NARRATATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN FAIRY TALES OF THE BRITISH TRADITION (A CASE STUDY OF R. DAHL’S NARRATIVES

Abstract

The research focuses on the characteristics of the interaction between the narrator and the child reader in R. Dahl’s fiction texts for children. A brief analytical analysis considering the peculiarities of the narratee’s reflection, the relationship between the titles of fairy tales and the key elements of the plot, the role of anthropomorphic animalistic characters in R. Dahl’s narratives has been foregrounded. In the author’s fairy tales, elements of the real, the magical and the fantastic are intertwined. Two types of intertextual connections between the fictional texts can be traced: the events of fairy tales can take place in one fictional reality, or the events of one fairy tale can be fictionalized for the characters of another. Explicit addressing the narratee by using pronoun you is peculiar for the fiction texts of the author. This way, he draws the readers’ attention to important elements of the plot and increases their level of trust in him. The name of the child protagonist is used in most of the titles of R. Dahl’s narratives. The article examines the relationship between the usage of the names and the key elements of the storyline. The author poetically reinterprets well-known English-language fairy tales in the book “Revolting Rhymes” (Dahl, 2016i). Readers need to have a prior knowledge of typical fairy tale plots to distinguish them from the writer’s interpretation. Children meet animalistic characters in Roald Dahl’s fiction. Animals accompany the protagonists in their adventures, support them on their way to success and protect them from dangers. Animals act as main heroes in the tales “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “The Enormous Crocodile”. All anthropomorphic animals and insects can be classified as male or female, according to the personal pronouns he/she used in the text and the prefixes Mr/Ms/Mrs before their names.