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LITERARY STYLISTICS

Genre. A story or a novel may belong to one of the genres: social, psychological, scientific, historical, detective, documentary.

A historical story usually deals with the events and characters drown from the past;

The social genre studies the effect of social conditions at a given time and place upon human life and content;

Psychological genre is concerned mainly with the mental and emotional lives of the characters;

Detective genre is the type in which usually a murder problem is solved;

Scientific genre deals with advances in science and their influence on human beings. Sometimes the background of the text is quite fantastic and there is no connection with reality.

Documentary story contains real events as close to reality as possible. It’s main task being to involve the reader in some vital issue of the moment.

Composition. The interrelation between different components of literary work is called composition. Any fiction text consists of a combination of relatively independent pieces of narrative: narration, description, dialogue, interior monologue.

Narration is dynamic; it gives continuous account of events while description is static, it’s a verbal portraiture of an object, person or scene. Narration may be detailed and direct or impressionistic, giving few but striking details.

Narration is never homogeneous as to the form and content of the information it carries. Both very much depend on the view point of the addresser, writer as the author and its characters may offer different perception of the reality described.

Dialogue is a piece of the text in which personages express their minds in the form of uttered speech. In their exchange of remarks, the characters while discussing other people expose themselves too. Dialogue is important form of the personage’s self-characterization. It allows the author to seemingly eliminate to the process. It also brings the action nearer to the readers, makes it more swift and intense.

Interior monologue is an interior speech of the personage. It allows the writer and the reader to peep into the in-world of the character, to observe his ideas and views showing one major topic of his thinking offering causes of his actions. Insets in interior speech present immediate mental and emotional reactions of the personage to the other person’s remark. In extreme cases the author describes the disjointed purely associative manner of thinking, which makes interior speech almost or completely incomprehensible. These cases belong to the so-called stream-of-consciousness technique which is especially popular with representatives of modernism. It gives the reader an impression of unending and uneven flow of ideas, feelings and memories in a character’s mind.

There can be found a peculiar combination of the view points and language spheres of the author and character. This combination is analyzed as represented speech.

Represented speech is made use of to show either the mental reproduction of a once uttered remark or the character’s thinking. The first is known as represented uttered speech, the second — as represented inner speech. The later is close to interior speech.

The Author’s Point of View. In contemporary fiction the author’s task is to effectively impart to the reader various views and emotions of both: the writer and his personages and to impress the reader that the events described are real. This all fully depends on the form of the author’s narration or speech which is defined as the author’s point of view. There are many ways of telling the story: it may be told

— by the author

— by one of the characters

— by means of letters or diaries

— by reproducing (recording) the thoughts of some characters.

So, the point of view of a story is determined by the questions «Who tells the story?» «How much is he allowed to know?» «To what extent does the author look inside the character and report their thoughts and feelings?»

There are four basic points of view:

— omniscient = entrusted

— limited omniscient:

a) major character

b) minor character

3) first person: a) major character

b) minor character

4) objective.

In the omniscient point of view, the story is told by the author, using the third person. He knows all and he can tell us as much or as little as he pleases. It’s the most flexible point of view. It permits the widest scope.

The limited omniscient point of view is that in which the author tells the story in the third person, but he tells it from the point of view of one of the characters of the story. The character may be major or minor. The author tells us what that character sees and hears and what he thinks and feels. But he shows no knowledge of what other characters are thinking or feeling and doing. He can only guess about their feelings.

In the first person point of view the author disappears into one of his characters who tell the story in the first person. He may be major or minor character and observer. It offers a gain in immediacy and reality. The author’s being is eliminated (dropped out). But there’s an opportunity for direct explanation by the author. In some of the stories the heart of the story may lie in the difference between what the narrator perceives and what the reader perceives. In such cases the author makes use of irony to show his own judgement.

In the objective point of view, the author disappears into a kind of camera which records only what is seen or heard. It can’t comment, interpret or enter the character’s mind. The reader is placed in the position of a spectator at a movie or a play. Such stories may be written in a dialogue or give an external action. The reader is to make his own interpretations.

Plot is a sequence of incidents or events of which a story is composed. A plot may be recounted with lesser or greater detail. It may include what a character thinks or says as well as what he does. But it leaves out description and analysis and concentrates mostly on major happenings. The plot isn’t only schemes and intrigues. Every story must have significant action. The gist of the plot is a conflict. The main characters may be in conflict with some other person or a group of persons (a man-against-man conflict) or with some external force, for example physical nature (a man-against-environment conflict). He also may be in conflict with society (a man-against-society conflict) or some element in his own nature (a man-against-himself conflict). Besides, the conflict may be physical, mental, emotional or moral. The essential character in the conflict (sympathetic or unsympathetic) is referred to as the protagonist. The forces acting against him (things, conventions of society or traits of his own character) are referred to as the antagonist. In some stories the conflict is single, clear cut and easily identifiable. In others it’s multiple, various and subtle. Sometimes a person may be involved into conflicts without knowing it. The conflict may be external (expressed by actions and wishes) or internal.

