Untitled - Doria

“The Tale of Tsar Saltan” includes an episode (lines 81–138) where the
Boyars place their Tsaritsa and her newborn son in a barrel which is then
thrown into the sea. They do so because they think they are following the
will of the Tsar. The barrel bobs on the waves and in the sky above a small
cloud is passing. It is a starry night. It is here that the main plot starts on an
external level. The chain of events is, as such, firmly connected to both
myths and folktales. In Pushkin’s tale, the mirroring description of the
movements of the barrel and of the cloud turns out to be symbolic,
expressing the basic principles for the composition of the text. It can be seen
as an image of the relationship between the text and the meta-text; in
addition, the mirror perspective is one the many expressions of the
doubleness which, in various configurations, functions as the basic narrative
technique of the tale. Finally, the episode also turns into a metaphor for the
process of artistic creation.
Doubleness here indicates a form of interaction; a dialogic relation
between two components or concepts that are semantically linked. Examples
of such phenomena in “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” are the relation between
the spoken and the written word, the play of passivity and activity, or the
past in relation to the inter and extra-textual present of the tale. The first case
is about two opposite forms of expression; a dichotomy that nevertheless
alludes to the same phenomenon – language. The latter examples are based
on opposites and contrasts. The doubleness in “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”
appears both explicitly and implicitly in varying semantic combinations. It
can be observed in the description of characters, their actions, in proverbial
phrases and in the fairy tale symbolism. It is also present in the text’s quality
as meta-text. Read in this way, “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” depicts the
balancing between the public and the private. It is an expression of the poet’s
personal discussion with tradition and literary convention, while it also
implies a certain standpoint. Readers and interpreters of the text must discern
this discussion and enter into a dialogue with their own understanding
which, in the same way, is marked by tradition and individual inspiration.
In its structure, “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” is comparable to a
kaleidoscope; hence the title of my thesis. In the same way as the angled
mirrors and the two glass plates continually create new symmetrical patterns
of the coloured pieces of glass as one turns the tube holding them, so the
elements of the tale are mirrored against each other in different
constellations. The effect achieved when reading the linear text is
comparable to that when turning the kaleidoscope. For the reading
experience, even the etymological explanation of the concept of
kaleidoscope appears to be analogous to the perception of the text of the tale.
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