The article examines A. Vampilov’s drama “Duck Hunting” and suggests a new approach to studying Vampilov’s text - identifying dichotomy of the main hero’s image on the basis of the textual and poetological analysis taking into account the nuances of the system of motives and having in view to find a new interpretation of the drama’s titular image - “duck hunting”. The authors show that Vampilov’s play was conceived and developed mostly as an “epic”, “prosaic”, novelistic text, and the titular image-symbol of duck hunting reveals deeper inter-textual roots and traces its origin back to the traditional images of the Book of Genesis - Flood myth and Noah’s Ark.