A Comparative Study of Fairy Tale and Rap Narratives: Spaces Specificity

The paper identifies the similarities and differences between fairy tale and rap narratives from the viewpoint of their specificity in space. Three spaces with their structuring topoi and loci have been investigated in their metaphorical, narrative, and symbolic manifestations. First: the spatial organization of rap and fairy tale narratives may include several possible worlds: the world of the Hero’s past before his journey through life and fairy tale transformation; the world of the Hero’s present after his transformation, marked by new loci consistent with his new status of the Hero, as well as the intangible symbolic world, the contact with which is a prerequisite for the revival of the fairy tale hero and optional – for the lyrical hero of rap narrative. Second: the world of the Hero’s past based on ambivalent 'ghetto' topos whose conceptual space is constructed by conceptual metaphors life is a broken boogie, ghetto is belly of a monster, living in ghetto is fighting on the line of fire. Ghetto topos correlates with the topos of the forest as the place of the tale Hero trials, rooted in the archetypal motive of initiation. Third: the locus of "home/house" is conceptualized in rap lyrics and a fairy tale as a familiar, closed and safe space, contrasted, respectively, with topoi of 'ghetto' and forest with their manifesting loci on criteria "open/closed", "unexplored/familiar", "mastered/unpredictable", "dangerous – safe". Fourth: loci in alternative worlds may acquire anthropomorphic properties, changing along the axis of "living/non-living" and "passive/active". Both in fairy tale and rap narratives, the symbolic "world" may involve the topoi of the road, sky, and forest based on archetypes, related to a spiritual search of the Hero.


Introduction
The problem of comparing such seemingly contrasting genres as a fairy tale, with its archaic archetypal roots, and modern rap, embodying the aesthetics of metamodernism (Van den Akker, Gibbons, & Vermeulen 2017), has a certain significance both for linguistics and interdisciplinary paradigm. Rather unexpected similarities found in such genres bring researchers closer to understanding some universal features in human conceptualization and categorization of the world that are independent of the criteria of authorship, time of creation, sociolinguistic, and ethno-cultural variables.
Existential underpinning of narrative and symbolic correlations between the fairy tale and rap narratives comes down to answering eternal questions: the meaning of life and death, the fear inherent to the human beings, unity and alienation, which, in turn, rely on psychological and cultural archetypes. Both types of narratives comprise the modus "as if" implying an alternative basically symbolic world, coexisting along with the material or pseudo-material worlds. The "plot" of a fairy tale and rap story is always based on the search for something -a different state, status, knowledge, which is metaphorically interpreted as the desire to be reborn, transformed, and move to another level in another world. Consequently, both in a fairy tale and rap lyrics any transformation implies at least two alternative worlds: the fatal world of predestination and the space of new opportunities and renewal.
The focus of this study is the similarities and basic differences of these worlds viewed through the prism of their chronotopes -reproducing both real and symbolically or metaphorically reinterpreted space and time. In particular, the aim of the article consists in identification of the spatial specifics of rap lyrics in comparison with a fairy tale narrative with a focus on the metaphorical, narrative, and symbolic, including archetypal characteristics of their topoi and loci.

Literature Review
Symbolic ambivalence of both the fairy tale and rap lyrics implies the intersection of various possible worlds and their constructing chronotopes. The paper relies on three main theoretical premises: the idea of the alternative worlds as semiotic spaces of both fairy tales and rap lyrics; the symbolic basis of one of the alternative worlds; the concept of a chronotope as a narrative category. The problem of the fairy tale worlds has been addressed, albeit fragmentarily, in different fairy tale studies -starting from Propp, who in his famous book "Historical Roots of the Wonder Tale" identifies an alternative fairy tale world, the road to which usually leads through the forest as an entrance to the kingdom of the dead (Propp, 1946;Zipes, 2002). Such a world is as a place of transformation (Zipes, 2002, pp. 65-67) populated by fabulous creatures (Coburn, 2006) including magical helpers (Luthi, 1970, p. 76;Zipes, 2002, p. 115). Moreover, the same spaces (forest, sea, clouds, etc.) can be either other worlds themselves or the transition places between the worlds, separating them from each other (de Camp, 1976, p. 227;The Fairy Tale World, 2019). Luthi considers the problem of the otherworldliness of folktales in connection with spatial imagery of tales pointing out that places such as forests, springs, castles, and cottages "do not serve to establish a setting" (Luthi, 1970, pp. 37-38), implying, in our opinion, the symbolic functions of certain topoi and loci.
