The article deals with the role of metaphors in forming the plot of L. Ulitskaya’s family chronicle “Medea and Her Children”. The author of the article describes the results of the next stage of research related to the works of Lyudmila Evgenievna Ulitskaya, a representative of modern Russian prose. The analysis of tropes and figures in the works written at the turn of the XXth – XXIth centuries is of importance for the study of the modern state of Russian language as an independent system. “Medea and Her Children” is one of the works by L. Ulitskaya (written in 1996), which, like her other works, is characterized by a unique style of narration, rich in vocabulary, lexical, semantic and stylistic diversity of the author’s word, which is a response to the features of mentality of the described period in general and determines the relevance of the research. Scientific novelty of the material is presented as one part of the general study of the role of metaphors in the texts of L. Ulitskaya’s works and consists in the fact that the study of the role of metaphors used by the author to form the plot of the family chronicle through the prism of relationships and characteristics of the characters is conducted on the material of the novel “Medea and Her Children”. The main purpose of the article is to consider the metaphors with which the author forms the general plot line of the work by reflecting the relationship of Medea, the keeper of secrets and ideological foundations of the family clan, with other characters and their features. Over the course of the research the author examined the metaphors forming the general plot line of the family chronicle “Medea and Her Children”, inseparably connected with the image of Medea as the fundamental element and the voice of the author’s position in the complex of the general line of the characters of the work, and allocated into groups and subgroups according to the relationship with the main character of people of the family clan Sinopley and their close environment.
