The Nature of the Image in A. Kekilbaev’s Stories

People’s writer Abish Kekilbaev, who started his first step in literature with poems, turned to artistic prose from the mid-sixties and published several collections of stories and short stories. In this way, the writer, recognized by the readership as a master prose writer, later created such epic works as «The End of the Legend», «Urker», «Twilight». No matter which work of the writer we take, it is distinguished by its own artistic expression. Analyzing the first stories of the artist has its own significance in evaluating the prosaic signature of the artist. The article analyzes the thematic, artistic and ideological features of the stories «Hungry Wolf» and «Esbolai», which introduced the writer to the readership as a prose writer with a promising future, and the author’s skill in portraying images is judged. The genre nature of the stories, the first successes of the writer in short prose, language skills and features of the narrative style are evaluated from the point of view of literary studies. The images of the main characters Kurmangazy and Esbolai, as well as other secondary characters, are analyzed in these stories. The artistic methods used by the writer in portraying the characters, especially the nature and usage features of elements such as the author’s narrative and the representation of the character’s inner thoughts, portrait characterization and the character’s words are studied. In the article, the ideas in the works of domestic and foreign literary researchers are considered as a theoretical basis.