The problem of a tale symbolism, including an archetypal symbolism, was also given enough attention in fairy tale studies (Vaz da Silva, 2015;Zipes, 2002). However, this cannot be said about the study of alternative worlds and symbolism from the perspective of rap lyrics, since such problems are only "outlined" in separate studies in general terms. Namely, cultural archetypes and archetypal symbolism in the construction of "possible worlds" of modern African-American rap have been elucidated on the material of the rap lyrics of Kendrick Lamar (Kravchenko & Snitsar, 2019, pp. 80-92) and Tylor the Creator (Kravchenko & Brechak, 2019). Analyzing the archetypal roles of Sage, Magician, or Trickster, as such that manifest the rap artists' identity, the researchers have identified and specified, among other role parameters, a symbolic dimension of these roles (Kravchenko, Snitsar, & Blidchenko-Naiko, 2020).
In general, the issues of symbolism in connection with the rap lyrics interpretation are mostly elucidated in the musicological and art criticism literature, while philologists almost make no mention of this problem. In particular, in one of the musicological articles rap lyrics in their symbolic meanings are compared to the poetry of the Symbolists (Alzuphar, 2017). The idea of a "possible" alternative world (supernatural or hallucinogenic) is implied, in our opinion, in another art review, where a cultural critic comes to the conclusion that the rap music recently "got darker, weirder, and became about a willingness to confront demons and inner feelings in a way that we hadn't quite seen before" (Muggs, 2016).
In addition to the concepts of alternative worlds and symbolism, including archetypal symbolism, our paper operates with the concept of a chronotope as a narrative category "responsible" for plot development both in a fairy tale and in rap lyrics, containing a narrative component. The term chronotope as the interconnection of literary mastered temporal and spatial relations was first coined by Russian literary scholar Bakhtin in his 1937 essay "Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel" (1981). The chronotope is studied by researchers (Blommaert 2017(Blommaert , 2018Redington Bobby, 2014) as constructions/models used "to investigate how time and space relations are manifested in texts" and, in a broader sense, chronotope "as invocable semiotic constellations of time, space, activities, moral dispositions, and actors" (Goebel, 2020, p. 82). Important to our work is the idea of the chronotopes as the iconic signs which are based on the similarity between the sings and the reality behind them (Nikolajeva, 2015). Accordingly, the space of symbolic imaginary world would be based on metaphors, i.e. symbolic archetypal imagery structurally-iconically reflecting its "fantastic" referent. A similar idea of the chronotope can be traced, in our opinion, in the Murray Forman's study, which represents rap spatial discourse in the terms "ghetto," "inner-city," and "the hood" showing "how these spaces, both real and imaginary, are used to define individual and collective identity" (Forman, 2002).
Investigations of spatial relations in a fairy tale identifies such fundamental characteristics of this component of the chronotope: one-dimentionality (Luthi, 1982, p. 4-7), deathlessness (op. cit., p. 11-23), markedness by the formula "somewhere", a "fairy tale country", symbolic character and suitable for the Hero and his actions; fantastic landscapes and descriptions: lands of sparks, emperors; the elements of the exterior and interior space, which are the other land (the other realm), the forest, the mountain, the garden, the palace, caves or houses (op. cit).

