ANTIHEROES OF THEIR OWN LIVES

CHARACTERS IN THE PROSE WORKS OF WILLIAM TREVOR

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to define the basic features of a typical Trevor’s character necessary for the analysis and comprehension of all author’s literary works. William Trevor writes novels, novellas and short stories about humanised аnd untypical characters, which he builds based on the mimetic literary method, directs by the principle of the realistic motivation and evaluates according to the criteria of believability. The author establishes the essential roundness of his postmodern characters (who are lost, atomised, and alienated) via the attribution of complex and contradictory traits of the human personality. Such narrative process is founded upon the psychological and ethical characterisation, and the portrayal of the character’s stream of consciousness. The author forges his characters on the front line of the archetypal battle between the good and the evil in man and nature, Ireland and England, the country and the city, the “old-world” religiousness and the “new-world” loss of faith. The startling plight of all Trevor’s antiheroes, caused by an unfortunate turn of events, initiates their introspective self-evaluation until the cathartic (self-)cognition is reached, which brings a completely changed system of thoughts, values and beliefs. The radical metamorphosis of the character’s personality is always and exclusively paid by life’s happiness, the loss of which poses the underlying atmosphere, tone, colour, and leitmotif ofeach and every Trevor’s literary work.