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Abstract:

The article is devoted to the representation of an artificial body in Italo Calvino’s novel The Nonexistent Knight (1959), which is part of the trilogy “Our Ancestors”. Creating the trilogy, I. Calvino sought to depict the family tree of modern man. In this work, consisting of three novels, the author shows man’s path to freedom: from gaining critical individual consciousness through overcoming duality to self-creation based on conscious self-overcoming. The novel “The Nonexistent Knight” is dedicated to passing the first part of this path. The main character of the story is an empty armor that considers itself a paladin of Charlemagne and serves him faithfully. The image of a hollow suit of armor, driven by the idea of service and lacking individuality, is correlated in the writer’s mind with the gray masses of people during the “economic boom” in Italy. In the process of research, it is established that the image of the main character of the novel turned out to be much more complex and multilayered than it had been originally conceived by the author. In addition to performing the function of a perfect warrior, the non-existent knight suffers from loneliness and envies living people, and, therefore, has not only consciousness, but also a soul.