The Image of Mother in the fantasy novel "A Game of Thrones" by G. Martin.

The image of the mother is a constant of the world culture, and therefore it can be found in almost any national literature. The research material of this study is the work of the American fantasy writer George Martin. The object of the study is the image of the mother in the novel “A Game of Thrones” from the cycle “A Song of Ice and Fire”. This series of novels has been positively reviewed by critics and warmly received by readers. In this study, the author refers to the image of the mother and conducts a practical analysis of the female characters represented in the novel. Three protagonists representing the above mentioned image of mother were analyzed. The novelist aims to create diverse characters who possess unique personalities. At the same time, each specific protagonist has ambivalence and duality. The primary method of research is a comparative analysis of the heroines selected by the author in order to identify the fundamental characteristics of the image of the mother in the work of George Martin. The principal conclusions of the study are: the presence of a specific writer’s approach to the process of a mother image creation in a fantasy narrative, explained by his desire to create multifaceted characters with unique personalities, as well as the ambivalence and duality of one image in each particular protagonist. These conclusions make it possible to further conduct a more extensive study in order to investigate into other literary images presented in the works of the American writer, since fantasy, as a literary phenomenon, is experiencing increasing scientific interest. The scientific novelty is explained by a sufficient lack of conducted scientific research on the image of the mother in fantasy works, in particular, in the works of George Martin.