DOI: 10.46726/H.2026.1.6
The article aims to identify the specifics of the representation of the motif of longing in the novel “Harvard Square” by the American writer A. Aciman. As a result, it was established that, firstly, the motif of longing appears in two closely interconnected aspects: the narrator's longing for home and the loss of the authentic self. Secondly, the motif of longing is represented in the work through the narrator's reflection and retrospection, who, through doppelganger characters, regrets his lost youth, as well as through the spaces of Harvard, Alexandria, and France: if in Alexandria the narrator sees an ideal model of being, then France occupies an intermediate position between the lost homeland and the present; longing is caused not by the authentic appearance of the country, but by the imagined one. Thirdly, it’s embodied through Proustian images of memory and “lost time”, which A. Aciman expands: unlike M. Proust, the writer understands memory as a purely personal category, not elevated to a philosophical level. Finally, the motif of longing intertwines with the motif of the journey, marked by references to the image of Odysseus; however, unlike the Homeric hero, the narrator of novel doesn’t find a home, as his journey is a path to himself, and the “foreign lands” — fragments of memories.
For citation: Gagarina D.Y. The motif of longing in A. Aciman’s novel “Harvard Square”, Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2026, iss. 1, pp. 47—55.