Transformation of Individual Experience in the Novel “Pojaz” by Karl Emil Franzos

Abstract

Specificity of autobiographical material modification in the novel “Pojaz” by Karl Emil Franzos is analysed in the article. Plot elements and the peculiarities of the image structure of the work are studied, which correlate with the author’s life story. The fictional world of the novel is considered as a space for implementation of conscious and unconscious intentions of the writer and is a representation of the evolution his worldview.Coincidences in the character’s story and author’s life are expressed not so much in terms of events, but in the ideological aspect. Peculiarities of autobiographical identity are manifested in the principle of the central protagonist’s character formation, crystallized in the concept of the main character, which is a reflection of the author's psycho. The genre of the educational novel gave K. E. Franzos the possibility to comprehend his own life from certain distance, identify factors that changed the vectors of his life and influenced the process of national identification. Relations between the central protagonist and the close surrounding illustrate the complexity of the dialectic interaction of the individual and the social as viewed through personal experience. German and Ukrainian cultures, Christianity and Judaism created the extremes between which the writer’s mind balanced and, at the same time, evoked doubts and sense of “otherness”. Incompatibility with the surrounding, experienced by Franzos himself is reflected and emphasized in the conflict between the protagonist and his surrounding. The subconscious desire to meet the challenges of fate is implemented in unrestrained aspiration of the protagonist to overcome external forces’ resistance in tireless fight for his beliefs. Disappointment and loss of illusions are the results of the confrontation between “I” and “World” experienced by the author.