Journal archive

Abstract: The paper examines genre`s specificity of J. Winterson’s «Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days» (2016). The aim is to assess possibilities of the Christmas story in modern literary process. In these stories Winterson follows to the genre canon which Dickens had founded out. The ideal model of life with the happy home where loving each other people unite becomes the genre content. Social themes are distinctly traced in the most of this stories. The poverty of spirit is generated by the postindustrial society; the poverty of daily life is generated by the poverty of spirit. It is the main problem of J. Winterson’s «Christmas Days stories». Winterson’s worldview is generous and optimistic, stemming at least in part from the chief survival skill she learned early on — using her imagination. The author shows the romantic side of familiar things. The didactic modus is expressed in training of the reader to art to find a miracle in an everyday life. In between the stories, Winterson grounds us in what she calls the «everyday ordinary miracle» of cooking. The analysis of stories proves that they can be considered in an English context of «magic realism» in which we find the transformation of the common and everyday life into the awesome and unreal, the unreal happens to be the part of reality. The writers of the Great Britain managed to keep the great tradition of the English literature during the postmodernist period. This aspiration promotes an education of socially responsible person, formation of certain moral qualities in the reader. So, Winterson’s short stories can be recommended in our school teaching, at home reading lessons.