Database and methods
The corpus of research material includes 40 texts of rap songs by modern world-known rap songwriters, including Kendrick Lamar, Asap Rocky, Tylor the Creator, XXX Tentacion, and Juice WRLD. The main criteria for the selection of research material have been (a) the narrative component of rap lyrics, allowing to identify the development of events in time and space; (b) the presence of images, allusions, metaphors that have a symbolic meaning, marking imaginary space of "alternative world" with its corresponding topoi. Additionally, the article used for the comparative analysis English and Russian fairy tale texts, which include the narrative motives of the "hero's journey" and "miraculous transformation", as well as the symbolic topoi of the forest, road and sky, based on the archetypal component. Integrative method of analysis encompasses (a) the conceptual metaphor analysis (Lakoff, Johnson, 1980) and (b) analysis, based on conceptual blending theory (Fauconnier, Turner, 2002;Handl, Schmid, 2011) in the case of the creative occasional metaphors that are difficult to explain by expanding the basic conventional metaphorical models, added by elements of (c) narrative analysis (Bremond, 1977;Dundes, 2007;Propp, 1968) to identify some narrative motives that associate rap narrative with a fairy tale and (d) archetypal analyses (Bieliekhova, 2014;Bodkin, 1934) aimed at revealing archetypally based topoi, related to a spiritual search of the Hero in the symbolic world. This paper's primary concern has been to identify the specifics of spaces associated with alternative worlds in the modern rap lyrics in its comparison with the fairy tale narrative. The study advances the hypotheses that due to its symbolism rap narrative may involve diverse "possible worlds", whose spatial organization has some similarities with the fairy tale chronotope.
In view of this, the study was carried out at 5 consecutive stages of analysis: 1. The corpus of material has been selected in accordance with the criteria outlined above.
2. The selected fragments, containing either explicit nominations or figurative interpretation of the places of actions, have been characterized with respect to the specifics of their topoi (a large-scale spacious unit) and loci ("compact" and closed spaces), constructing real and intangible worlds in fairy tales and rap narratives -with an emphasis on their similar and different properties.
3. To analyze the key rap lyrics topos 'ghetto' and its metonymic manifestations from the viewpoint of their metaphoric symbolism and correlation with the spaces of initiation in a fairy tale narrative.
4. To analyze the loci of the fairy tale and rap narratives in terms of their specifics as "safe/dangerous" spaces and "attributes" of the hero before and after his socio-status transformation in the worlds of his past and present. 5. To identify and interpret the topoi of the alternative symbolic world of rap lyrics with a focus on their archetypal basis suggesting a parallel with topoi of a fairy tale narrative.

Spaces of fairy tales and rap: to the question of correlations
One of the central features of the traditional fairy tale is its location in an unspecified space and time as becomes clear in the opening formula "Once upon a time in a place far away"; "In a great palace by the sea"; "Once upon a time, a long, long while ago, when all the world was young and all sorts of strange things happened"; "Once upon a time, long long years ago"). However, lack of geographic specificity, that is identifiable geographical objects, does not mean the absence of spatial definiteness in a fairy tale in general. In particular, fairy tales almost always begin with determining the place and time of action, that is with a chronotope, which, although without detail, reproduces the topoi and spatial relationships existing in the real world: "In front of the house there was a court, in which grew a juniper-tree" (The juniper-tree, 2014); "and as she was coming home she came to a stile" (The Old Woman and the Crooked Sixpence, 2017); "In the old days when London Bridge was lined with shops from one end to the other" (The Peddlar of Swaffham, 1913).
In addition, the English fairy tale is replete with such pseudo-toponyms as elf-land, faerie; Fairyland. At the same time, in the fairy tale text, there is always "the other world" chronotope, related to a wonderful transformation of the Hero. Such chronotope involves the symbolic topoi of the forest, road, sky, underwater and underground kingdoms, as well as their metonymic manifestations -The top of the mountain, The Clouds, crossroad, a little hut on hen's feet, etc.
