FOLKLORE IMAGES AND SYMBOLS IN A FICTIONAL TEXT

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the study of archetype images and symbols in short stories of A.S. Byatt, a famous British writer. It gives a review of different approaches to the problem of interaction of folklore and literature, definition of basic terms, such as “archetype”, “symbol”, “mythologem”. Fairy-tale archetypes and symbols are decoded and interpreted in Byatt’s short stories taken from the story collection “Sugar and other stories”. The analysis of selected passages from the story collection, containing archetypes and symbols, reveals individual peculiarities of folklore borrowings usage by Byatt, allowing to see the deep meaningful aspects of art works to identify and decode the author’s intention. The research is relevant because of the need for a comprehensive study of folklore borrowings by different writers based on the material of modern English literature.