NATIONAL SPECIFICITY OF AMERICAN SATIRICAL SHORT STORIES

The article discusses distinguishing features of the American humor and satire. National peculiarities of American satirical short stories are analyzed via examples of the works of American short-story writers. The main attributes of satire, its history, genres as well as the specifics of the genre are considered. The phenomena of satirical short story popularity in America is analyzed. Stylistic devices, comic creation means, implemented in the works of the XX century American writers are distinguished. The artistic means used by the masters of American satire are diverse. Here we find notorious cartoon, and psychological analysis with a satirical tint, and grotesque, and elements of "wild humor". Writers use hyperbole, satire, and parody to express their negative attitude towards capitalist America. In satirical short stories, all aspects of American life are mercilessly ridiculed: politics, law, religion, journalism, and literature. The article shows that for American authors of the twentieth century, the use of comic at the plot, character and sentence levels is most characteristic, while the expression of the comic at the level of collocation is less involved. A typical feature of American short stories is the construction of the story, where a sharpened plot is necessarily present, leading to a paradoxical, unexpected ending. The paper examines the specifics of satirical short stories, which is based on the original concept of the writer reflected in his satirical works. The article demonstrates that exposure is the main attribute of satire, and the basis of satire is reproof and laughter, with the help of laughter authors expose shortcomings, human vices. Thus, the article develops and introduces a characteristic feature of satire, which is a negative attitude to the images and object, at the same time, the presence of a positive ideal, against which negative features of images are revealed. Thus, the author states that comic as an aesthetic category manifests itself at different levels of the text and is a determining factor in text formation in satirical-humorous works of American authors of the early XX century.