PECULIARITIES OF POST-POSTOMODERN PSYCHOLOGY IN CONTEMPORARY BRITISH NOVEL

Abstract

In the paper, I explore the strategies of the “resurrection of the subject” in the discourse of English post-postmodern novel. It has been emphasized the essential role of psychology in contemporary British novels. This paper reports the results of the investigation about the nature of the interaction of characters with the society, artistic revision of socio-political problems, etc. has been revealed. The peculiarities of the outlook of characters endowed with exceptional features (presence of Asperger’s syndrome, inability to hear untruth, etc.) have been discussed. It is emphasized that the worldview of post-postmodern characters is determined by genetic and physiological features, which makes it possible to perceive the reality as objectively as possible, discarded and analytically. At the same time, characters find strategies for post-postmodern humanism, which is fundamentally different from the humanistic traditions of the twentieth century. Post-postmodern narrative reacts to the idea of the Nietzsche’s philosophy of the plurality of truth. In the post-postmodern novels, the idea of plurality of truth is not denied but along with these truths there is an attempt to reach an ontological Truth, which is not currently given in senses and knowledge, since mankind has not reached a certain state of its own development. This idea is especially presented in David Mitchell’s novel “Cloud Atlas.” The main idea of the paper is that the hypothetical presence of Truth actualizes the motive of the ontological knowledge search, the need to understand the world at a qualitatively different level than humanity is experiencing here and now. Ontological forms of cognition of Truth in novels may be music (the ability to create musical masterpieces that appear as a form of the proclamation of the Truth), mathematics (as a perfect language, devoid of the disadvantages of metaphorical according to which the narrowing of the picture of the world occurs). Besides, the autistic mind of the post-postmodern protagonist of the novel “The Curious Incident…” seeks to know the surrounding reality as a system in which it is possible to establish regularities between its various fragments. All this determines the multidimensionality of the discourse of the “resurrection of the subject” in the contemporary British novels. The English post-postmodern novels represent a break with the postmodern tradition of novelistic characters. However, bringing the narrative closer to the actual broadcast of people with autism, writers currently do not have tools to depict deep psychological experiences in the inner world of characters. The autistic consciousness of post-postmodern characters resembles the phenomenon of “black box” or a computer whose internal processes remain incomprehensible to an outside user.