The image of a teenage girl in Chuck Palahniuk’s novel “Cursed”

Abstract

The goal of this research is determination of specificity of the image of the heroine in the novel by a contemporary American writer Chuck Palahniuk “Cursed”. The article analyzes such aspects as the inner world of the character, relationship with parents, agemates and society in the two contrasting words: real world, during the lifetime of the heroine, and surreal, in hell, after her death. Detailed description of the character allows seeing two different guises of the heroine, while application of literary analysis allows analyzing the traits of the protagonist and place within the system of artistic world of Chuck Palahniuk’s prose. The paper presents a review of scientific pursuits of the Russian and foreign scholars dealing with the works of Chuck Palahniuk. The novelty of this research consists in determination of dual nature of the image of a teenager reflected in the two-world realm created by C. Palahniuk. The analysis demonstrated that in to contrasting worlds, the image of a teenager transforms and manifests differently. In the real world, it is a modest girl, with multiple feelings of inferiority, who has complicated relationships with parents and surrounding people. In the surreal world, she attains new traits, such as authoritativeness, courage, ability to maintain friendships. The conclusion is made that that Chuck Palahniuk creates two images of the heroine. Paradox lies in the fact that an unsuccessful individual in a real world becomes successful in the afterlife. Practical value of this article is defined by its contribution into the theory of literary image, particularly, future development of the methodology for studying the image of the character in transgressive prose.