Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper analyzes specific features of Kazakh postmodernism through the archetypal image of the claw in Aigul Kemelbayeva’s award-winning short story Tyrnak. The study examines the formal and aesthetic roles of this image within the compositional structure of the story Tyrnak and the creation of its meanings. From a narratological direction, it explores the discursive relationship between the archetype and the literary text, demonstrating how intertextuality is realized through a single archetypal image and how different types of discourse intersect in it, which is one of the most striking features of Aigul Kemelbayeva’s work. The author combines different types of discourses into a single whole, thus expanding the meaning of the claw from a talisman related to the mythologies of different peoples to an element of religion, art and science. Functioning as a structuring device and a linking motif, the archetypal image of a claw reinforces the work’s connection with mythology, religion and science on a national-cultural basis. This analysis contributes a clearer understanding of the specificity of postmodernism in Kazakh literature, showing how the archetypal image in Tyrnak is multi-layered and enables the integration of mythical, religious, scientific and artistic discourses, stimulating the development of modern Kazakh prose with regard to genre and style.