The observer category and mythotectonics in H. Meyrink’s “Angel of the Western Window”. Being through the eyes of an alchemist

Abstract

The article analyzes the observer category of the “inner world” in the novel “The Angel of the Western Window” by G. Mayrink: the factors of the artistic impression at the level of focalization and mythotectonics are consistently systematized in the logical scheme of the evolution of the worldview of the main character, Baron Muller (John Dee). The chronotope of the legend of “St. Patrick’s well” is studied as the foundation for the author’s myth of man’s being in the world, manifested in the novel. The observer in the novel perceives the “inner world” of the novel in reverse perspective, interpreting all the events taking place in terms of the alchemical sacrament of transforming one’s soul into a light-bearing hypostasis. The observer goes through the path of the great magisterium: he ceases to control the act, succumbs to darkness and death, ascends transfigured, overcomes the trial by fire and performs an alchemical wedding, the fruit of which is the acquisition of the philosopher’s stone. Each of the stages of the transfiguration of the observer corresponds to one of the chronotope levels of the legend of “Saint Patrick’s Well”, so it becomes the plot-forming for the mythotectonic level of the entire novel.