A preliminary analysis of the data corpus showed that, like a fairy tale, rap lyrics can have different chronotopes for "this" and "another" world, "created" by the songwriters on a symbolic or metaphorical level. In rap lyrics the real topoi, presented by specific places where events occur, structure only one of the possible rap text spaces. In addition to it, rap lyrics involve other types of "possible" worlds: the world of the Hero's past before his journey through life and status transformation; the world of the Hero's present after his transformation, as well as the symbolic world. The spiritual world of "sacred quest", which characterizes, in particular, the Kendrick Lamar's rap, is not considered in the article (see Kravchenko, 2019). The analysis of the hallucinogenic world also remains outside the scope of the article, since it is not so much the spatial structure that brings it together with the fairy tale as mediators of the transition between worlds. As it will be shown in this article, possible worlds are mediated by topoi suggesting some associations with fairy tales. Besides, some rap texts are marked by a diffused and indefinite chronotope, that is, by the timelessness and indifference to the physical environment, constituting an inherent property of fairy tales. Such diffusivity occurs in case the rap lyrics lack events or events, if any, are not tied to a specific place and time. The absence of a chronotope associates rap lyric with a "stream of consciousness" or impressionist and symbolic poetry, where the basis for coherence is not a chronotope constructing storylines, but a cohesiveness at the symbolic and metaphoric levels.
Having this in mind, the paper identifies topoi and loci, constructing the real and intangible worlds both in fairy tales and rap narratives -with a focus on their similar and variable characteristics.
Topoi and loci in alternative worlds: fairy tale vs. rap narrative The most common feature of the fairy tale and rap spaces is their structuring through topoilarge-scale spacious unit, and loci or subtopoi, that is more "compact" and often closed spaces.
The motive of the transformation within the "real world", as a rule, relates to a change in the rapper's social status, with using a retrospective chronotope to create a contrast between the world of poverty (the past of author-performer) and prosperity (his / her present). Similarly, in a fairy tale narrative, after passing various tests, the Hero acquires a new, higher social status (Ivan the Fool becomes the king; Jack, a poor country boy is being transformed into a well-off man).
The world of the past, contrasting with the alternative world of the rap artist's "present", is embodied by the 'ghetto' topos, which usually correlates with the timespan of the rapper's childhood and youth: "I said, I'm trapped inside the ghetto, and I ain't proud to admit it. (...) Me, scholarship? No. Streets put me through colleges" (Lamar, Institutionalized). The image of the 'ghetto' is ambivalent: it denotes a part of the city territory and functions as a symbol of poverty, hopelessness and discrimination: "The only way out the ghetto, you know the stereotype/ Shooting hoops or live on the stereo like top forty" (Lamar, Black boy fly). You can take your boy out the hood, but you can't take the hood out the homie (Lamar, Institutionalized).
The ghetto topos and its manifestations in loci of "district", "street", "hood" constitutes the "dangerous" spaces, in which, like in a fairy tale forest, the hero had to go through his initiation. "Like every time I walked to the corner had them guns bursting" (...). What am I to do when every neighborhood is an obstacle" (Lamar, Black boy fly). Connotative meanings "danger", "lethal risk" are conveyed through the conceptual metaphors: To live in ghetto is to ride a broken boogie board; To live in the hood is to live inside the belly of a beast (hood/ghetto is belly of a monster); each house is a fight on the line of fire.
Using the combined method based on conceptual metaphor analysis and conceptual blending theory we now offer a more detailed analysis of each of the metaphors.
1. To live in ghetto is to ride a broken boogie board: "Especially when the crime waves was bigger than tsunamis (...). Break your boogie boards to pieces, you just a typical homie" (Lamar, Black boy fly)). As there is no conventional metaphor life is a broken board, it is difficult to apply here the conceptual metaphor analysis. In the case of such a creative metaphor, it is more appropriate to use blending theory according to which two input domains in the example are life and broken sport equipment (Fauconnier, Turner, 2002). The salient aspects or "generic" space, which connects the target input 1 "To live dangerous life" and source input 2 "To use broken sports equipment" are the riskiness of both activities. As a result, the two partially matching inputs are selectively projected into new blended space: A life broken to pieces like a boogie board is a typical scenario in circumstances, "when the crime waves were bigger than tsunamis".
