The female archetype in the novels of Corneliu Irod

Abstract

The article analyses the specific features of the formation of female images in Corneliu Irod’s novelistic works, based on the tetralogy “The Feast”. The study aims to identify the artistic types of female characters and to clarify changes in the representation of the image of woman in the context of the sociocultural transformations reflected in the work. The methodological basis of the research consists of hermeneutic, typological, psychoanalytic, aesthetic, and cultural-historical approaches, which ensure a comprehensive reading of the text. The analysis has established that the writer constructs a multi-level system of female images in which a gradual shift can be traced from established models to new forms of female subjectivity. Within the study, a typology of female characters is proposed, comprising three main groups: bearers of traditional gender roles; heroines who resist established norms; and characters with an emancipated way of thinking. The first group includes images oriented toward family values, the preservation of the established order, and the maintenance of intergenerational ties, as well as figures marked by passivity and alienation from social processes. The second group is represented by Ivona Dorin, whose character is formed under conditions of internal conflict between personal aspirations and imposed social roles, which determines the complexity and contradictoriness of her character. The third group consists of characters who demonstrate autonomy of thought, in particular the healer as a bearer of folk experience and intuitive knowledge, as well as the woman of the “new type”, who finds herself in a state of transition between traditional and modern models. Emphasis is placed on the typological affinity between the image of Iryna and Lorana, the main female character of Mykhailo Nebyliak’s novel of the same name. It is concluded that the female characters in Corneliu Irod’s prose are characterised by depth, inner tension, and ambiguity. Their evolution reflects the process of rethinking the role of woman, demonstrating a transition from established models of behaviour to more complex forms of self-realisation within the artistic world of the work.