Abstract

In this work, the peculiarities of the communicative space in the novel of modern German writer Bernard Shlink ‘The Homecoming‘ are considered. These peculiarities include literary, historical and sociological context and intertextual sub-bases of the novel containing sense bearing matters relevant for all times and nationalities; dialogic relations, expressed in the strategy of communication of characters of the novel. It is proved that the communicative space is not limited in the novel by antiquity, but rather includes token for German mentality works, motifs and images. The famous Faust’s dilemma is being played up in the novel. Revealing in the mythological images models of main psychological types and conflicts connected with the type of the personality, B. Shlink creates in his novel a number of Odysseuses, Penelopes and Telemaches. The Odysseus model manifests itself primarily in two main characters of the novel: Peter and Johann Debauers. However, the father personifies only destructive and immoral, which finally leads to his moral inability, the Odysseus-junior - Peter, who played Telemachus in the beginning of the novel, finds in his wanderings solid moral values. Perceiving the myth as a historical and dialectic process, B. Shlink, like Th. Mann, takes it as a peculiar cipher of the human experience, a model of development of the humanistic values, a prototype of mutual battle between progress and regress, which b. Shlink masterfully describes in a communicative space of his novel