ПОЕТИКА ГРОТЕСКУ В РОМАНІ МО ЯНЬ «КРАЇНА ВИНА»

Abstract

The article represents the specifics of using grotesque poetics in the novel “The Republic of Wine” by the Chinese writer Mo Yan. The researchers study the novel in terms of hallucinogenic realism, which allows combining the elements of myth-making with historical references and present day realities. The paper shows that using the genre features of the morality novel and grotesque techniques the Chinese writer structured the content of the novel in such a way that a new and original genre the symbol novel was created. The essence of the author’s strategy was to combine the bizarre, fantastic, real elements that in many ways present to the modern reader the strange world of the Chinese reality, where the real and the unreal events are in organic unity. The grotesque technique in the novel “The Republic of Wine” serves as a kind of catalyst, due to which the existing patterns of life are manifested with special intensity and clarity. Each character in the novel is a certain symbol. The implementation of the grotesque poetics is caused by the socio-historical conditions of writing a novel, so the author’s vision of the empirical world became the means of creating the world of art. The grotesque principle of depicting reality, which is represented at different levels of the text (at the level of plot, composition, image system, style), along with the postmodern worldview of the writer led to the usage of narrative strategy, characterized by the following features: grotesque proper, continuous irony, laughter at horrible and repulsive things, parody of social, educational and family norms of upbringing. Moreover the novel represents the effect of “macabre”, when the relationship between the ridiculous and the terrible is broken, the opposition of good and evil, life and death is leveled. It addition it shows mocking mixture of different styles and genres, intertextual rethinking of history, concepts of progress, humanity and tolerance, as well as fragmentary illogical plot, discrete chronotope, openness of narrative structure, game technique as a provocation of the reader, the type of figurative expression and the principle of artistic structuring. The grotesque technique in the novel “The Republic of Wine” by Mo Yan has become the way of organizing the literary text as a unity. It is a crucial concept which is considered as a means of existence in the world and a fundamental principle of reality interpretation. The narrative style of the writer tends to tragicomedy as a kind of critique of life and society.