The ironic mode in the modern existentialist novel

The article is devoted to the study of contemporary English-language novels on existential themes. The aim of the work is to determine specific features, types and functions of irony in the works of this genre. The analysis is based on the novels by K. Ishiguro, D. DeLillo, J. Coe, I. McEwan, M. Amis and P. Auster. This choice is due to the fact that the ironic mode is the leading principle in the narrative of these novels. The analysis has led to a number of conclusions. Important problems of nowadays and the very principles of existentialist novels of the past are the object of irony in a modern existentialist novel. In all the analyzed novels, different types of irony are realized differently in each specific work, which is determined by their common ironic mode. The irony in the novel The Unconsoled (1995) by K. Ishiguro is mainly dramatic, the protagonist acts and argues about different events in his life, but he either does not see the true meaning of them or ignores it. The irony of this novel is uncertain and immanent. The novel White Noise (1985) by D. DeLillo is characterized by a close relationship between the serious and the ironic, the line between them is barely discernible, and the transitions to the ironic tone are hardly represented. Such kind of a narration requires a special irony-aware reading. The ironic mode of narration in the work A Touch of Love (1989) by J. Coe is largely created by the means of the contrast between tragedy and comedy which makes the novel more impressive. The main feature of this novel is the combination of explicit irony and satire in description of university life and implicit irony as the way to tell about existential problems of the protagonists. The novel Nutshell (2016) by the British writer I. McEwan contains many features of the postmodern irony: it is intertextual and implicit. The novel's irony is skeptical: the author claims that the world is imperfect, people are closed 'in a nutshell' of their stereotypical behavior and thinking. The main target of irony in the novel The Rachel Papers (1973) by M. Amis is the quality of some young people to unthinkingly follow other people's beliefs in experiencing existential issues related to the meaning of their life and literary creation. The author uses a complicated method of a literary game - description of chaotic events of the main character's life is embedded in classical literary schemes, which creates an ironic effect. The American writer P. Auster in The New York Trilogy (City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986), The Locked Room (1986)) uses the genre of detective fiction to narrate about existential issues in human life: the drama of loneliness, decay, leveling of personality in a huge metropolis. The author changes the traditional principles of existentialist novels: he mixes different genre forms and ironically reinterprets their principal characteristics. In general, the undertaken investigation proves the narration in the contemporary existentialist novel to be inherently ironic.

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