However, the metaphorical expression can be also prompted by two conventional metaphors: (a) the first one conveys an idea of life as a movement; so the "quality" of movement on a board is compared to a course of life: easiness to slide means easiness to move through life, while moving on a board broken to pieces means a life-threatening danger; (b) the second one bases on the metaphor life is a roller coaster, illustrating human life full of hardships and abruptness. From this perspective, the Source Domain would be extended by introducing, in addition to conventional meaning "danger", the new attribute "broken means of entertainment" resulted in a hybrid model in which the Life in Ghetto equals with deadly adventure with the use of broken means. (Lamar, m.A.A.d city). Straight from the bottom, this is the belly of the beast (Lamar, King Kunta). The model of conceptual integration here involves the projection of the source input space 1 (Belly of the Monster) delivering such space attributes as fear, hopelessness and darkness, onto the target input space 2, structured by the sphere "Life in Ghetto". The mapping of elements from the input spaces to each other is possible due to their common generic space -the similar connotative characteristics of living in Ghetto and in the belly of the beast. As a result of integration, the concept of "belly of the beast" is replaced by the concept of "sense of hopelessness", projected into the Target-input space "Life in Ghetto". In addition, the selective projection into the blended space is "plotted" due to the metaphorical expression associations with two conventional patterns; (1) based on allusion to a Bible story about Jonah's being "in the belly of the fish three days and three nights" (Jonah 1:17, King James Bible); (2) relied on allusion to a famous book by Jack Henry Abbott "In the Belly of the Beast" (1981) about the author's experiences in prison.

To live in the hood is to live inside the belly of a beast (hood/ghetto is belly of a monster). I live inside the belly of the rough
3. Each house is a fight on the line of fire: "Pakistan on every porch is fine, we adapt to crime" (Lamar, m.A.A.d city). The songwriter uses here two synecdoches: The name of the country where the military operations took place is used instead of the generic name "war" and a porch as a part of the house replaces the whole -the house itself. In terms of conceptual blending the model of two synecdoches integration can be represented as a four-step process: (1) the projection of the source input space 1 (War) and actions associated with it (shots, military operations, death of people) onto the target input space 2 of events that, in the opinion of the songwriter, took place in a particular country, Pakistan; (2) integration of the first and second input spaces into the output blended space is possible due to their generic space -the similarities of military operations in Pakistan and on the battlefield of any war; (3) as a result of integration, there was a shift from the concept of "Pakistan" to the nature of events that took place at a certain point in this country history: the concept of "hostilities" replaced the concept of "Pakistan", whose generic space includes both "hostilities" and "the country where they took place"; (4) target input space 2, which includes "structural elements of an apartment building", delivers such characteristics as "the place of common entrance and exit of all houses", as well as connotations associated with the place where "own bunch" is assembled. From the source input space1 we take the concept of "house", which encompasses an idea of "the place where a person returns every day" and "where he feels safe"; (5) the generic space, uniting these two concepts, involves the comprehension of the porch and house as the places for "us", separating us from the world of "them"; (6) two new blended spaces are integrated according to this scenario: the development of events that took place in Pakistan, in the places that should be safe (an additional extension of the metaphor "my home is my fortress" is possible here). The resulting meaning is the lack of a safe place in the ghetto at all.
Along with topos, the space of fairy tale and rap narrative is divided into various loci -places of the development of the local events. In a fairy tale, there can be an enchanted castle, an enchanted chamber ("Mount of Cornwall"), "the castle at the top of the mountain" ("Jack the Giant-Killer"), а room, a kitchen, a house. It is interesting to note that both in the fairy tale and rap lyrics the locus of the house (yard) is a familiar, mastered, closed, safe space from which the hero goes on a journey, and where he seeks to return: "Really think I found my home, shorty made me feel at home" (Juice WORLD, Hide), Gotta find my way back home, / I've been away too long. / Gotta find my way back home (ASAP Rocky, Back Home).
