PUIU AND URSU, TWO SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS IN LIVIU REBREANU'S NOVEL, CIULEANDRA
PUIU AND URSU, TWO SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS IN LIVIU REBREANU'S NOVEL, CIULEANDRA

Summary/Abstract: Universal literature testifies the presence of animals since its beginnings, thus continuing oral traditions of all nations. Animal symbolism was attributed to human beings in different circumstances of life, in accordance with their personality and behavior. Liviu Rebreanu’s novel “Ciuleandra” (1927) comes with two characters, Puiu (Cub, in an approximate translation) and Ursu (Bear), and their struggle for a central place after the discovery of rivalry in love. The first one is rich and occupies an important social position, while the other earns everything by himself. While the name of the first character sends to frailness or childish behavior, the second one evokes the strongest animal of the Romanian forests, sometimes mocked at because of its massiveness and slowliness. The field of battle between the two characters is represented by their levels of conscience. Puiu Faranga crosses a series of concentric circles which should represent symbolic stages in his inner transformation on the way towards spiritual harmony. But in his psychological fight with Doctor Ursu, he is defeated for not knowing how to use his own powers. He will thus pass to another stage of his life, followed by the obsession of the folk dance “Ciuleandra”, imagined by Doctor Ursu as a scary vortex out of which one cannot escape

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