Irony and (Dis)Obedience to Authority in Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time

Abstract

Julian Barnes’s novel, The Noise of Time, a biographical fiction about the Russian composer Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, focuses on the most critical periods of the composer’s career, during which he goes through the ordeal of being forced to conform to the ideology of the Soviet regime. Drawing on the composer’s biography, Barnes provides the reader with a fictionalized view of how the composer survives the oppression by the use of irony, which is a much debated issue about his artistic persona. Power measures Shostakovich’s integrity and pushes him to repudiate his artistic stance. The novel especially focuses on conveying the inner conflict of the composer and depicts him feeling shame because of his submission to Power. Under the threat of the authority, he holds on to irony which helps him overcome his fear and shame by implying his dissidence. The aim of this paper is to explore the role of irony in the relationship between art and power by discussing the compromises Shostakovich is forced to make. Also, by focusing on the inner struggle of the composer, this paper will investigate how the novel presents the ways through which the protagonist copes with the challenges in his life.

Keywords

• Julian Barnes
• Shostakovich
• irony
• powe
• music

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