The image of a midget and the eucatastrophe of growing up in a literary fairy tale

Based on the structural-semiotic approach in literary science, an attempt to decode the mythopoeic complex of miniaturization, which performs the function of a meta-text in the author's tale, has been made. The texts of world literature, used modifications of the "little" hero (dwarf, midget, elf, brownie), from different periods are taken as the object of research. The criteria of the poetological analysis were the meta-plot, the chronotope, the protagonist, the specificity of the conflict and the meaning of the denouement. A fairy-tale midget is usually depicted as a representative of a magical world: it acts as a strange phenomenon, - an example of a wonderful people, an outlander, not growing up child, a small adult, a living doll. In addition, ordinary children in stories about fabulous little men can become smaller in stature like tiny creature. The latter ones, as a rule, act in the archetypal function of the seeker, mastering miniature worlds. The metamorphosis of an inquisitive child is a necessary condition for narrowing the boundaries of the "big" world as an experience of comprehending the microcosm. Another function of miniature creatures is to accompany the soul of the central character to otherworld, nonexistence. Fabulous Psychopomps open the boundaries between dream and reality high and low, light and darkness to the child's imagination. The function of a magical assistant, implemented, for example, in such a modification of a miniature hero as a living doll, maintains family ties: outliving its owners, the doll symbolizes immortality, condenses the magical properties of the fetish (performs a protective mission). The metaplots ("there and back", "sacrificing God", "treasure hunt") support various aspects of initiation, reinforcing the adult/child opposition. The chronotope of the author's tale, unlike the folklore one, is subjective and has a centripetal character - it unfolds inside the hero, separated from the integral prototype characters by its multidimensionality. The adventures of the little ones here are often transferred to the plane of fantasy, dreams, sleep or delirium. Another principle of complication of the chronotope is its stratification due to parallel worlds, invisible spaces, intuitive insights, condensation or dilution of time. The nature of the conflict of a literary fairy tale in the drama of miniaturism is determined by the fair involvement of this mythologeme in categories of an existential order: loneliness, memory, fear, death, belief. In all the "miniaturizing" narratives, the aesthetic and psychological "exits" of the denouement into the ideological and axiological perspective of "consolation" are revealed. Consolation is the result of overcoming the insignificance complex: accepting the drama of growing up. Eucatastrophe as a guarantee of a happy ending, is a signal circuit of initiation. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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