Loneliness of Silence, if It Can Be Named So (The Image of Olenka in the Novel by S.D. Khvoshchinskaya "The City and Country Falks")

Abstract

This article focuses on the character of Olenka, one of the main characters of the novel by S.D. Khvoshchinskaya The City and Country Falks .The peculiarities of the image have been analyzed in detail as well as context-dependent elements which shape the belief-system of the character and the specificity of Olenka’s relations with other characters. Through the image of the heroine, S.D. Khvoshchinskaya continued to develop the central theme of her work – the theme of loneliness. The specificity of the female worldview and the hardships of life of the heroine, forced to suffer from misunderstanding of loved ones and constrained by loneliness, is a distinctive feature of the ideological paradigm of the work, which can rightly be considered an anthem to the doom to suffer. Olenka is suffering from loneliness, inability to gain a social status which would answer her belief-system. This article may be of use to all who are interested in the work of S.D. Khvoshchinskaya and women's prose of the mid XIX century.