THE SPECIFIC CHARACTER OF THE ARCHETYPE OF HOME IN THE NOVEL “HOUSE OF DOCTOR DEE” BY P. ACKROYD

The article deals with the specific character of the archetype of home in the novel “The House of Doctor Dee” by P. Ackroyd. The novel of the English writer tells the story of the fate of the famous alchemist and scientist of the 16th century, Doctor John Dee and modern researcher Matthew Palmer. The purpose of the article is to determine the specific character of the archetype of home in the novel “The House of Doctor Dee” by P. Ackroyd in an individually-authored interpretation. The classical understanding of home is a connection with the family, generation, protection and support, shelter and spiritual comfort. In the second half of the 20th century the archetype of home is significantly problematic. “Home” ceases to be perceived as an exclusively “private” locus, even if it has absorbed all the wealth of the souls of its inhabitants, additional inclusions appear, most often of an existential universal plan. The literature of the postmodern era with its “sensitivity” to the world around it, i.e. with the desire to outline the problems of a wide range (philosophical, historical and others), continues to include “home” in the complex context of life. In this regard, P. Ackroyd’s novel “The House of Doctor Dee”, in which mysticism and reality are intertwined together, is of particular interest. The house of Doctor Dee seems to Matthew full of mystical phenomena and becomes a centre, including different time layers. The house in the novel “The House of Doctor Dee” by P. Ackroyd loses archetypal characteristics at all levels (despite the fact that Matthew is changing his attitude to his adoptive mother), from psychological (strong family ties, attention, understanding) to physical and social (protection, stability). All the fundamental mythological motifs of stability, which usually characterize the archetype of the house – the symbolic constancy of the place, the important role of higher female and male creatures (parents, teachers) as a kind of “good guardians” and mentors, the presence of children as a bastion of eternal renewal – are subjected to internal and external corrosion, destruction, and make the idea of returning home impossible. In addition, the house itself acquires the features of the homunculus, it disintegrates and reborn, but in each century in its own way.