Narrative Strategies of Representation of Death in the Prose of I.S. Turgenev

In this paper, the representation of death in the prose of I.S. Turgenev is considered. The main goal of the study is to identify the narrative strategies by which Turgenev represented death. The analysis involves an inductive approach: from the analysis of individual episodes to the general conclusions about the representations of death in Turgenev’s prose. The study uses the theory of focalization proposed by the French structuralist G. Genette and the theory of the “point of view” B.A. Uspensky. The results of the analysis of the narrative are interpreted on the basis of Bakhtin’s theoretical works "The author and the hero in aesthetic activity" and "Problems of Dostoevsky's Art."), in which he considers the relationship of the author and the hero in the text. As a result of the study, it was determined that basically the death of the hero is represented from an external point of view, which belongs either to the narrator or to another hero. The narrator refuses to translate the thoughts of the dying, even if he had done so before. This position allows the author to remain transgredient, thereby completing the hero. For Turgenev's characters confession and farewell letters become the moment of approaching their inner availability, which, due to the orientation of the word to another person, is completely impossible. Another important finalizing moment of the hero is the memory of him, which is often placed by Turgenev in the epilogue.