Linguistic methods of representing the images of the main characters in Kawabata Yasunari’s novel “Snow Country”

Petrenko Aleksandr Igorevich ORCID: 0009-0001-2313-7259 Student; Department of Japanese Studies; Far Eastern Federal University 690922, Russia, Primorsky Krai, Vladivostok, Ajax, 10 petrenko.aig@students.dvfu.ru

Kawabata Yasunari is an outstanding Japanese writer, Nobel laureate, whose work has been repeatedly addressed by domestic and foreign researchers. Among the characteristic features of the writer's artistic method, the understatement and tragedy of the works, the increased reflexivity and deep internal conflicts of his characters are noted.

Researchers have noted such specific properties of the writer's artistic language as free narration, suggestiveness, metaphorical hints, and the use of cinematic techniques ^[3]. The connection of the author's work and his aesthetic philosophy with the worldview of Zen Buddhism is traced ^[6]. The Japanese point to the "philosophical poetry" and the multifaceted nature of Kawabata's works, created by the ratio of the cosmographic and the everyday, to his use of associative overtones ^{[1; 2]}. American researcher James T. Araki also writes about the multidimensional nature of Kawabata Yasunari's works, noting in his work that the suggestive property characterizing the style of "Snow Country" gives the novel a depth that can be studied repeatedly: "Apart from "story,"the suggestive quality embedded in the style of Snow Country gives the novel a depth that can be re-explored repeatedly" ^[10]. The translation problem is such properties of Kawabata Yasunari's artistic style as a high level of understatement and hidden symbolism, which make it difficult to translate the works of the Japanese author into Russian ^[4] and English ^[5].

The research of N. T. Fedorenko ^[7], who notes the lyricism and poetry of the author's narrative style, Kawamura Minbu ^[11], who analyzes the specifics of the artistic space of the novel in the aspect of the real and unreal and indicates the image of a mirror image as a key image, Fujita Yuji ^[12], who analyzes the image of the Milky Way, its opposition to the image of Shimamura and its representation through the features of female sexuality.

Concluding the review, we note that despite the great interest in the work of Kawabata Yasunari from researchers – philologists, cultural scientists, translators – there are clearly not enough works devoted to the study of the language and idiosyncrasy of the Japanese writer, revealing the mechanisms of creating a unique fabric of the text of a work of art.

The key artistic idea of Kawabata Yasunari's work "Snow Country", or his hyperconception, is formulated as loneliness due to the inability to love. It is realized in the following structural relationship of the central images: the concept of loneliness is represented through images of snow and cold; the concept of inability to love is expressed in the text, on the one hand, in contrast to the female images of Komako and Yoko, embodying sensuality and platonic love, on the other hand, by the introduction of the image of the Milky Way. The pivotal image that connects all of the above is the image of a male character – Shimamura.

By the method of continuous sampling, fragments in the text of the work are identified, which are regarded as expanded contexts of the use of lexical units, tropes and stylistic figures. The lexemes themselves, which have an artistic extension of meaning in the selected contexts and in the fabric of the entire work, their compatibility, functioning as part of tropes and stylistic figures, represent the possibilities of linguistic representation of the key images of Yasunari Kawabata's novel.

Let's turn to the analysis of Komako's image. This is the female character in the novel "Snow Country", which is created by the author as real, visible, sensually perceived for both the main character and the reader. Much more text space is given to this character and his aesthetic embodiment than to the character of Yoko, in connection with which we will focus on his research separately and consider in more detail the author's ways of creating this female image.

The image of Komako embodies at the same time such ideas of the author about beauty as purity, bodily and spiritual, and its physical manifestation. In the portrait description of Komako, the author throughout the text of the work focuses the reader's attention on the amazing, extraordinary purity of this girl. Purity in the literal and figurative senses of the word. "The girl was surprisingly clean. Everything about her was shining. It seemed that even the slightest line on the soles of your feet sparkle with dazzling whiteness – 女の印象は不思議なくらい清潔であった。足指の裏の窪みまできれいであろうと思われた".

