Irony in F.M. Dostoevsky’s Novel The Brothers Karamazov: Functional-and-Semantic Aspect

Abstract

The article deals with the phenomenon of irony in a literary work. Irony is viewed in the study as one of the text-forming categories of hidden character, which performs the role of a meaningful component in the fictional text. It forms the semantic plan of the literary work and realizes the author’s implicit evaluation. The place and role of irony in F.M. Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov are defined: irony is expressed within the author’s implicit evaluation of the characters’ relationship among themselves and their attitude to certain facts of reality, as well as in the writer’s direct assessment of the personal qualities of the characters. At the same time, through irony the writer reveals not only the violation of ethical norms by the characters of the novel, but also their negative moral values. It is established that in order to actualize ironic evaluation the author of the work combines in one context a number of mechanisms of ironic meaning formation: double antithesis; antithesis combined with an illogical conclusion; contextual reinterpretation of the lexeme meaning in conjunction with antithesis. The complexity of the mechanisms of irony realisation in the novel imparts a sophisticated multifaceted character to the writer’s assessment.

Keywords

• implicit evaluation
• fictional text
• irony
• mechanism of irony actualisation
• f.m. dostoevsky
• “the brothers karamazov”