In this regard, it is appropriate, in our opinion, to recall Heidegger's statement from his History of the Concept of Time (1992) that 'dwelling' has an important psychological dimension. He says that the archaic German word for 'domus' or 'house' is the same as the English word 'inn' and that this word comes from 'innan', which means 'being familiar with' rather than 'anything spatial' (Heidegger, 1992). The observation of the philosopher is consonant with the conclusions of Luthi, the famous researcher of the tale, who pointed out that the themes of separation and exile in fairy tales are spatially conceived and spatially driven as "the characters of the folktale are thus separated from familiar people and familiar places and go out into the world as isolated individuals" (Luthi, 1982, p. 38). While locus of home/house offers character's safety, familiarity and security, the towers, forests, enchanted castles, and other locations often threaten the characters with danger, isolation, and even death.
In this sense, the locus of a home is often opposed to the forest in a fairy tale ("The hut stood at the edge of a dense forest and in the forest there lived Baba-Yaga, a cunning witch and sly, who gobbled people up in the wink of an eye" (Vasilisa the Wise, 2013) and the street or district in rap narrative on criteria "open/closed", "unexplored/familiar", "mastered/unpredictable", "dangerous/safe" spaces: "Daugter, Daugter,' said the mother. (…) Be very careful, watch over your little brother and do not leave the house" (The Magic Swan Geese, 2013).
The world of the rapper's "present" is also filled with new loci, often conceptualized in rap narratives as the material attributes of the rapper's transformation. A house with a pool, a luxury hotel, a house, a snazzy car serve as symbols of success and represent metronymic "container" manifestation of the world into which the lyrical hero managed to get: "I'm in my black Benz, uh (…) Switch up to the white Benz, uh" (Juice WRLD, Black & White), "First you get a swimming pool full of liquor, then you dive in it" (Lamar, Swimming pools (Drank).
The loci of the world of social-status transformation are also characteristic of a fairy tale narrative, where spiritual rebirth often entails new 'residences' more suited to the new status of the hero: "Furthermore, the King bestowed on Jack a noble castle with a magnificent estate belonging thereto, whereon he, his lady, and their children lived in great joy and content for the rest of their days" (Jack the Giant-Killer, 2014).
As mentioned above, transformation of the fairy tale hero is carried out primarily in the spiritual plane, which is not typical for rap lyrics. At the same time, in separate texts, symbolic worlds nevertheless coexist in parallel with the physical world.
Symbolic world: the topoi of the road, sky, and forest Attributes of the immaterial "world" may involve loci that acquire anthropomorphic properties, changing along the axis of "living / non-living" and "passive/active". In this sense, a parallel suggests itself with such loci of a fabulous narrative as a talking stove, a "living" hut on chicken legs, etc.: "Stove, stove, tell me whither have the geese flown?" "If you eat my cake of rye I will tell you"; "She ran and saw a little hut that stood on chicken legs and turned round and round" (The Magic Swan Geese, 2013); "Little hut, little hut, stand just as you were built, with your back to the forest, your front to me." Then the little hut turned with its front towards him, and its back to the forest" (The Frog Princess, 2013). In the same vein, in a song by American rapper Kendrick Lamar the walls of the room acquire the signs of "living" and "active": Walls tellin' me they full of pain, resentment,

Need someone to live in them just to relieve tension. (…)
These walls are vulnerable, exclamation, (…) I interrogated every nook and cranny, I mean, it's still amazing before they couldn't stand me.

These walls wanna cry tears,
These walls happier when I'm here (Lamar, These Walls).
In the above lyrics, the author is applying an extension of the ordinary metaphor "The walls have ears" (with a meaning of warning to persons who share secrets: be careful, because you may be overheard without your knowing it). Being based on personification, such a metaphor belongs to ontological metaphors as the human quality "to hear" is given to non-human object "walls".
It can be assumed, that some similarities between the source domain "element in architecture and construction" and the target domain "living being" (capable of betraying) are explained by the function of the walls to separate, to protect from the surrounding space, from the "strangers", uniting those who are "inside" in a group of "friends". Their location on the border between the world of "friends" and "strangers" makes the walls the most vulnerable to the "external" influence. In the song "These walls", the metaphor develops on the basis of attributing to the walls as a living being not only the human ability to audit, but also a wide range of other characteristics, realized in the following schemata, borrowed from the source domain: the human feelings, i.e. pain, resentment, happiness, attachment to someone, vulnerability and the human abilities, i.e. speak and cry.