Making the image of Komako more visible to the reader, the author resorts to using such a stylistic technique as repeating stable characteristics that sound like a refrain in the text:

· "細く高い鼻が少し寂しいけれども、その下に小さくつぼんだ唇はまことに美しい蛭の輪のように伸び縮みがなめらかで、黙っている時も動いているかのような感じだから、もし皺があったり色が悪かったりすると、不潔に見えるはずだが、そうではなく濡れ光っていた。目尻が上りも下りもせず、わざと真直ぐに描いたような眼はどこかおかしいようながら、短い毛の生えつまった下り気味の眉が、それをほどよくつつんでいた。少し中高の円顔はまあ平凡な輪郭だが、白い陶器に薄紅を刷いたような皮膚で、首のつけ根もまだ肉づいていないから、美人というよりもなによりも、清潔だった – Her thin, straight nose, perhaps, was some kind of lifeless, but lip, wonderful, surprising, moving, Bouncing, even when she was silent, bloomed like a flower. However, it seemed to him that they looked more like an elegant leech curled up in a ring. Those beautiful lips, if they were wrinkled or had a pale shade, might even seem unpleasant, but they were so tempting, they glistened wetly! Her eyes were drawn surprisingly straight, not even going down or up at the corners. It was even strange. Eyebrows are not very high, but regular, arched, moderately thick. The oval of the face is the most ordinary, round, with barely noticeable protruding cheekbones, but the skin is porcelain white with the slightest pinkish tinge. The neck at the base is still childishly thin. Maybe that's why the woman struck rather not with beauty, but with purity."

· "細く高い鼻は少し寂しいはずだけれども、頬が生き生きと上気しているので、私はここにいますという囁きのように見えた。あの美しく血の滑らかな唇は、小さくつぼめた時も、そこに映る光をぬめぬめ動かしているようで、そのくせ唄につれて大きく開いても、また可憐にすぐ縮まるという風に、彼女の体の魅力そっくりであった。下り気味の眉の下に、目尻が上りもせず、下りもせず、わざと真直ぐ描いたような眼は、今は濡れ輝いて、幼なげだった。白粉はなく、都会の水商売で透き通ったところへ、山の色が染めたとでもいう、百合か玉葱みたいな球根を剥いた新しさの皮膚は、首までほんのり血の色が上っていて、なによりも清潔だった。- Her excited face shone in this revival, as if she whispered: "I'm here." Her lips, moist and graceful as a curled leech, seemed to glide with reflected light even when they closed, and there was something inviting and seductive in this, as well as in her body. Her amazing eyes, drawn straight as a ruler, under the low arches of her eyebrows, now shone and looked very childish. Her skin, without powder, seemed to have acquired transparency back there, in the entertainment quarters of the capital, and here, colored by the mountain air, was fresh as a freshly peeled onion, and above all surprised with its purity."

Recurring formulas-cintamani are: "細く高い鼻が少し寂しいけれども – her thin, straight nose, perhaps, was some inanimate", "小さくつぼんだ唇 – great, surprisingly moving" sky girls "濡れ光っていた – so alluring, it is damp shone"is like "まことに美しい蛭の輪のように伸び縮みがなめらかで – curled up in a ring delicate leech", "目尻が上りも下りもせず、わざと真直ぐに描いたような眼 – her amazing eyes, amazing drawn straight as a ruler", "今は濡れ輝いて、幼なげだった – glittered and looked childish".

Using the repetition technique allows the author, on the one hand, to achieve the effect of "reality", which was mentioned in the aspect of comparing female images, that is, to present the beauty of Komako as natural, visible, physically manifested. On the other hand, the refrain is also a way of rhythmizing the textual description of Komako, with which the author, in our opinion, introduces another feature to the portrait of the heroine: the representation of her musical abilities, her passionate playing of the shamisen.

So, in the scene when the girl makes a striking impression on Simamora his shamisen, the author writes that "いつも山峡の大きい自然を、自らは知らぬながら相手として孤独に稽古するのが、彼女の習わしであったゆえ、撥の強くなるは自然である。その孤独は哀愁を踏み破って、野性の意力を宿していた。幾分下地があるとは言え、複雑な曲を音譜で独習し、譜を離れて弾きこなせるまでには、強い意志の努力が重なっているにちがいない – the strength of her game – it is the soul itself, which Komako invested in the strokes of the plectrum. Completely unaware of this, she communicated only with the majestic nature of the mountains and valleys, and this must have caused the impact of her plectrum to become so strong. Her loneliness, having torn and trampled her sadness, gave rise to an extraordinary willpower in her."

It is important to note that the author verbalicious the image of purity, not as any abstract concept, but rather focuses on the fact that it is embodied in the whole nature of the main heroine from the external characteristics that cause physical desire in Simamora to the properties of the character of Komako such as sincerity, natural human passion and live, Nude, uncontrolled feelings: "それはもうまぎれもなく女の裸の心が自分の男を呼ぶ声であった – naked It was a cry, the cry of a woman calling a man".

