The problem of author, point of view and narrative situation (in the novels by J.Barnes, J.Fowles, G.Swift)

In our investigation devoted to the three well-known novels written by J.Barnes, J.Fowles and G.Swift we try to use the concept of «narrative situation» suggested by the Austrian scholar Franz Stanzel. It reflects the idea of choosing a mediator who helps a reader in his\her understanding of the depicted. Such a mediator may be either an omniscient author-narrator or a restricted consciousness of the hero reflecting the world. The mediator in the first-person novel may be similar either to the first or to the second type. Typical of the postmodern novel the plurality of interpretations of the depicted, not reduced to one «point of view», is determined by changing of «narrative situations».