Art as business: the entrepreneur’s discourse in Michael Chabon’s novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”

This article presents, for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of the entrepreneur’s discourse in Michael Chabon’s novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” in the context of the transformation of the American entrepreneurial ideal. The article explores the evolution of the image of the entrepreneur-creator in the American literary tradition, from Benjamin Franklin to the present day, using the example of the novel’s protagonists, who create comics in the “Golden Age” of this industry. The scientific originality of the study lies in identifying a unique model of interaction between artistic self-expression and commercial activity in the work of a modern American author, as well as in revealing the archetypal features of the “entrepreneur-creator” in the context of the capitalist system of the 20th century. The study aims to determine the specifics of the representation of the entrepreneur’s discourse in 21st-century American literature, based on the material of Michael Chabon’s novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”, and its connection with the American tradition. The article examines the path of Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay’s formation in the rapidly developing American comic book industry of the 1930s and 1940s as a metaphor for creative entrepreneurship. The study finds that in the entrepreneur’s discourse, both in the American tradition and in Michael Chabon’s novel, it is possible to identify the type of “entrepreneur-creator”, which combines both the desire to achieve commercial success and the thirst for creative self-expression, which are in constant dialectical interaction.