„Coasta de drac” – simbol al rătăcirii morale în povestea lui Stan Paţitul [Articol]

Abstract

Within traditional Romanian culture, illness is not understood exclusively as a biological manifestation but, more profoundly, as a sign originating from a moral and sacred order. It becomes a form of symbolic communication between the individual and an invisible universe, reflecting imbalances that occur in the relationship between humans and divinity, community norms, or the fundamental values of existence. Thus, suffering acquires ethical and purifying functions, often being perceived as a means of atonement and of restoring a disturbed cosmic order. In Povestea lui Stan Pățitul, Ion Creangă capitalizes on the phraseological expression a avea coasta de drac (“to have the devil’s rib”) not through its explicit mention but through a complete epic transposition. The phraseologism, which in popular usage denotes a person’s cunningness or malice, is literalized, and transformed into the narrative nucleus: the woman literally possesses a rib taken from the devil, a concrete object around which the entire plot is organized. This procedure highlights the author’s stylistic specificity, as he starts from folk wisdom and fixed expressions of the language but artistically reinterprets them, integrating them into a story with satirical and humorous value. Thus, coasta de drac does not remain a simple linguistic formula but becomes a generator of narrative, illustrating how Creangă transforms an expression into a literary mechanism with stylistic, comic, and symbolic functions.