Techniques of violating the literary and cultural code of Christmas in Victorian England in J. K. Jerome’s short prose (on the material of the work ‘Told After Supper’)
Vorobets Tatyana Alekseevna, Gerdt Elena Valerievna, Lobkova Elena Vladimirovna
Siberian State Automobile and Highway University
Submitted: 20.03.2023
Abstract. The study aims to identify the techniques of violating the literary and cultural code of Christmas in Victorian England in J. K. Jerome’s short prose. The work ‘Told After Supper’ was chosen as the research material. The study is novel in that it is the first to consider the chosen work through the lens of parodying traditional Christmas genres, as well as the cultural tradition associated with the celebration of Christmas. The paper identifies the key features of the genres of the Christmas story and ghost stories and analyses in detail how Jerome modifies them in his work. Considerable attention is paid to the kind of peculiarities of everyday life and personality traits of representatives of Victorian England that are parodied, as well as the way the comic effect is achieved in the text under consideration. As a result, it has been found that the main parodying techniques in ‘Told After Supper’ are the rationalisation of the miraculous, which destroys the atmosphere characteristic of Christmas genres, the absurdity arising from the multiple repetitions of plot devices, the hyperbolisation of the “narrator’s unreliability”, the projection of the conduct of the living on the world of ghosts and the explication of the social underside of British respectability.
Key words and phrases: Джером К. Джером, пародия, рождественская новелла, истории о призраках, Jerome K. Jerome, parody, Christmas story, ghost stories
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