Eve, Magdalina, Samaritian... (To the Typology of Female Images in the Novel of L. M. Leonov “Thief”)

Purpose. The article presents the results of the analysis of key female images in the novel by L. M. Leonov “Thief”: Masha Dolomanova, Tatiana Vekshina, Zinaida Balueva, Ksenia Babkina – whose fates are united by a typological commonality. The relevance of the study is due to the rethinking of the role of women in the modern world and art, and the formation of heroines, unhappy men in the world of men, in the literature of the 20th century developed, including under the influence of post-revolutionary, post-war reality, under the influence of urbanization. Methodology. The study based on the works devoted to the poetics of motif, image. To achieve the goal, the following tasks were set: determination of artistically significant motives; comparison of plot lines with precedent texts (mostly biblical); explanation of details that clarify the essence of female images. Using the method of motif analysis, identified the main motives involved in creating the storylines of each heroine, and their variants. Results. The motif of violence is highlighted, which is presented in the following allomotives: sexual violence (including deprivation of innocence) – for all heroines, except for Zinaida Balueva; physical violence (beating) – images of Masha Dolomanova, Zinaida Balueva – and suicide (Ksenia Babkina); psychological abuse (like suppression of will, lack of care) – all heroines. Within the framework of the method of structural-typological analysis, female characters were correlated with the poles of the binary opposition between the evil wife and the good wife, ascending to the Holy Scriptures. It was found that, in addition to the motive of violence, which is present in the storyline of each heroine, but conditioned not by the will of the person, but by chance, Leonov’s female characters are united by the motive of temptation, temptation, which allows one to assess their individual position and explain the tragic outcome of life. Conclusion. The female images in the novel “Thief” are comparable with such biblical personalities as Eve, Mary Magdalene, an unnamed Samaritan woman, Tatiana the Martyr. Their fates are determined by the actions or desires of other heroes, which, given the fact that they have not found their own God, ultimately leads to despair and irrevocable death.

Marriage Ties in England in First Half of 17th Century: Sermons to Newlyweds by Thomas Gateaker

The author of the article examines the evolution of ideas about marriage and matrimonial duties in the 17th century in England. The study is based on sermons to newlyweds published in the 1620s by the famous moderate Puritan Thomas Gataker: “A Summary of Marital Responsibilities” (1620), “A Good Wife is a Gift of God” (1620/23), and “A Perfect Wife” (1623). It is emphasized that these sermons are a rich source of early modern marriage. Addressing them allows us to understand the origins of changes in traditional gender practices introduced by the Puritans in the 17th century. The author demonstrates that, unlike Anglicans and Catholics, Puritans put the friendship between a man and a woman in the first place for the purpose of marriage, which serves as a salvation from loneliness, and not the birth of children. The author also concludes that the Puritans relied on traditional ideas about the patriarchal foundations of the marriage union, but the place and role of women in it was actively revised and fe-male virtue began to take its rightful place in a pious community.

Showrunners’ Scripts are More Cognitively Complex

The term “showrunner” is used in the US entertainment industry to describe the person who is the chief executive and creative officer of a television TV series. The position is very prestigious, often very financially rewarding, and thus highly sought-after. While there are many paths to the role-and even instances of almost overnight success-the vast majority of current showrunners worked their way up over several years from staff writing positions to production-related roles, often across several different series in the process. Conventional wisdom about how to climb the ladder from writer to showrunner strongly emphasizes the importance of both writing and of originality. While there is research linking objective characteristics of pilot episode scripts to success of the subsequent series, we are aware of no studies that consider whether and how scripts written by showrunners differ from those written by staff writers. Towards that end, in this study we compare the scripts written by showrunners with those written by their staff writers for two highly-acclaimed dramatic series from the last decade-The Good Wife (2009) and The Mentalist (2008). Specifically, we test for differences in the “cognitive complexity” of the two groups of scripts. As expected, we find that, on average, scripts written by showrunners exhibited higher cognitive complexity than those written by staff writers. We also found that scripts by writing team members who later became showrunners for original new series had higher cognitive complexity than those written by staff writers who have yet to attain to this role.