Ontological Motives of Home-Antihome in the Novel Demons by F.M. Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky realizes the motive of home in an inseparable antinomical connection with the motive of homelessness, which is opposite to it, artistically embodied in the idea of familylessness, wandering, Chaos, and Entropy. The relevance of the study of the motives of home and homelessness lies in the gradual reconstruction of the author's concept of the “saving future”. In this article, the motives of home and homelessness are considered in several aspects, including toponymic, functional, archetypal and ontological. We tried to demonstrate the implementation of the stated motives at the level of such categories as faith-unbelief, Heaven and Hell, brotherhood and isolation. In the novel Demons , the idea of national soil and separation from it, the possible salvation of a person and the consequences that await society in the event of the dominance of “demons” and the loss of the primordial “brotherhood” - the intimate connection between people, is consistently developed. From this point of view, the motives of home and homelessness become significant for the novel space. The archetype of home contains the idea of a saving “own” circle, which is opposed to the outside world with its hostility, spontaneity, and disaster. Everything that is located outside this circle are elements belonging to the anti-world, and therefore their effect on the microcosm of home is destructive. Analysis of the text confirms that the archetype of Dostoevsky's home is destabilized. Its tightness is broken; the boundaries protecting the interior are permeable. The motive of the home is typically supplanted by the motive of homelessness, and therefore it is natural to consider this motive couple in its antinomical continuity. In the above study, the motives of home and homelessness are considered as ontological: they are associated with the existential level of the work, due to which it is possible to establish the ontological status of the actants and determine the relationship with the so-called initial idea.