IRONY AS A TOOL FOR REFRAMING THE CONTEXT IN JULIAN BARNES’S NOVEL “METROLAND”

The authors higlight the role of irony as a tool for reframing as a defining marker of postmodern literature in Julian Barnes's novel "Metroland".The authors state that postmodernism captures the details of modern existence, frequently highlighting incoherent human connections and a prevailing sense of existential disconnection, all while challenging conventional ethical frameworks.Irony as a tool for reframing appears as a distinctive and prevalent element of J.Barnes's idiostyle, shaping multiple layers of the narrative -from dialogue and reflection to description and commentary.A close analysis of numerous linguistic units with ironic undertones reveals that Julian Barnes employs irony as a shift in the context across lexical, syntactic, and textual levels, which collectively form the contextual meaning of the entire novel.The consistency of the author's ironic perspective, especially about youth and human relationships, is sustained through both situational irony (demonstrated lexically and syntactically) and associative irony (realized at the textual level); the aim of each is to reframe the contextual level of the text.The reframing effects are achieved through a range of stylistic devices, including the author's neologisms, parenthetical insertions, detached constructions, contrast, repetition, and quotation.The selected utterances, marked by subjective ironic evaluation, interact and reinforce one another, as well as contribute to the novel's broader aesthetic and conceptual framework.The conducted research proves that through the strategic use of irony as a device for reframing, Julian Barnes reveals contrasting layers of perception of the characters of the novel -Christopher Lloyd and Toni Barbarowski, carefully selecting language means that expose alternative sides of their experience.