Antithesis
It is a figure of speech which consists of several phrases, clauses or sentences which are often parallel constructions. In these units one thing or idea is contrasted to its opposite with the help of antonyms (often contextual):
I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man, I crawled out a decrepit wreck. (J.K. Jerome)
Antithesis functions to compare things by contrasting them to each other, emphasizing their differences:
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together.
Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care.
Youth is like summer morn, age like winter weather.
Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.
Antithesis may also be used to characterise the complex inner structure of a single phenomenon, thing or idea. It brings out ambivalent feelings, clash of ideas:
His face told me all. The silent struggle, the clash of feelings: contempt and longing, helplessness and rage. The need to cling and to repel to kneel and to defile. (B. Kaufman)
Rhetorical question
It is a figure of speech which presents a statement in the form of a questition. Rhetorical questions may express a positive or a negative statement:
Did I say a word about the money? (B.Shaw) = I didn’t say a word about the money.
Isn’t that too bad? = That’s too bad.
Don’t I remember! (O.Henry) = I do remember!
Rhetorical questions may express inducement:
Oh, why doesn’t he shut up?
Why don’t you try again?
By its form a rhetorical question is often negative:
Have I no reason to lament
What man has made of man? (W.Wordsworth)
Such a contrast between the form of a negative question and the meaning of a positive statement deepens the expressiveness of the utterance.
Rhetorical questions are an indispensable element of publicistic style. A rhetorical question or a series of questions is a way of opening a speech. They make the audience think about the subject and increase its emotional appeal.
Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it the gentlemen wish? What would they have? (A. Lincoln)
In fiction rhetorical questions are often employed in interior monologues to represent the process of reasoning of the character or the narrator.
His mood underwent a complete revulsion. What had he expected? Forgiveness, in the best fictional tradition? Condemnation? (A. Cronin)
Thus, rhetorical questiona are asked not for information but to produce a dramatic effect. They have the force of emphatic affirmation or denial.
Speech and thought representation.
In fictions there are the following traditional ways of representing speech and thought:
1. Direct Speech (DS) - the characters are made to speak themselves.
Phil, driving the creaking station wagon with dexterous recklessness, said to her, “I hope it’s the right road. Nothing looks familiar in this fog and I’ve only been here once before.” (E. Parsons)
2. Direct Thought (DT) is the representation of what is going on in the mind of the character.
She woke to see Daniel’s face, pale head bending toward her. “He is old! He is ill!” she thought… (J. Stafford)
3. Indirect Speech (IS) - the narrator reports only the content of what the character has said, but not its exact wording. This allows the narrator to interfere in the story and to interpret the character’s original words:
The man commented on how nice and cool the beer was.
The man said, appreciatively, that the beer was nice and cool.
4 Indirect Thought (IT)
The man thought that the beer was nice and cool.
These ways of representing direct and indirect speech and thought are typical of various forms of written language.
The next example illustrates a kind of representation which is more specifically literary:
The man drank the beer. Goodness, how nice and cool it was!
The expression “Goodness” suggests a direct record of what was said or thought (Goodness, how nice and cool it is) but the past tense ‘was’ suggests that this is an indirect report (He said/thought how nice and cool it was.) What we have here is a blend of both, a hybrid form. This is known as free indirect speech (FIS) and free indirect thought (FIT), which both belong to free indirect discourse (FID).
Free indirect discourse is the form of speech representation which combines features of direct and indirect speech.
Features of direct speech
Like direct speech FID is characterized by the syntactical independence of sentences, the use of exclamatory and interrogative forms, elliptical sentences, emotional words, interjections, the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’, modal verbs which focus on the character’s consciousness and feelings.
Features of indirect speech
Like indirect speech In FID the third person of pronouns is used and the rule of sequence of tenses is observed.
Basically, free indirect discourse may be of two types:
1) free indirect speech (FIS);
2) free indirect thought (FIT).
The first type (FIS) shows the shift from the author’s narrative into the character’s utterance. There are no inverted commas to indicate the shift. Some uttered words, phrases or a whole dialogue are intertwined with the narration, but the uttered part undergoes some morphological changes: the tense-forms are shifted to the past, third person pronouns are used instead of first and second person pronouns. Syntactical structures characterizing direct speech remain unchanged:
Angela, who was taking in every detail of Eugene’s old friend, replied in what seemed an affected tone that no, she wasn’t used to studio-life: she was just from the country, you know – a regular farmer girl – Blackwood, Wisconsin, no less! (Th. Dreiser)
Free indirect thought (FIT) renders the character’s thoughts and feelings. This type is more frequently used by writers than its other variety. It is a combination of the narration and the character’s thinking. It discloses the inner working of human mind, it enables the author to convey in a more convincing and objective way the psychological state of the character, the feelings and emotions that have overcome him. At the same time it produces a greater effect on the reader who can view the events through the character’s perception.
He opened the door. (1)
“Dinner is on the table,” he said. (2)
It was difficult for her to endure his presence, for he would interfere with her. (3) She could not recover her life. (4) She rose stiffly and went down. (5) She could neither eat nor talk during the meal. (6) She sat absent, torn, without any being of her own. (7) He tried to go on as if nothing were the matter. (8) But at last he became silent with fury. (9) As soon as it was possible, she went upstairs again, and locked the bedroom door. (10) She must be alone. (11) (D.H.Lawrence)
The first sentence is narrative; the second is in direct speech. The third sentence is ambiguous, because it might be the narrator’s statement about the woman’s feelings, but the modal verb ‘would’ used in its second part is a typical marker of FIT, because it expresses a personal attitude towards a situation or event. The fourth sentence features the modal ‘could’ as a sign of FID; the reader is induced to share the character’s point of view. The other sentences in FIT are the sixth and eleventh sentences.
Memory of the day when Fleur was born, and he waited in such agony with her life and her mother’s balanced in his hands, came to him sharply. He had saved her then to be the flower of his life. And now! Was she going to give him trouble? He did not like look of things! … Ah! There was the car at last. (J. Galsworthy)