VARIATION IN PORTRAYING THE MAIN CHARACTER OF CH. BRONTЁ’S NOVEL “JANE EYRE” (BASED ON TWO RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS)

Ch. Bronte‟s novel “Jane Eyre” keeps drawing the attention of readers, scholars of literature, translators and translation researchers for many years. Several translators and translation theorists have already devoted their studies to the comparative analysis of some aspects of the existing Russian translations of the novel. However, the variations in portraying the main character – Mr Rochester – become the focus of a study for the first time, which makes the present paper relevant. The study aims at comparing two translations made by V. Stanevich and I. Gurova from the point of view of the linguistic means employed by translators to reconstruct the image of the main character. An attempt is made to describe the differences in translations and explain their reasons. The study shows that the translations discussed differ in the following aspects: portraying of the character‟s appearance, reproduction of his speech style, description of the man‟s emotions, reactions, and evaluative statements about the people surrounding him. The conducted comparative analysis allows to conclude that in V. Stanevich‟s translation the hero seems to be more attractive both in appearance and in his inner world. Mr Rochester in I. Gurova‟s translation is not so handsome, he is more critical of others; the range of his negative characteristics is much wider. The quotations from the English poetry and the French language elements in Mr Rochester‟s speech are fully represented in I. Gurova‟s translation, while in V. Stanevich‟s translation they are partly omitted. The study also revealed some other differences. Both translators sometimes resort to literal translation; however, I. Gurova is more likely to emphasize negative connotations, while V. Stanevich prefers a more positive colouring. Both translators sometimes deviate from the original in conveying either the denotative meaning of words or their connotations. There are instances of choosing different meanings of polysemantic words. In our view, the comparative analysis of two or more translations of the same work of literature may contribute to translation theory and present an interesting linguistic material for teaching literary translation.