SYNERGETICS OF IMPRESSIONISTIC WRITING IN GUY DE MAUPASSANT’S SHORT STORY «FIRST SNOW»

Abstract

The article offers an impressionistic and synergetic analysis of the short story “First Snow” by Guy de Maupassant. The aim of the study is to interpret the literary text as an open nonlinear system functioning according to the principles of self-organization and entropy growth. The theoretical framework is based on synergetics, particularly the concept of dissipative structures developed by Ilya Prigogine, adapted to literary analysis. The research substantiates the applicability of such categories as open system, bifurcation, fluctuation, irreversibility, and entropy to the psychological dynamics of the novella. It is argued that Maupassant’s impressionistic poetics – characterized by the fixation of fleeting impressions, the play of light and color, and subtle emotional nuances – models an unstable structure of being sensitive to internal and external disturbances. The cold Norman landscape functions as a metaphor of entropy, gradually destroying the heroine’s inner equilibrium. The episode of walking barefoot in the snow is interpreted as a bifurcation point that triggers an irreversible transition to a new state – illness and existential transformation. The image of the first snow is understood as a symbol of phase transition and a conceptual marker of liminality. The heroine’s paradoxical feeling of happiness in the finale is interpreted as a new form of order emerging from chaos under conditions of extreme psychological tension. The novelty of the study lies in the first comprehensive application of the synergetic paradigm to Maupassant’s short prose, which opens new prospects for interdisciplinary dialogue between literary studies and the theory of complex systems.