Both in a fairy tale and in rap the search for the symbolic "world" involves the topoi of the road, sky, and forest, as well as their metonymic manifestations. These topoi rely on archetypes, figurative universals, which are sacralized as a spiritual search of the hero of both the tale and rap narratives.
The symbolic image of the road embodies the life path, the motive of movement, overcoming oneself, passing through a series of steps. A fairy tale hero cannot undergo a transformation if he does not overcome a certain path: "When day dawned, therefore, the boy put his fifty thalers into his pocket, and went forth on the great highway, (…)". But the youth said, "However difficult it may be, I will learn it, and for this purpose indeed have I journeyed forth" (The Story of the Youth who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, 2014).
A similar symbolic metaphor "life is road" based on the archetypal motive of the Hero's journey, is found in the rap lyrics: "How much drive can I have 'til I run out of road? How much road can they pave 'til I run out of land? How much land can there be until I run in the ocean?" (Tyler, the Creator, Foreword).
At the same time, in a fairy tale, the journey does not always end in success. It is possible to regress back if the hero did not cope with the task, i.e. did not pass the initiation (The Adventure оf Cherry оf Zennor, 2014). In the same vein, the motive of the "wrong path or "road to nowhere" is one of the most common in modern rap narrative: "In the car called life take the lame route", goin' nowhere fast but you think that you not (Tyler, the Creator, RUN); "Driving fast the wrong way, I swear life is like a one-way (ASAP Rocky, Ghetto Symphony); Ain't no right way, just the wrong way I know" (Juice WRLD, Empty).
In all these lyrics, the rap songs writers use the same basic conceptual metaphor life is road extending it in the following schemata involving the source domain by the features wrong, one way and broken/defective, thus attributing these characteristics to the target domain, which results in interpreting the "failed" life with newly formed metaphoric meanings: life is the wrong way; life is lame route; life is one-way.
In some rap compositions, the symbol of the road as a life path is de-metaphorized into the image of a real road, which can end not with a metaphorical, but with a physical death, giving the lyrical hero an answer to the question "what is on the other side":  (Tyler, the Creator, Foreword).
Another universal symbolic topos is the image of the sky: in a fairy tale, the sky and its metonymic representations (the top of the Mount and the high altar in "The Story of Saint Kenlem") may symbolize both the "the other world" (the sky in "The Mount of Cornwall") and the space between worlds (The Clouds, as a place of transition to another country, in "Jack and the Bean-Stalk"). Moreover, the upper, "heavenly symbolism" (Eliade, 1991) is transcendental and sacred in any system, and such a spatial representation as "very high" symbolizes unattainable distance. The world of heaven is sacralized as a spiritual search symbolizing spiritual renewal. If a hero in the fairy tale is able to overcome this distance and get to heaven, then he becomes involved in the topos of another world and comprehends the category of the infinite, eternal.
Echoes of such archetypal representations associated with the sky as sacred topos can also be found in rap texts: "Tip tipped and toe I miss the sky" (ASAP Rocky, Ghetto Symphony), "From another planet, birthplace cloud 9, hello, earthlings!" (ASAP Rocky, Distorted Records), "And heaven no preliminary hearing" (Lamar, Alright); "With a Skywalker ridin' round solar" (Tyler, the Creator, I Ain't Got Time!); "And I'm dancing on the stars / The galaxy ain't got room for y'all Blow My High" (Lamar, Members Only).
Topos of the forest, symbolizing the transition between worlds and, at the same time, "another world", is one of the most frequent in a fairy tale "Wild Edric", "The Fairy Horn", etc.), reflecting the initiation rite of the Indo-European peoples. At the same time, in rap lyrics, the forest is used in the symbolic meaning of the beyond world in isolated cases. In particular, in "Foreword" by Tyler, the Creator, the image of the woods in which the singer found himself acquires additional symbolic connotations owing to the associative series "woods -flowers -posies -falling out", implicating withering and loss as the markers of transition to the world of non-existence: "I was in the woods with flowers, rainbows, and posies, Fallin' outta my pocket" (Tyler, the Creator, Foreword).

