Стилистический анализ текста. Учебное пособие

lowed her brutal or heroic friend out of the studio and into the shadow of the neighboring house. (Priestley)

Repetition

I. Discuss the type of repetition in the following examples:

I. "He's a good boy. Gale is," he said. (Clark)

2.He promised he would send a woman too, a woman who would take care of things and not be a sympathy monger. (Clark)

3."All a great cowardly lie," he said violently. "All pose; empty, gutless pretence." (Clark)

4.Then the door shut and I was face to face with Lord Nasty.

A big man. Big head. Big face. Big moustache. Big stomach. (Christie)

5.The weariness of this dirt and labour, of this dirty melting sky! For hours we have carried great bundles of hay from train to barge... The weariness of this dirt and labour! (Aldington)

6.This Smith he is a mighty man. (Morning Star)

7.Only in such moments as this, moments of contention and excitement, did he feel the fires of life spurting up again inside him, fierce and bright.... (Busch)

8."He'd had funny ideas, had Pimple." (Bush)

9."Knock at the winder, sir, knock at the winder. Lord bless you, don't lose no more time than you can help; knock at the winder!" (Dickens)

1O.He stood there very quietly waiting with the patience that was characteristic of his whole big patient form. (Christie)

11.`We let you come and let you stay, if that was what you wanted. We gave

you the old Penrose house and let you fix it up and make a place to paint your pictures, if it was what you wanted." (Tryon)

12,He was always cordial, but to-day his cordiality took my breath away. (Maugham)

II.Discuss the function of repetition in the following cases.

1.Mr. Smith pushed his way into our dialogue with a roughness I had not known him to possess. "You can find out what the charge is, can't you?"

"Charge?"

"Charge." "Oh, - charge."

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"Exactly," Mr. Smith said. "Charge."

"There will not necessarily be a charge. You are anticipating the worst." (Greene)

2.Madame Philip, the Smiths and I were alone with the hearse and the coffin, and we listened in silence to the other silence on the road. (Greene)

3."I'm crazy. Absolutely round the bend," Trey said. (Robins)

4.From the shadows, Scarlett glared at her, too tired to rail, too tired to upbraid, too tired to enumerate Pussy's offenses – her boastful assumption of experience she didn't possess, her flight, her blundering awkwardness, her utter inefficiency when the emergency was hat, the misplacing of the scissors, the spilling of the basin of water on the bed, the dropping of the new born baby. (Mitchell)

5."Most unsound, that fellow Hogarov," he said, "most unsound." (Christie)

6.Then she hit me on the leg with her fist. She gets very fisty when she feels like it. (Salinger)

7."He's a good boy, is young Michael." (Marsh)

8."She's a clever, a desperate and a courageous woman." (Marsh)

9."He must be endured and made as endurable as possible." (Lincoln) 1.0....

and poor Bell found himself engaged ... to a coarse, ill-tempered, ill-favoured, ill-mannered, middle-aged woman. (Thackeray)

10.Perhaps he thought and wondered at the way in which women play with men, and coax them and win them and drop them. (Thackeray)

11.But perhaps there was nothing to confess, even now very likely was nothing to confess. Was it wise to push things so far? Was it wise to put himself into a position where he might have to eat his words? (Galsworthy)

Insertion

1.Freebeard lowered himself slowly onto this (i. e. bed) (with only the slightest sigh of bending at his middle) until he lay at full length, with his arms behind his head, looking up at the ceiling... (Tolkien)

2.She had a little pension — her husband had been a postman — and made a few extra shillings by sewing. (Huxley)

3.Uncle Tom was remarkably civil while he stayed (was it he brought you rumours?) but it is pleasanter with the girls alone. (Lee)

4.The old butler (the Stoneleigh servants were all old in service) was introducing another guest. (Lee)

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5.Between Mr Muhammad’s teachings, my correspondence, my visitors – usually Ella and Reginald – and my reading of books, months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned.( Malcolm X)

6.She reckoned – and reckoned rightly – that George Augustus would follow her up pretty smartly, for fear of “what people would say”. (Aldington)

7.The loving and united home at Sheffield was in some consternation when Isabel did not return for lunch; and the consternation almost became panic – it certainly became rage in dear Mama – when George Augustus found and communicated Isabel’s letter. (Aldington)

1.4.THE TECHNIQUE OF A LITERARY ANALYSIS

a) Drafting and revising a literary analysis

The process for writing a literary analysis is similar to that for any other kind of essay: once you've done the reading and thought about it, you need to focus your ideas, gather evidence, draft, and revise.

b) Conceiving thesis

After reading, rereading, and making notes, you probably will be able to formulate a tentative thesis sentence—a statement of your main point, your argument. Clear the air by glancing over your notes and by jotting down a few especially promising ideas—brief statements of what you think your key points may be and their main support.

c) Gathering evidence

The evidence for a literary analysis always comes from at least one primary source (the work or works being discussed) and may come from secondary sources (critical and historical accounts about the primary sources. For example, if you were writing about Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," the primary material would be the story itself, and the secondary material (if you used it) would be biographies and critical studies of Chopin.

The bulk of your evidence in writing about literature will usually be quotations from the work, although you will occasionally summarize or paraphrase as well.

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d) Writing a draft

Drafting your critical writing is your opportunity to develop your thesis or to discover it if you haven't already.

e) Revising and editing

As in other writing, use at least two drafts to revise and edit, so that you can attend separately to the big structural issues and the smaller surface problems. For a literary analysis, revise your paper against the checklist below.

f) Checklist for revising a literary analysis

-Does the title of the essay consist of more than the title of the work discussed? Your title should give the reader an idea of your topic.

