Vazha-Pshavela’s literary fairy tale ‘’Gochi’’

Abstract

Vazha-Pshavela showed multifaced interests in the literary fairy tale,as well as in other genres. ‘’Gochi”conveys the classical theme of the conflict between kindness and evil uniquely an expressively.

Unlike folk fairy tales that often exist in a timeless and spaceless setting,”Gochi” has specific references to time and space. The story is indeed set in the “age of the cave” ,but it is obvious that the author responds to the modernity and directly draws a parallel with the Georgian reality of the 19^th century. By adding a kind of moralistic tendency,Vazha-Pshavela emphasizes the indifference and perversion of society.

 Gochi is the personification of evil. Based on the artistic concept of the writer,kindness had to confront him.

 When he felt the pain of his  soul, Gochi asked god for help and he send him love in the form of a bird. The process of initiation is perfectly presented in the work.

The dove is directly associated with the Holly Spirit in the New Testament. After baptism, the Holly Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove. Though, the theological literature indicates, that the church also means a turtle dove in a dove. In the early commentaries of the Bible, St Jerome notes that the church does not mean an ordinary dove ,but a turtle dove. Thus, we can consider a bird as the Holly Spirit. It should be noted that in the works of Vazha-Pshavela, the eagle is also considered a symbol of God.

The ritual of exorcism is performed in sequence in the literary fairy tale, which consists of several stages: Being, breaking, colliding and banishing. It is obvious, that the process is completed with the triumph of God’s will , but Gochi cannot maintain the obtained state and falls.

A person obsessed with an insatiable desire for greed confronts Gog himself. The mother under the shadows of a large tree and wild grapevine (grape variety) with a child in her heart, must be the virgin and a child ,the Jesus. Fallen and the degenerated man left face to face with God is unable to suppress his demonic instincts. He directly attacks kindness and after destroying it ,he also kills himself, because he no longer sees the point in being. It is also noteworthy that the body of Gochi, who fell from the cliff ,will become dismembered too in the same way as the body of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of our Savior.

Unlike the folk fairy tale, the work ends tragically.

The man could not maintain the grace that was granted by God.