NATURE AND NARRATIVE MEANING IN SELECTED SHORT STORIES BY SHUKUR XOLMIRZAYEV

This article examines how representations of nature contribute to narrative meaning in five short stories by Shukur Xolmirzayev. It considers landscape description together with plant and animal imagery where these elements participate directly in action, memory, or conflict. The material comprises O‘zbek xarakteri, also circulated as O‘zbeklar, Yovvoyi gul, Ot egasi, Jarga uchgan odam, and Ko‘ngil. Qualitative close reading and comparison are used to trace the relationship between environmental detail, narrative perspective, and consequential decisions. The analysis identifies several distinct mechanisms: familiar scenery becomes implicated in ethical discomfort; a displaced plant prompts self-examination; a horse connects a bereaved person with a sustaining landscape; and encounters with wildlife expose tensions between appreciation, possession, and responsibility. In the hunting narrative, the movement from a snowy mountain setting to the division of the catch turns a shared excursion into a test of friendship. The findings suggest that natural details acquire meaning through their changing relations to events and characters. They also qualify any assumption that attachment to nature necessarily produces morally consistent behaviour. The article concludes that environmental representation contributes to the construction of conflict and recognition, while leaving the ethical implications of several outcomes unresolved.