| Abstract [eng] |
A literary portrait as well as any other element of artistic creation is not static, closed. It is influenced by changes of historical time, cultural context integral with interlacing of artistic styles, movements, trends. Transformations of a literary portrait are unavoidable also because it reflects the aspects of self-perception of both creating and created persons; it records social changes, which include the means of information taking the salient place in nowadays society usually even replacing ethnic and cultural canons. The process of change of portraits created in women’s texts has been influenced by feministic movement, which formed feministic literature. The most significant place there is allocated to woman’s experience, feminine writing and feminine tradition in literature. It is important to emphasise that the portraits of women in Lithuanian literature until the second part of the XIX century had been mostly created by men: S. Daukantas, M. Valančius, V. Pietaris, J. Basanavičius, Maironis. These creators were influenced by Christian tradition, which indoctrinated obligatory virtues to portrayed women: modesty, purity, obedience. At the end of the abovementioned century, the masculine ranks were complemented by women writers: Žemaitė, Šatrijos Ragana, Bitė, Lazdynų Pelėda, I. Simonaitytė. The portraits of women created by these writers were not distinguished for striking oneness, however they widely revealed a complicated women’s situation in Lithuanian society. Since 1981-1986, a more distinctive and more dynamic woman portrait enriched with symbolism of body signs, erotic language and magical elements has appeared in women’s prose. The purpose of the paper is to analyse the portrait of a woman in Lithuanian women’s prose and how it is created, to ascertain the main self-expression strategies in creation of women portraits characteristic to authoresses, to ascertain the most vivid tendencies of creation of female portraits in modern female literature. The object of the paper consists of the creations of Lithuanian women writers of XX - XXI centuries: the novel by Ieva Simonaitytė “Vilius Karalius” (1939), the novels by Jolita Skablauskaitė “Mėnesienos skalikas” (Moonlight Hound) (1997) and “Kitas kraujas” (Other Blood) (2002), the novels by Zita Čepaitė “Paulinos kelionė” (Paulina’s Journey) (1996) and “Moters istorija” (Woman’s Story) (2002), the novels by Dalia Jazukevičiūtė “Anarchistės išpažintis” (Confession of Anarchistress) (2007) and “Juodas kvadratas” (Black Square) (2007). The expression of signs of non-verbal communication take a significant place in women’s portraits depicted in the analysed texts. In the text by Simonaitytė and Skablauskaitė, in female portraits, attention is drawn on a woman’s appearance, outfit. In their creation, the outfit is a part of female identity. Simonaitytė emphasises authenticity of clothes as a sign of tradition cherishing and persistent value. In the novels by Čepaitė, the outfit of the main characters gets much less attention, critical evaluation of own appearance is emphasised. In the texts of the abovementioned writer woman’s portrait is developed basing on other signs of non-verbal communication: eyes, sight. Women are portrayed as the observers of environment, through which their reflect themselves. Jazukevičiūtė the biggest attention is drawing on the woman’s self-reflection. The details of clothes are becoming the part of the woman’s state of mind. The signs of body language are exhibited in the analysed texts as the measure confirming the stereotypes of a woman and as a measure transforming such stereotypes. In the novel by Simonaitytė, corporeality is linked to subtle distinguishing of different parts of the body (hands, eyes) accentuating the portrait of a woman/mother and creating reserved intimacy. In the texts by Skablauskaitė, the portrait of a free woman is created by expression of vestured/naked body, which does not deny but confirm the stereotypes determined by a patriarchal approach. In the texts by Čepaitė, the body signs are used as a measure to reveal the roles imposed by the patriarchal approach. In the novels by Jazukevičiūtė, the absolute body exploitation is refused by the signs of body language. The distinction between a body and a sole is clear. The tendency of sexlessness has been noticed in the texts of modern literature. In the analysed novels the characterization of woman’s portrait is supplemented by the signs of the descriptive space. These signs are exhibiting the reflection of woman’s personal becoming. The signs of private/closed and public/open space are distinguished. The characters of the texts by Simonaitytė and Jazukevičiūtė, who are the most remote in respect of culture and time, appear in the context of private/closed space. They are unified by homely values and motherhood as the foundational feature of a woman’s portrait. The space of women portrayed by Čepaitė is being expanded by the motive of journey, which annuls the space of closed home and the connotation of the motherhood and creates the portrait of a travelling woman. In the novels by Skablauskaitė the signs of nature creates the version of a wild woman’s archetype. |
