COMPARATIVE STRATEGIES IN THE STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY WORLD WAR II NOVELS (BASED ON THE STORYTELLER BY JODI PICOULT AND WORKS OF THE LATE 20TH – EARLY 21ST CENTURIES)

Abstract

The article analyzes the specific features of depicting World War II events in the novel The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult within the context of contemporary foreign literature of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The purpose of the study is to identify the leading trends in conceptualizing the tragedy of war in modern artistic discourse.

The use of comparative strategies in studying 21st-century war prose allows graduate students to master the skills of typological comparison of texts belonging to different national literatures, yet united by a common problematic and thematic core — the ethics of Holocaust memory. This transforms literary analysis into an active process of decoding cultural codes and searching for universal humanistic meanings. The work employs comparative, structural-typological, narratological, and cultural-historical methods, which allow for the tracing of intertextual connections, the poetics of reflecting traumatic experience, and the mechanisms of transmitting postmemory.

1. Picoult’s novel The Storyteller is considered in comparison with World War II novels written in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, namely: Sophie’s Choice by W. Styron, The Reader by B. Schlink, The Kindly Ones by J. Littell, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by J. Boyne, The Book Thief by M. Zusak, Two Brothers by B. Elton, The Nightingale by K. Hannah, and Schindler’s List by T. Keneally.

The focus is on the interaction of such phenomena as postmemory, counter-memory, and post-trauma, examined through the prism of the artistic interpretation of the Holocaust. It is proved that J. Picoult’s novel accumulates key trends in contemporary World War II literature: the deconstruction of the image of evil, the increasing complexity of the perpetrator’s psychology, and a shift in focus from military events to the internal world of the individual. It is noted that the tragedy of war continues in the "postmemory" of the victims' descendants, while the themes of guilt and forgiveness acquire a global moral and philosophical resonance.

It is determined that an important feature of the latest war narrative is the combination of two chronotopes — the past and the present — and a polyphonic narrative system where the voices of the victim and the executioner, as well as direct and indirect testimonies, interact. The novel The Storyteller demonstrates a transition to the stage of ethical dialogue between the past and the present, where the memory of the Holocaust becomes the foundation for humanity's moral reflection. It is concluded that J. Picoult’s work embodies a global trend toward the formation of a "post-heroic" model of artistic conceptualization of war, in which the humanistic emphasis shifts to the psychology of trauma, responsibility, and the complex ambivalence of human nature.