«СЛОЖНЫЙ КЛУБОК ПРИЧИН И СЛЕДСТВИЙ»: ПОЗИТИВИЗМ И ИРРАЦИОНАЛИЗМ В ДВУХ РАССКАЗАХ АНАТОЛЯ ФРАНСА

Studia Litterarum. 2023. Т. 8. № 4. С. 108–127.

Nikitina N. A., Tulyakova N. A.

The article presents a comparative analysis of two stories written by Anatole France
close in time and dealing with similar issues, namely “Le Manuscrit d’un médecin
de village” and “L’OEuf rouge.” The purpose of the study is to clarify the narrator’s
position in the texts where the voice is delegated to a character, and the truth eludes
the reader due to numerous omissions and thus to understand the reason why France
deploys obscured writing. The stories, although included in different cycles, share a
number images, motifs and narrative strategies. Both short stories address the topic
of heredity, which makes researchers observe in them the influence of naturalism
on France’s artistic method. Nevertheless, the construction of the texts each time
calls into question the attitude of both the narrator and the author to the naturalistic
concept of personality, the aesthetics of naturalism and positivist philosophy in
general, introduces the possibility of an alternative interpretation of events and images.
A comparison of the two pieces enables us to conclude that France has an ambiguous,
ironic view of ideas popular among his contemporaries and that the writer prefers an
artistic and cultural text over positivist analyticity.

Keywords: натурализм, позитивизм, рассказ, Анатоль Франс, повествовательная инстанция, наследственность в литературе