-Does the introductory paragraph avoid openings such as "In this story . .

."? Name the author and the title so that the reader knows exactly what work you are discussing. Develop your thesis a bit so that readers know where they will be going. Is the organization effective? The literary analysis should not dwindle or become anticlimactic; rather, it should build up. Do quotations provide evidence and let the reader hear the author's voice?

-Is the literary analysis chiefly devoted to analysis, not to summary? Do not summarize the plot in great detail. A couple of sentences may be helpful if your readers are not familiar with the work, but a summary is not a literary analysis.

-Have you used the present tense of verbs to describe both the author's work and the action in the work (for example, Chopin shows or Mrs. Mallard dies)?

-If you have used the first-person I (for instance, I find the ending highly plausible), have you avoided using it so often that you sound egotistical?

-Your evaluation of the work evident? It may be understood or it may be explicit. In either case, give the reasons for judging the work to be effective or not, worth reading or not. Remember that it is not enough to express your likes or dislikes; readers will be interested in an evaluation only if you support it with evidence.

-Did you document your sources?

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Here is a very short story by Kate Chopin (1851-1904). Following the story are student’s annotations and journal entry on the story.

Kate Chopin

The Story of an Hour

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences, veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

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There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will—as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.

When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "Free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.

She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending her in the blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door—you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

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"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in the very elixir of life through that open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

But Richards was too late.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills.

A student, Helen Smith, made the following annotations on the first five paragraphs of Chopin's story.

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death. (“heart disease” at end of story)

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences, veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. ( too hasty, it turns out)

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sisters arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

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There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. (Old fashioned style), (Would men have heard the same?)

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. ( Notices spring: odd in a story of death)

Writing in her journal, Helen Smith posed a series of questions about the story—critical points, curiosities about characters, possible implications.

Title nothing special. What might be a better title?

Could a woman who loved her husband be so heartless? Is she heartless? Did she love him?

What are (were) Louise's feelings about her husband? Did she want too much? What did she want?

Could this story happen today? Feminist interpretation?

Sister (Josephine)—a busybody? Tricky ending—but maybe it could be

true.

"And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not." Why does one love someone "sometimes"?

Irony: plot has reversal. Are characters ironic too?

This journal entry illustrates brainstorming—the discovery technique of listing ideas (or questions) however they occur, without editing.

Another productive journal technique is focused free writing— concentrating on a single issue (such as the previous one) and writing nonstop for a set amount of time, again without editing.

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Analyzing a work of literature

Like any discipline, the study of literature involves particular frameworks of analysis—particular ways of seeing literary works that help determine what parts the critical reader identifies and how he or she interprets them. A very common framework for literary analysis, outlined on the following page, focuses the reader's attention on character, scene, and other conventional elements of literature. The questions can help you think constructively and imaginatively about what you read.

One significant attribute of a literary work is its meaning, or what we can interpret to be its meaning. Readers may well disagree over the persuasiveness of someone's argument, but they will rarely disagree over its meaning. With literature, however, disagreements over meaning occur all the time because (as we have seen) literature shows rather than tells: it gives us concrete images of imagined human experiences, but it usually does not say how we ought to understand the images.

Further, readers of course bring different experiences to their reading. To take an extreme case, a woman who has recently lost her husband may interpret "The Story of an Hour" differently from most other readers. Or a story that bores a reader at age fifteen may deeply move her at twenty-five. The words on the page remain the same, but their meaning changes.

In writing about literature, then, we can offer only our interpretation of meaning rather than the meaning. Still, most people agree that there are limits to interpretation: it must be supported by evidence that a reasonable reader finds at least plausible if not totally convincing. For instance, the student who says that in "The Story of an Hour" Mrs. Mallard does not die but merely falls into a deathlike trance goes beyond the permissible limits because the story offers no evidence for such an interpretation.

Questions for a literary analysis

•Plot: the relationships and patterns of events. (Even a poem has a plot— for instance, a change in mood from bitterness to resignation.)

What actions happen? What conflicts occur?

How do the events connect to each other and to the whole?

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•Characters: the people the author creates (including the narrator of a story or the speaker of a poem).

Who are the principal people in the work? How do they interact?

What do their actions, words, and thoughts reveal about their personalities and the personalities of others? Do the characters stay the same, or do they change? Why?

•Point of view: the perspective or attitude of the speaker in a poem or the voice who tells a story. The point of view may be first person (a participant, using I ) or third person (an outsider, using he, she, it, they).

A first-person narrator may be a major or a minor character in the narrative, and may be reliable or unreliable (unable to report events wholly or accurately).

A third-person narrator may be omniscient (knows what goes on in all characters' minds), limited (knows what goes on in the mind of only one character), or objective (knows only what is external to the characters).

Who is the narrator (or the speaker of a poem)?

How does the narrator's point of view affect the narrative?

•Tone: the narrator's or speaker's attitude, perceived through the words (for instance, joyful, bitter, or confident).

What tone (or tones) do you hear? If there is a change, how do you account for it?

Is there an ironic contrast between the narrator's tone (for instance, confidence) and what you take to be the author's attitude (for instance, pity for human overconfidence)?

Imagery: word pictures or visual details involving the senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste).

What images does the writer use? What senses do they draw on? What patterns are evident in the images (for instance, religious or commercial images)? What is the significance of the imagery?

Symbolism: concrete things standing for larger and more abstract ideas (for instance, the American flag may symbolize freedom, a tweeting bird may symbolize happiness, or a dead flower may symbolize mortality).

What symbols does the author use? What do they seem to signify?

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