Pragmatic architectonics of the literary dialogue: absurdity as the form and content of protagonists’ speech

Abstract

The article is devoted to the pragmatic analysis of the dialogical texts in the novel “Catch-22” by J. Heller forming the intersection of the absurdist literature representatives’ theoretical views on the surface structure and semantic content of characters’ interpersonal relationships. The research is aimed at identifying the specificity of meaning generation as a mechanism of the author’s poetics of the absurd. In particular, this poetics is systematically reflected in the mechanical verbatim reproduction of a verbal stimulus by a reacting character. Applying a comparison analysis with the relevant contexts from S. Beckett’s absurdist play “Endgame”, in which the opposite trend is observed, it is established that there is a complete reduction of meaning in an effort to focus readers’ attention on the problematic nature of genuine effective communication in the modern world. It is revealed that in the context of J. Heller’s novel and S. Beckett’s play the pragmatic diversity of repetition as a means of constructing characters’ dialogical communication is associated with the contrasting interpretation of philosophical ideas of existentialism. For J. Heller repetition is an epistemological category reflecting the character’s dominant cognitions in the process of orientation in the hostile universe. The author’s implications such as the character’s subconscious fear, his permanent existential anxiety about the need to survive in an extreme situation, increased suspicion or dispassionate indifference towards the interlocutor, the protagonist’s ironic reaction to incompetence, irrationality of the actions of representatives of the authorities and auxiliary units of the flight garrison are revealed. Repetition in the characters’ speech is also associated with the desire to maintain the phatic contact with the interlocutor, whose state of affairs borders on mortal danger. The main character’ dialogical activity as an antihero is considered. It is concluded that in the novel “Catch-22” J. Heller subverts the absurdist literature basic principles, implemented through the reproduction of the characters’ dialogical speech. The author of the novel focuses readers’ attention on the relevance of preserving the traditional postulates of dialogical communication, and on the creative power of language structures and models in interpersonal interaction.