to its laws); the fairy tale helps Dovlatov fulfil the main function of a writer – to comfort the reader, to give hope for a miracle.

Dovlatov, “A Foreign Woman”, subtext, fairy tale, Propp, morphology of fairy tale