Post-apocalyptic vision of man in novels by Dmitry Glukhovsky: "Metro 2033", "Metro 2034" and "Metro 2035"

Abstract

This article presents a variety of images of a man in the literary trilogy by a Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky which he presented in Metro 2033, Metro 2034 and Metro 2035. The writer revealed the fate of the people living in the corridors of the Moscow subway after a nuclear war. The epic form which Glukhovsky gave his vision of a post-apocalyptic world, makes the characters of his novels represent a wide spectrum of possible attitudes of people in the alternative world “after the end.” Artem, Hunter, Sasha, or Homer appear to be anti-heroes. However, they can also become heroes of a new world, as long as they can survive and overcome the anthropocentric way of perceiving the world. Glukhovsky created an alternative vision of reality based on the archetypal motifs of struggle between good and evil, beauty and ugliness, which remind of mythological stories, in which he presents how the new, post-apocalyptic world works. The rules of the new reality are different from those to which the reader is accustomed. The writer introduces many cultural references to the mythological stories (Prometheus, Sisyphus, Marduk, Job), or literature narratives (Odyssey by Homer, The Time Machine by H.G Wells, Brave New World by A. Huxley or Nineteen Eighty Four by G. Orwell). In my opinion the issue of a revised understanding of humanity and trans-species relationships are topics which introduce the reader to the issues which in science are reffered to as a new humanities, and which are centered around the issues raised in the debate on post-humanism and post-secularism as well as the problems ecology deals with. Humanity, which Glukhovsky presents in his novels, is hidden in the dark, mysterious and unknown corridors in the Moscow subway and in the human imagination.