Collective Image

A collective image is an artistic generalization that embodies the typical traits of a whole group of people, a social stratum, a generation, a people, or even an epoch. A collective image may appear as a separate personage endowed with generalized-typical traits of many, or as an integral image of a community — a 'collective hero' (a crowd, a commune, an army, a people). The collective image makes it possible to raise large-scale social and national problems and to show the movement of history through the fate of the masses. An example of a 'collective hero' is the Zaporozhian community in Nikolai Gogol's 'Taras Bulba' or the community of Tukhlia in Ivan Franko's 'Zakhar Berkut,' where popular unity appears as the driver of victory. The collective image of Ukraine-as-mother and of a downtrodden people pervades Taras Shevchenko's 'Kobzar.' The collective image of the working people, the village, and the city is a characteristic feature of realist prose.