Describing facial features of the girl in one of the fragments, the author compares the whiteness of her skin to the surface of porcelain: "白い陶器に薄紅を刷いたような皮膚, and the other notes that 白粉はなく、都会の水商売で透き通ったところへ、山の色が染めたとでもいう、百合か玉葱みたいな球根を剥いた新しさの皮膚 – her skin, without powder, as if tinted mountain air was fresh, as you just peeled onion". An elegant metaphorical comparison highlights the heroine's unique physical beauty.

It is impossible not to pay attention to what non-standard, extremely physiological metaphors the author uses to describe Komako's appearance. So, the lips of the main character are compared to an elegant leech curled into a ring, and her skin is like a freshly peeled onion.

The idea of physicality and tangibility, which dominates the image of Komako, is often verbalized in the text with the help of words with the seme 'heat', including the verbs: 温まる ("to warm / warm up / warm up") – 5 units, 燃える ("to burn / blaze") – 15 units; predicative adjectives: 温かい ("warm") – 8 units, 熱い ("hot / ardent") – 4 units; adverbs: 温か ( ("heat") – 5 units, 火燵 ("kotatsu [room brazier embedded in the floor and covered with a blanket]") – 18 units; substantive adjectives: 温かさ ("warmth") - 1 unit).

Confirmation of this thesis is found in the scene from the beginning of the novel when, during a train journey, the main character was surprised to note that "結局この指だけが、これから会いに行く女をなまなましく覚えている– not to himself, but only the hand with all the freshness keeps the memory of the woman he was going now". At that moment, for Shimamura, Komako's image became vague and indeterminate, however, as the author writes, "hands obviously have their own memory, and not Shimamura, but only this hand, which has not forgotten the female warmth, touch, reaches out to a woman." Red in the cheeks and thick black hair, young women are the main character a reminder of the cold nights, snow country and at the same time, the impression of warmth, and she Komako, "like a warm ray" (温かい明りのついたように) appeared when "Shimamura was plunged into a devastating soul sorrow" (島村は虚しい切なさに曝されているところへ).

However, the girl impresses the main character not so much with her beauty as with her purity. The image of spiritual purity associated with snow-capped mountain peaks and inextricably linked with the loneliness of Komako's heroine is also expressed through the use of contextual synonyms: 孤独 "loneliness", 清潔 "purity", 意力 "willpower", 意志 "will / aspiration", "freshness", "the majestic nature of the mountains".

Summarizing the above, we note that the leading means of linguistic representation of the image of Komako are lexical:

1. the use of tokens with a common seme ‘heat’,

2. saturation of the text with lexical means of expression, among which metaphors and comparisons play an important role, emphasizing the combination of a girl's spiritual purity and unique physical beauty,

3. The author uses lexemes with different dictionary meanings, but functioning in the portrait descriptions of the heroine as contextual synonyms and expressing the ideas of "purity", "strength / willpower", "loneliness".

In addition, the stylistic technique of the refrain, the use of constant characteristics of the heroine, in the form of repetitive syntagm formulas, which can be considered as a means of internal rhythmization of the text and textual representation of Komako's portrait, acquires important importance in characterizing the author's style.

Shimamura is the main male character in Kawabata Yasunari's "Snow Country". To find out the specifics of the linguistic embodiment of the image of Shimamura, let's first consider the plot characteristics of this hero, his substantial content.

Gradually losing interest in both nature and himself, Shimamura from time to time goes to travel around Japan in the hope of regaining the lost freshness of feelings. One day, by train from Tokyo, he arrives in a Snowy country at the very beginning of the climbing season, where in the evening after a seven-day hike he goes to the hot springs and asks to invite a geisha to him. So begins the story of his acquaintance with the main character of the novel Komako.

During the communication of the characters, we learn that Shimamura grew up in the shopping districts of Tokyo and from childhood was actively interested in studying Kabuki theater, but during his student years he began to gravitate towards Japanese dancing and dance pantomime. He devoted a huge amount of time to this activity, studying ancient manuscripts and visiting various schools, and eventually began to write something like essays and critical studies in this field. Nevertheless, when the time came to move from theory to practice, Shimamura suddenly switched to research in the field of European ballet, completely cooling off towards Japanese national dance.

Kawabata Yasunari presents the main character of his novel as a man who, by and large, has not found himself and his purpose in life, he feels disappointed as a result of the discrepancy between ambitions and their realization. Disappointment leads to emotional coldness and detachment, including the inability to feel warm emotions even towards one's own family.

Thus, the author draws in front of the reader a portrait of an idle dreamer, completely detached from real life and unwilling, not trying to look into the eyes of reality, which in turn manifests itself in relation to all people close to him, starting from Komako and ending with his own family.

