Chronotope of brothers Strugatsky’s novel "The Doomed City"

Abstract

The article is dedicated to analysis of chronotope of brothers Strugatsky’s novel “The Doomed City” in comparation with dystopic chronotope. It is shown that spatial and temporal organization of the novel is the same as in dystopia but values of dystopia and “The Doomed City” are quite different. Analyzing a hero’s chronotope and local chronotopes of the novel authors came to conclusion that the main feature of “The Doomed City” are chronotopes that metaphorically implement hero’s mental state in the novel’s space, that is not typical for dystopia. Local chronotopes in every part of the novel can interfere in two ways. One of chronotopes can discredit another, or one of them can follow rational logic while another follows logic of dream. Unlike dystopia, there is not a plot of a confrontation between totalitarian regime and a personality, but there’s a plot of ordeal and coming back to self. The brothers Strugatsky’s novel deals with a problem of interaction of a person and any kind of regimes and a society in general. The novel shows that any ideology is destructive for a person.