• Original research article
  • November 30, 2021
  • Open access

The Hero of Modern American Novellistics

Abstract

The paper aims to consider the peculiarities of transformation of the character’s image in the mo¬dern American short prose. The article studies some common features of the researched novellistics: asocial and even marginal personalities of the characters, the author’s indifferent or estranged attitude to their actions, involvement of the reader in the creative process. The scientific originality of the research consists in the complex analysis of a new type of protagonist, which involved new methods of characterization. As a result, the research has revealed several different “selves” of the protagonist, which compete, conflict, but stay within one personality, seeming to co-exist without merging. The reader seems to “complete” the character’s portrait, which is facilitated by dreams, hallucinations, documentary inserts, mystifications, linguistic experiments spread all over the text.

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Author information

Irina Vsevolodovna Sokolova

PhD

The Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature and Creative Writing, Moscow

Irina Alekseevna Shishkova

Dr

The Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature and Creative Writing, Moscow

About this article

Publication history

  • Received: November 1, 2021.
  • Published: November 30, 2021.

Keywords

  • жанровое разнообразие
  • асоциальный герой
  • постпостмодернизм
  • словесное творение
  • эвфемизмы
  • genre diversity
  • asocial character
  • post-post-modernism
  • word-being
  • euphemisms

Copyright

© 2021 The Author(s)
© 2021 Gramota Publishing, LLC

User license

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)