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Abstract: The article examines the receptive program of Jim Shepard’s novel The Book of Aron (2015). The study focuses on the literary reception of the historical precedent figure of Janusz Korczak and its role in programming readerly participation in a Holocaust narrative. The aim of the study is to describe how Korczak’s presence in the novel’s imagery and the organization of narration through a child’s voice guide interpretation: they make the reader complete the image of the pedagogue and reassess the moral status of the characters’ choices under the conditions of survival and coercion. Methodologically, the article combines reader-response and narratological approaches and the techniques of narrative pragmatics. It analyzes focalization, subject–object relations, address modes and forms of reader involvement, drawing on the phenomenon of unreliable narration. As a result, the study shows that Korczak’s name and reputation operate as a mechanism of pre-interpretation that sets four receptive frames: cognitive (a documentary effect through toponyms, dates, and “archival” allusions), didactic (an expectation of moral transformation), affective (regulation of empathy and emotional tension), and ethical (programming of moral judgment). The analysis demonstrates that these frames are deliberately transformed through the restricted child’s perspective, minimalistic diction, and the “desacralization” of the hero. The novel constructs an ambivalent image of Korczak and transfers part of the evaluative work to the reader. This is also achieved via biblical allusions to betrayal and redemption. The article concludes that Shepard’s Korczak functions as a norm-setting figure that reinforces trust in the child’s statement and orients reading toward distinguishing crime from error. The findings can be employed to carry out pragmatic analysis of subject-object structures in fiction, as well as to explore the images of historical characters.

About the author(s) :

Evgeniya S. Zhironkina

Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin
(Ekaterinburg, Russian Federation)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2346-9368

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 10.03.2026; date of publication: 30.06.2026

References:

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