The role of ekphrasis in the system of characters in the novel "Christmas holiday" by William Somerset Maugham

The article is devoted to the analysis of ekphrastic images in the novel by William Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965) «Christmas holiday» (1939). Text analysis allows to conclude that the main function of this technique in the novel is to specify the characters. Ekphrasis helps to see not only ethnic and national differences between Russian and English people and the difficulties of their communication, but also the general point of interaction and the potential opportunities for spiritual convergence.