Complex of Narcissus in I. Odegov’s story «Purusha»

Abstract

In the article the image of the main character of I. Odegov’s story «Purusha» as the embodiment of a narcissistic accentuation (an eight year old boy who is at the initiation stage imagines himself a Hindu divine spirit, a creature from whose body was created the world) in the aspect of psychoanalytical literary criticism is analyzed. Similar parallels with God, most often with Christ (= megalomania), are especially typical of the Narcissus: the narcissistically grotesque concentration on one’s body and the dissatisfaction with insufficient love for oneself turns into the illusion of infusing into the body of a narcissist-man of great people and gods. And therefore the next stage of narcissism becomes megalomania (delusion of grandeur). The megalomaniacal plot associated with the grotesque body, identified with the universe or great personalities is the projection of the plot of the first creation, and the grandiose body of the megalomaniac, in which the whole universe is concentrated, is the body of the first human, from which the macros are created.