RHIZOMATIC NARRATIVE POLYPHONY: CREATING POSTIRONY IN DONAL RYAN’S NOVEL «THE SPINNING HEART»

Abstract

The article analyzes the author’s stylistic technique of rhizomatic narrative polyphony as a means of structuring a polyphonic narrative. It examines the monologues of 21 characters within the context of creating post-irony in the novel “The Spinning Heart” by Irish writer Donal Ryan. It is proved that organizing a polyphonic novel with many characters-narrators who are equal in their views requires the author to use an appropriate compositional tool to individualize the monologues of all the characters and narrators without losing the central storyline. The rhizomatic nature of the narrative allows the creation of the necessary interpersonal connections between the characters without losing their narrative «significance». It is illustrated that due to the rhizomatic structure and narrative type, each of the characters expresses sincere emotions and experiences, reflects on their own traumas, and expresses a subjective attitude towards the environment, immersing themselves in honest reflections on the nature of their own internal and external conflicts, as well as childhood traumas. The content of the narrators’ monologues is characterized by intransigence, fragmentation, and illogic, with a partial loss of narrative logic and individual speech expressiveness. Exhausting the reader’s emotional reserve, each narrator speaks in detail within the monologue, trying to cover both their own experiences and the general picture of the city’s inhabitants’ life experiences. The author, under such conditions, remains far from assessing his own characters and does not grant narrative privileges to any of them, equating the tragedies of each. Hence, it is proved that rhizomatic narrative polyphony makes it possible to embody a postironic literary intention because despite the sincerity of each monologue, the characters do not communicate or intersect in dialogues within the novel. Rhizomatic narrative polyphony as a way of creating postirony in the novel emphasises the author’s postirony: remaining the characters «deaf» to other people’s experiences, the characters of Donal Ryan’s novel are unable to fully realise their sincere intentions, empathy for others and identify themselves in the multi-voiced environment of the novel.