Structural and semantic typology of the metamorphic ornithological plot of an East Slavic tale (SUS 425М)

Abstract

In Russian research on fairy tales, there are two approaches to the tale of the wife of the water snake. One approach (that of E.A. Kostyukhin) denies that such plot type belongs to the fairy-tale genre and relates it to the folk novella. Another one (that of G.I. Kabakova) focuses on the etiologic finale, perceiving it as an alternative to compensating the fairy tale shortcoming. The author applied the structuralist method in the analysing of fairy tales about wife of a water snake. As a result, a typology of the plot type 425M was created. He managed to identify its invariant scheme, as well as describe all digressions from it (variations and variants). Characteristic of the 425M plot invariant is the complicated initial part, in which the author suggests to single out a block of zero, or imaginary, shortcoming, and a block of true, actual shortcoming. The structural-semiotic plot scheme correlates with the motivational scheme proposed by G. Kabakova, but enhances it with an emphasis in inversion of the basic semantic opposition of its own, human and alien, non-human, which makes it possible to explain why the final transformation becomes the compensation for the shortcoming. The final transformation of the heroine (and / or her children) into birds and reptiles is considered to be an example of mythological mediation. The heroine eliminates the shortcoming with an action asymmetrically opposite to the action of the antagonist action, namely, with the transformation, due to which a new opposition “cuckoo – water snake” is formed, which removes the former “insider – outsider”. The daughter triumphs over her mother without causing the latter direct harm, and is reunited with her husband.