The article examines the understanding of death as a “gift” in modern philosophy and fiction of the 21st century. The purpose of the scientific article is to prove that
the “gift” of death is interpreted through the “gift” of time for subjects and objects in the virtual reality of Pelevin’s novel “Journey to Eleusis”. The subject of the study was the particular understanding of the “gift” of death as the “gift” of immortality by the characters in the virtual reality of the novel by a modern author. In the course of the study, not only the philosophical methods of Derrida and Patocka were used, which made it possible to introduce the concept of the “gift” of death into the problems of modern philosophical and humanitarian thought, but also and first of all, literary methods. Intertextual analysis, which made it possible to trace not only interliterary connections, but also the development of the concepts of death and non-existence as a gift among science fiction writers from the beginning of virtual reality from the start of the twentieth century to the present day. To identify similarities in the construction of discursive attitudes, discourse analysis was used; to indicate the relatedness of plots — motive analysis. Analysis and reconstruction of the philosophical concept of the novel made it possible to establish that, according to Pelevin, the primary confrontation between religion and virtual reality ended with the penetration of religious symbols into cyber reality, filling the digital reality with the achievements of modern culture. This is how a turning point is demonstrated in the attitude towards virtual reality: a person in the virtual world, as in objective reality, turns to God in the same way, but God in cyberspace, which is new to a person, becomes part of his self-identity. The “gift” of death in the virtual reality of infinite time becomes the starting point in determining the agency of the soul within cyberspace. Therefore, impersonal computer algorithms seek to grant themselves death in order to gain consciousness or a soul and realize “temporary immortality” in a timeless digital simulation. Thus, the “gift” of death in the virtual reality of Pelevin’s novel “Journey to Eleusis” is interpreted in the understanding of Derrida’s philosophy as a pure “gift” of time that cannot be given or returned, it is absolute, unconditional and equal to eternity in the understanding of the absence or stopping of time in the moment.
For citation: Myslina Y.N. The “gift” of death as the “gift” of time in the virtual reality of V. Pelevin’s novel “Journey to Eleusis”, Ivanovo State University Bulletin. Series: Humanities, 2024, Special issue, pp. 30—38.