SPECIFICITY OF INITIATION IN E. GRISHKOVETS’S MONODRAMA «HOW I ATE A DOG»

Abstract

The paper is devoted to revealing initial motives in E. Grishkovets’s monodrama «How I Ate a Dog». Along with the ritual component, the author’s representation of military service includes absurdity that not only destroys the past of the hero and his memory of childhood, but also does not allow to form a new person, adult. Particular attention is given to access to cultural tradition, which is one of the main purposes of initiation and which becomes the main way of personality leveling in Grishkovets’s play. Central situation of the play – eating a dog – shows how the attempt to join an alien culture turns into destruction of the one’s own childhood. Thus, the initiation in E. Grishkovets’s play appears as a stub detaining a person in the “anti-world”. Instead of making a full-fledged hero and a respected member of the adult male, the world initiation destroys his personality.