The Plot Structure. The plot of a literary work is its plan and the structure of the action comprising a series of incidents or system of events. Episode is a separate incident, helping to unfold the action in a large piece of fiction. Each and every event that represents the conflict (the gist of the plot) has a beginning, a development and an end. The plot accordingly consists of exposition, story and ending. In the exposition the necessary preliminaries to the action are laid out such as the time, the place and the subject of the action. Also some light must be cast on the circumstances that will influence the development of the action. Story seldom leads quickly and logically to the crucial moment of the plot development. Story embraces four elements: the beginning, the development, the highest point and the relaxation of the conflict. The corresponding components of the plot story are the beginning and the development, the climax and the denouement. The beginning of the story opens the development and shows the rising actions. There are some lexical units naming this rising. The development is the part of the story that shows the collision itself, brings the collision to the highest point, some lexical and phraseological units naming the events enumerated may be traced in the text. The crucial point of the conflict of the action development is referred to as its climax. It’s the decisive point on which the fate of the characters and the final action depend. The collision reaches the highest intensity. It’s interrupted through the language units naming the highest point of intensity in the development line. They are action verbs and action verbal phraseological units. The denouement shows the falling action and brings the development line to an end. The ending comes after the denouement. Sometimes it coincides with the denouement. The ending may be a surprise one, a happy or unhappy one. In a surprise ending an unexpected turn of the plot development not made clear until the end of the work. Some stories have an undetermined ending. It shows that a conflict may not be resolved, because its solution is not easy.

Types of Plot Structure. Many stories have the norm plot-structure pattern arrangement. That’s title — text (exposition — story (beginning — development — climax — denouement) — ending). A work of fiction which has all the plot structure components is clearly identifiable is viewed as having a closed plot-structure. A literary work lacking some of its plot structure components is viewed as having an open plot-structure. However, there may be variation in the arrangement of the plot-structure components such as

— the exposition and the beginning may be combined;

— the climax and denouement may overlap (coincide);

— the denouement and the ending may coincide;

— the story part may be inserted into the exposition;

— the ending may open the fiction piece;

— a story may be inserted into a story.

Character may be presented either directly or indirectly. Accordingly, direct or indirect character drawing may be analyzed. In direct presentation the writer tells us straight out what a character is or has someone else in the story tell us what he’s like. In indirect presentation the writer shows to us the character in action. We guess what he’s like from what he thinks, says, does. The character may be flat or round. The flat character is impressionistic. One or two treats are brought force. He can be described in a sentence. The round character is complex and many-sided. Stock characters (stereotyped figures) are as, for example, a cruel stepmother etc. Characters may be stating or developing. Stating are the same at the beginning and at the end. Developing (=dynamic) character undergoes some changes in personality or look, for better or worse, small or large.

Theme is the interpreted aspect of life (War and peace, race discrimination and the like). The same theme may be differently developed and integrated with other themes. There may be the basic theme, rival themes, by-themes.

The thematic development of the story is interpreted through nominating chains of lexical and phraseological units serving as key-units.

Idea is a controlling (central) insight message of the story. It is the unifying generalization about life stated or implied by the story. One is supposed to answer the questions What view of life does the story support? or What did the author want to say? The idea may be stated very briefly or at greater length. It may be brief or long. The writer doesn’t state the idea, but verifies it. Sometimes it’s explicitly stated by the author or some of the characters. More often the idea is implied or implicit.

LINGUISTIC STYLISTICS

Lexical Stylistic Devices

Metaphor is a secondary nomination unit based on likeness, similarity or affinity (real or imaginary) of some features of two different objects. Metaphor is usually used in the predicate group, because it aims at individualisation and characterisation of the object.

It is a transfer of the name of an object to another object on the basis of similarity, likeness, affinity of the two objects. At the same time there is no real connection between them. The stylistic function of a metaphor is its expressive characterization, for example:

• the apple of the eye, a leg of the table, an arm of the clock the foot of the hill etc;

• The machine sitting at the desk was no longer a man; it was a busy New York broker… (O’Henry)

• They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling, unable to communicate (W.S.Gilbert).

• «I’m the crater of a volcano,» says he. «I’m all aflame and crammed inside with an assortment of words and phrases that have got to have an exodus. I can feel millions of synonyms and parts of speech rising in me,» says he, «and I’ve got to make a speech of some sort.» (O’Henry).

• The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty, becomes sluggish. (O. Wilde).

• He was a merry, unthinking moth of the lamp (Dreiser).

Personification is a stylistic device closely related to metaphor. It is the presentation of a phenomenon or an idea as a human being. This device is usually achieved by ascribing actions and qualities characteristics of people to the idea or the thing described. It is also a variety of metaphor. It is based on ascribing some features and characteristics of a person to a thing, for example:

• Autumn comes;

• And trees are shedding their leaves;

• And Mother Nature blushes Before disrobing. (N. West);

• Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand at our fevered head… and, though she does not speak, we know what she would say… (Jerome).

• «Oh,» she was about to exclaim, but checked herself and allowed her thoughts to die without expression. (Dreiser).

The weak form of personification is called Apostrophe. It usually has the form of an address.

• Oh Rome! My country! City of the soul-

The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,