MITHPOETICS OF THE AUSTRALIAN INITIATION TALES (CASE STUDY OF ATHA WESTBURY’S FAIRY TALE “TIM”)

Abstract

The research focuses on the study of the verbal realization of archetypical motifs and images in the Australian initiation tale “Tim” by Atha Westbury. It has been clarified that fairy tale is one of the verbal means of manifestation of the archetypes, that are fixed in human collective consciousness through mythological and folklore plots, motifs, images and symbols of different language communities. The plot of the initiation tales covers the hero’s search of valuable qualities or properties and their obtaining, so the prototype of this plot is the initiation ceremony. It has been proved that this ritual is of crucial importance for preserving religious and cultural costums and traditions of indigenous Australians. Therefore it has been analyzed in the research the embodiment of the Initiation ethnoarchetype in the Australian initiation tale. The conceptual implications of the Initiation ethnoarchetype, that are its structural components, have been distinguished from encyclopaedic and vocabulary sources. It has been described archetypical motifs of transformation, death and travel and archetypical images of the initiate and the elder, which reveal the deeper meaning of the analyzed ethnoarchetype. It has been proved that archetypical motifs and images, verbally embodied in the literary text of Atha Westbury, acquire figurative reinterpretation. The archetypical motif of transformation unfolds in the fairy tale’s plot about the change of a poor boy from a child into an adult, who has his own house and family. Also a text embodiment of the motive in the fairy tale is the depiction of the secondary character’s metamorphosis. In the plot development of the fairy tale the archetypical motifs of death and of travel are auxiliary ones. The archetypical image of the initiate transforms within the literary character of Tim by connecting of the archetypical features with non-archetypical ones. The transformation of the archetypical image of the elder consists in the embodiment of its various features in two separate characters. Due to the actualized in the literary text archetypical images and motifs, the verbal embodiment of the conceptual implications structuring the Initiation ethnoarchetype occurs.