The article presents a comparative analysis of the relationship between the narrator and the main character in the structure of flash fiction by A.P. Chekhov and J. Joyce. The authors conclude that there are typological similarities in the relationship between the narrator and the main character in the flash fiction of A.P. Chekhov and J. Joyce. This was influenced by the global trend in literature at the turn of the 20th century, according to which the role of the author as an omniscient and omnipresent demiurge of the fictional world started to wane. The paper puts forward that the unique entwinement of the narrator’s and the main character’s voices in A.P. Chekhov’s and J. Joyce’s short stories is the main structural-constructive factor of the free indirect speech and contributes to revealing the subtle creative substance of the works.