КОНТРАСТИТЕ ВО РОМАНОТ СВЕТСКА ИЗЛОЖБА НА Е. Л. ДОКТОРОУ
CONTRASTS IN E. L. DOCTOROW’S NOVEL WORLD FAIR

Summary/Abstract: We attempted to present the depth and the multidimensionality of the characters in the novel World’s Fair (1985) by American novelist Edgar Lawrence Doctorow through his usage of contrast/-s. By using this stylistic tool, Doctorow manages to successfully give the reader a deeper insight into the world of his narrator Edgar, but also of his various characters (mostly his mother and his brother Donald), which would have otherwise remained two-dimensional and static. Some of the characters (like Edgar’s aunt Frances), sometimes “fill in” the story with details that complete the saga of his family’s history and in these chapters, the reader finds out what happened to characters which were not given their individual voice (like Edgar’s father Dave). The novel utilizes multiple focalizations dominated by Edgar and this contributes to contrasts on a structural level of the novel. Same events are presented in different fashion or, rather, they have different impact on different characters’ emotional viewpoint and memory. The utilization of contrasts gives the novel dynamic flow, especially in the artistic and philosophical way of picturing/remembering rather ephemeral childhood memories and it vividly presents discrepancies in the relationships between different generations of people in the same family: Rose-Edgar, Dave-Rose, Rose-Gussie and, even implicitly, Edgar-Gussie. Through contrasts, the narrator also touches upon certain delicate questions, such as class and religion during the Depression era and the dread of Hitler’s reign of power.

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