Main Characters in D. Tartt’s Prose: Exploring the Hero

Examines various types and specifics of the protagonists’ presentation in the novels The Secret History, The Little Friend, The Goldfinch by the contemporary Donna Tartt American writer. The purpose of the study is to analyze the way the process of growing up is shown in the author’s works. The hero’s formation impacts the leading motifs, the choice of a protagonist type (a child or a teenager) and a narrative mode (a first-person or third-person narrative mode with social and philosophical digressions), and ultimately gives the reader a possibility to make conclusions about the protagonist. Emphasizes a connection between Tartt’s coming-of-age novels and the Young Adult fiction genre as well as points to symbolic connotations in the narrative that help the author create the protagonist’s indirect characteristics. The contextual analysis of the three novels explains the specifics of the characters’ inner world and their worldviews. Tartt and her characters are passionate about literature and art, thus the narration is firmly based on the principle of intertextuality. The study contributes to the development of literature theory in the field of poetics. The practical significance of the research results is determined by the possibility to use them in teaching American contemporary literature and stylistics.