Article

Name: The Plot of Passage in the Short Story by Teffi “And the Time Was no More”

Authors: Natalia V. Prusakova

Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

In the section Literary Life of the Plot

Abstract:

The article puts forward a new line of interpretation of the short story by Teffi “And the time was no more”. Based on the analysis of ways of overcoming the linear narrative by the author, a hypothesis is put forward about the implementation of the transition plot in the story. This type of plot is interpreted as the hero crossing the border between life and death, experiencing the experience of dying. This version is supported by biblical, mythological and literary allusions related to the near-death/post-mortem state of the hero. The work is considered in the context of the global myth about the posthumous wanderings of the soul, which contains certain ideas about the obligatory participants, attributes and symbols of the funeral rite, and the topography of the realm of the dead. The plot of the passage, by analogy with the stages of the rite of passage, described by Arnold van Gennep, is divided into three obligatory episodes – separation, transitional stage and inclusion. The separation – the removal of the deceased from the house, that is, the transfer through the threshold, is marked in Teffi’s text as an exit from the “house”. The transitional (liminal) stage is the beginning of the wanderings of the soul. The subject thus acquires the features of duality. In Teffi text, this phase is marked by a reciprocating movement from the conditional present to the past and back. The heroine (or her soul) is “neither here nor there.” The stage of inclusion – the final introduction of the heroine to the world of the dead – is indicated in the plot by the disappearance of the Hunter, who has fulfilled his function as a psychopomp, together with peaceful state of the heroine’s soul. These stages correlate not only with the composition, but also with the semantics of the episodes of the story. So, first of all, in our opinion, this is evidenced by the very title of the work “And there was no time”, which speaks of some kind of timeless existence. In addition, transitivity motifs are introduced into the work due to a number of details that, due to their archetypal nature, are symbolic. These are, for example, the predominance of white colour, the chthonic nature of the characters (the old woman and the Hunter) and animals, the connection of the objects of the material world of the work with the funeral rite. In addition to considering the mythologeme about the path of the soul to the afterlife, the article presents the traces of the solar myth found in the text, understood as an endless life cycle, the alternation of dying and rebirth.

Keywords: Teffi, plot of passage, death as a plot, experience of passing away, post-mortem experience of the soul, afterworld, the border between life and death, funeral, interment rite, solar myth

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