Images of cold, snow and night permeate the entire content of the text of Kawabata Yasunari and act as a certain background on which the actions and experiences of the main characters unfold. The author pays considerable attention to the description of the evening and night landscapes of the snowy country, creating expressive and accurate metaphors aimed at conveying the emotional state of the main characters. In particular, metaphors, the basis of the poetics of which are the conceptual categories of snow and cold, largely relate to the character of Shimamura.

In the process of researching the work, we discover how the author, describing the thoughts of the main character, depicts the state of his deep apathy, insensitivity:

• "そうして駒子がせつなく迫って来れば来るほど、島村は自分が生きていないかのような苛責がつのった。いわば自分のさびしさを見ながら、ただじっとたたずんでいるのだった。駒子が自分のなかにはまりこんで来るのが、島村は不可解だった。駒子のすべてが島村に通じて来るのに、島村のなにも駒子には通じていそうにない。駒子が虚しい壁に突きあたる木霊に似た音を、島村は自分の胸の底に雪が降りつむように聞いた。このような島村のわがままはいつまでも続けられるものではなかった – of Course, he could leave, could break up with Komako, but it already became a habit to wait for her arrival. Obviously, this habit was the whole point. And the more uncontrollably, the more frantically Komako yearned for him, the more he was tormented by his own stupor, as if he was only watching her with some kind of bestial cruelty, with predatory ruthlessness. Shimamura couldn't understand why she loved him so much, why she wanted to dissolve into him, enter his soul. But she was entering, dissolving, penetrating completely, and he didn't seem to be giving her absolutely anything, couldn't share anything with her. Shimamura even heard a dull sound, like Komako banging against a wooden wall all the time. And he also had the feeling that he was covered with snow all the way to his heart. But is a woman capable of enduring such selfishness forever?.."
• "この虚偽の麻痺には、破廉恥な危険が匂っていて、島村はじっとそれを味わいながら、按摩が帰ってからも寝転んでいると胸の底まで冷えるように思われた – When the masseuse left Shimamura continued to lie and selflessly to savor his ostentatious insensitivity. There was something dangerous about her, a taste of some kind of risk. And this gave him the feeling that his whole being – to the very bottom – was covered with an icy crust.";
• "女の頬も、窓のガラスも、自分のどてらの袖も、手に触るものは皆、島村にはこんな冷たさは初めてだと思われた – Shimamura never experienced such cold. Everything his hands touched–the woman's cheek, the window panes, and the sleeves of his cotton robe–was completely icy.";
• "The Milky Way fills him with a chilling, penetrating longing."

In the above examples, we find confirmation that the author, actively using vocabulary with the meaning of "snow / cold", in the context seeks to express the idea of insensitivity, detachment and selfishness of the hero, which in turn forms the basis of the author's concept of loneliness.

In addition, the author places great emphasis on the verbalization of the very space in which the action takes place and in which Shimamura exists. This space, immersed in a state of deep sleep, drowning in the cold light of the Milky Way and soaked in frosty air, draws the reader into the reality of a Snowy country. Such an artistic effect is achieved by the author by introducing a large amount of vocabulary into the fabric of the text with the general scheme of ‘sinking / falling’:

• predicative adjectives: 低い "low" – 7 units.,

• Nouns: 底 "bottom" – 15 units.,
• adverbs: "Very deep" – 1 unit.,
• verbs: 深める "deepen" – 2 units, 落ちる "fall" – 41 units, 沈む "sink / plunge" – 6 units, 垂れる "droop" – 8 units, 近づ "closer" – 8 units, 寝静まる "to fall asleep / to subside in the dream" – 2 units, 寝転ぶ "to lie / to fall" – 1 unit.

These are words of different morphological nature, but attention is drawn to the predominance of verbal vocabulary with the meaning of a dynamic state, a state of falling. The words of this semantic group combine the images of Shimamura, Komako and the Milky Way, expressively expressing the idea of imminent doom, fate (in relation to the Milky Way), spiritual defeat (in relation to Shimamura) and dissolution into another person (in relation to Komako). In addition, thanks to the use of this vocabulary, the author, in our opinion, achieves a high degree of immersiveness in the text: immersing the reader in a state of resonance, sensual involvement in the hero's experiences.

Thus, based on the content of the text fragments discussed above, we see how descriptions of the landscapes of the snowy country correlate in the work with descriptions of the thoughts and feelings of the main character, thanks to which the author manages to create accurate metaphors aimed at representing the concept of loneliness. The image of Shimamura turns out to be closely intertwined with the images of female characters and the image of the Milky Way, together with them embodies the main aesthetic idea of the novel – loneliness due to the inability to love.