Conclusion
The paper contributes to the problem of basic similarities and differences of rap lyrics and fairy tale narratives which are studied in terms of their spatial organization and their metaphorical, narrative, and symbolic manifestations. In pointing to the overlaps between seemingly contrasting genres the research is based on methodological premises about alternative worlds of a fairy tale and rap narratives, primarily structured by spatial imagery. The corpus of rap lyrics has been selected upon criterion of availability of both a physical setting and symbolic and metaphorical spatial imagery implicating the imaginary space of an "alternative world". Based on integration of conceptual metaphor analysis, added by conceptual blending, with some elements of narrative, archetypal and stylistic analyses, the paper identified the common and different topoi and loci in fairy tales and rap alternative worlds, specifying them as "safe/dangerous" spaces while revealing their metonymic, metaphorical and symbolic properties and archetypal basis.
The paper reached four major findings. It is identified that in rap lyrics "the other world" spaces are related either to wonderful transformation of the Hero in his present "world" contrasting with the world of his past, or immaterial possible worlds mediated by topoi based on symbolic, including archetypal imagery. The possibility of symbolic world as well as a motive of transformation associates rap lyrics with a fairy tale narrative. A parallel with the fairy tale can also be traced in the involvement of new high-status loci in the world of the transformation, since the Hero's spiritual revival often entails new "residences" that are more consistent with his new status. Second, the world of the Hero's past is embodied by ambivalent 'ghetto' topos and its manifesting loci of "district", "street", "hood", representing both physical places and symbolic metaphors for poverty and hopelessness. Due to their associations with the motives of trial and danger, such spatial parameters of the rap narrative correlate with the topos of the forest as the place of trials of the fairy tale hero based on the archetypal motive of initiation. Concept of Ghetto is constructed, in addition to explicit means, by conceptual metaphors life is a broken boogie board, ghetto is belly of a monster, living in ghetto is fighting on the line of fire. Third, like a fairy tale, the locus of "home/house" is conceptualized in rap lyrics as a familiar, closed and safe space, opposed to the topos of 'ghetto' in rap narrative and topos of forest in a fairy tale as well as their manifesting loci on criteria "open/closed", "unexplored/familiar", "mastered/unpredictable", "dangerous/safe" spaces. Fourth. Both in fairy tale and rap loci in alternative worlds may acquire anthropomorphic properties, changing along the axis of "living / non-living" and "passive/active". A locus "Walls" as metonymic replacement of house or room becomes a part of a metaphor walls are living being, realized in the schemata pain, resentment, happiness, attachment to someone, vulnerability as the human feelings, and speak and cry as the human abilities, borrowed from the source domain living being.
In this sense, a parallel suggests itself with a talking stove and a "living" hut on chicken legs as the loci of a fairy tale narrative. Both in fairy tale and rap the symbolic "world" may involve the topoi of the road, sky, and forest based on archetypes, related to a spiritual search of the Hero. A symbolic metaphor life is road relies on the archetypal motive of the Hero's journey. It may be unsuccessful if the hero fails initiation, which in rap lyrics is manifested by an extension of the conventional metaphor by the source domain attributes wrong, one-way and broken/defective, interpreting the "failed" life with metaphoric meanings: life is the wrong way; life is lame route; life is one-way. Unlike a fairy tale, where the topos of the forest often symbolizes the transition between worlds and, at the same time, "another world", reflecting the initiation rite of the Indo-European peoples, in rap lyrics, the forest is used in the symbolic meaning of the beyond world in very few cases. Echoes of archetypal representations of the sky as the sacred topos, symbolizing both the "the other world" and the space between worlds, can also be found in rap lyrics, reinterpreted as spiritual renewal with comprehension of the category of the infinite and eternal, as well as the assertion of the own exclusivity compared to ordinary people.
The results of the paper can be used in cognitive-semiotic, narrative and stylistic studies frameworks, deepening the knowledge about the narrative and semiotic properties of the modern rap compositions, viewed through the prism of creative metaphorization and archetypal symbolism.