Читать Myths in our Life

As many scientist consider (Levis-Stross, Lihachev, Losev and others), the mankind from the very beginning has lived in the world of myths and legends. Resolute certitude in verity of the mythological stories accompanied the man during all his life, since birth till death. In pagan times everyone believed that his life belonged to the almighty gods, who could do with him everything they wanted. Instead of pagan gods in the christened countries appeared Christian God, and His existence again gave birth to the diversity of myths. In the modern world people in their majority ceased to trust something blindly. To believe in something they should find incontestable facts of existence of the object. An individual nowadays is characterized by strong criticism and deep-rooted habit to doubt in everything that can"t be conceived by empirical way. But even today the life of a modern man keeps myths, which primordially appeared in a faraway antiquity and took deep roots in the person"s unconscious, affecting his behavior, his evolution, and life in whole.

Actuality of the research. At present time cultural studies begin to understand the important role of the mythology in the life of society. It perceives that myths are not only the cradle of culture but that they live, develop and even are created in modern society . In the given research mythological reasons are traced in non-fictional interpretation of the biographies of the famous people. Detection of the elements of such myth-making helps to understand some tendencies in the development of the modern society.

The object of the research deals with the biographies of the famous people of the modern show business (J. Depp, Madonna, A. Pugachova) in their non-fictional impression.

Scientific originality of the research is concerned with the fact that it is made according to new facts matter, presented in cultural life, and viewed with the attitude of the crossed interests of two sciences: philology and culture.

The aim of the research is to show the existence of the three culturally-significant figurative stereotypes in the life of a modern Russian and American society with the help of the biographies of the show business stars.

This aim is realized in the solution of the following problems:

1) to define the mythologeme as the fact of language and culture, to show the interrelation of a myth and a mythologeme;

2) to detect the background and development of the chosen mythologemes;

3) to scrutinize the biographies of the famous people in the interpretation of which appeared these mythologems.

The material of the research consists of the precedental non-fictional texts, which interpret biographies of the stars in accordance with the recited above mythologems.

The problem of the research is the origin and development of the mythologems (culturally-significant stereotypes) in culture.

An individual, as a social being, has definite psychological prescriptions, such as: intention to success, leadership, wealth, etc. He, who has available fund of ambition, is possessed with these prescriptions and tries to realize them. Given prescriptions have most descriptive incarnation in the images of the heroes of the folk and literary fairy-tales. It is proved true by the opinions of many scientists (for instance, Z. Freud, K.G. Jung). These schemes of the human behavior ("mythologemes") can be conditionally called with the names of the heroes of the fairy-tales (Ugly Duckling, Cinderella, John-the-Fool). The images of the given heroes may be found both in the researches devoted to them by different scientists (V. Propp, A. Veselovsky and others), and in the biographies of the famous individuals (see par. 3.2, 3.3 of the given research). For instance, if Madonna is called Cinderella in the series of publications, it doesn"t mean that in her childhood she outlived something alike. It happened so because when she reached success her biography started to be actively and consciously mythologised. Putting her as an illustration the society wants to educate a great amount of another socially active individuals since these three schemes demonstrate the social activity (Cinderella longs to get to the dance, John-the-Fool has no distinctive aim but he commits serious deeds, Ugly Duckling meets with specific concern of society to him). The scheme of the mythologization is the only one but it is scrutinized in the three mythologemes, coming to us in the fairy-tale images. Our research shows the conscious cultivation of these myhtologemes. Myhtologemes exist, beginning to be cultivated by another way, and in particular, with the help of mass media.