THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENT IN THE WORKS OF WILLIAM SAROYAN

Abstract

Appearing in the literary world in the 30-s of the 20th century W. Saroyan demonstrated a new and original approach in revealing the American reality of his time and generally the inner world of the man. He succeeded to make profound observations and come to significant conclusions through something very personal and seemingly unimportant. Chronologically there are no strict demarcations of different genres in his works but the autobiographical element is always present both implicitly and explicitly. The collection of stories “My name is Aram” is viewed in the paper. In comparatively later period of Saroyan’s writing career the autobiographical element gained its more complete reflection in his diverse authobiographical prose.