Stylistic analysis of the part of the novel "Rebecca" by Daphne Du Maurier
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?ы имеете огромный успех! говорит она. Миссис де Уинтер. Я буду миссис де Уинтер...
Эти дольки кислые, я бы не стал их есть, сказал он, я уставилась на него до меня с трудом дошел смысл его слов, затем посмотрела на четвертушку мандарина, лежащую передо мной на тарелке. Она была жесткой и светлой. Он прав. Мандарин был очень кислый. Во рту у меня щипало и горчило, а я только сейчас это заметила.
It is meaningful to explain a situation, which had taken place up to this fragment. The main heroes, Maxim and the narrator, were having a breakfast. Maxim asked the narrator to marry him. By the way before that scene Maxim frequently told the narrator about his famous manor Manderley. And she recollected a long time ago, when she was just a child, she had bought a card with a photo of a manor and had fallen in love with this majestic house. Its interesting that the novel opens not with the exposition. In the beginning of REBECCA we learn about the outcome, which will be described after in the form of the main heroines memoirs. So we have the composite device of the story in the story.
To begin the stylistic analysis we ought to mention that the narration is conducted from the first person thats why the described events had subjective character. The author has a possibility not just to show some events, but also to open the internal world of the storyteller. It defines the specificity of the further reader's recognition.
Stylistic morphology. In the given part of the text we can find a few usages devices of the stylistic morphology. It is necessary to emphasize a transposition. It is the usage of a word-form in unusual context where it gets unusual meaning. Framed in transposition some abstract nouns can get meaning of an object: 'It's really wonderful how happy you have made him; everyone is so pleased, you are such a success'. In this example the abstract noun success is combined with a pronoun and so gets a tinge of an object.
Also there is a stylistic device of categories of time usage. In the given text fragment we have the narrators dreams about her future marriage. In the beginning her thoughts have grammatically correct construction, according to the sequence of tenses and the conditional modality: I would be his wife, we would walk in the garden together, we would stroll down that path in the valley to the shingle beach; We would be in a crowd of people, and he would say… But the heroine is so fascinated in a considering of the future, that her thoughts are becoming chaotic, incorrect from the angle of the grammar. In order to create an effect of a flow of consciousness the author uses participles (it will be described in my work later), and the forms of the present tense instead of the past tense: And a woman comes in, smiling; she is Maxim's sister, and she is saying… Du Maurier used this device for showing the described events more vividly, for providing the visual demonstration.
We can see there a lot of participles: Going down to the lodge with a basket on my arm; Maxim sitting at the end; Someone knocking at the door. Mainly such constructions are used not as a part of the sentence. They are used separately, turning into the incomplete sentences. The usage of participles is a stylistic device which helps to show a flow of consciousness. The functions of the usage of categories of tense and the usage of participles are words. The usage of the participle forms as the basic element of the incomplete sentence helps to achieve the effect of the free ragged idea which has been not subordinated to rules of grammar, therefore so real and alive.
The other form of the stylistic morphology is the usage of the pronouns. During the novel we have not found out a name of the main heroine. The author almost all the time used for her description the various forms of pronouns: I drummed with my fingers on the table; I'm being rather a brute to you; Oh, but she's simply charming, you must meet her. More often Daphne used different variants of I, because the story goes from first person. Such stylistic device pursues simultaneously some purposes. With its help the author enters the reader in the thick of things, representing the unknown as already known. The usage of pronouns in such cases specifies intimacy, trusting intonation between the author and the reader, as though the reader is included in conversation and becomes listener and its direct participant. Also the given device can be used in order to create an internal monologue or flow of consciousness and it finds an expression in the analyzable fragment.
So in the given part of the text we have 4 examples of using the devices of the stylistic morphology.
Stylistic syntax. The style of any work as well as the style of the any author is substantially defined by the syntax. The syntactic organization of speech is one of the basic means of the literary art. There are a lot of devices of the stylistic syntax in the analyzable text fragment. Repetition the stylistic device which serves to emphasize the state of the personage or character overcome by strong emotions. The author draws our attention to something. The repetitions are quite often met in REBECCA. In the given part of the text we meet the line He wanted to show me Manderley... two times. Du Maurier accented the readers attention on that because the fact, that Maxim wanted to show the narrator his manor, is very important for the main heroine. From the childhood she was dreaming to see that wonderful house and now she could be an owner of it. And it is important that Maxim wanted to it her. His patrimonial manor is extremely significant for him. And the fact that he wanted to show Manderley her meant for the narrator that she is important for him. The line Mrs de Winter. I would be Mrs de Winter is met three times. The narrator repeated that phrase for two reasons. On the one hand, the heroine could not believe that she would be Maxims wife and so she repeated it to herself. On the other hand, with every repetition she enjoyed the understanding that it all would happen with her. And thus she tried to get used that soon she would began to play a new role she would a wife of the rich person of consequence instead of being the underpaid companion for the old lady. And besides the line Mrs de Winter. I would be Mrs de Winter is so-called repetition in the repetition because this line illustrates the repetition itself but it also contains a repeated element Mrs de Winter: Mrs de Winter. I would be Mrs de Winter. This element has the same function as well as all line, but owing to its double repetition we meet it in the text six times so the author six times accented readers attention on the dreams of the narrator about her future married life. The words repeated element can be mentioned in the line: People, always a throng of people. But in the first example this element stronger, because it represents the nominative sentence by itself, it breaks one semantically homogeneous phrase on two parts.
Parenthetic sentences / parenthesis is an explanatory or qualifying word, clause, or sentence inserted into a passage with which it has not necessarily any grammatical connection, and from which it is usually marked off by round or square brackets, dashes, or commas. In the given part of the text we have just one example of such construction: My mind ran riot then, figures came before me and picture after picture and all the while he ate his tangerine, giving me a piece now and then, and watching me. In this example the author wanted to show the difference between the imagined and the real events with a help of the given stylistic device. Also parenthesis creates effect of a mockery. The parenthetic sentence emphasizes, that the heroines imagination withdraw her far from the reality, because she is a dreamer, filled with the youthful maximalism and superfluous haste. Also this way shows a difference between the naive dreamy young story-teller and experienced cynical Maxim de Winter. But even experienced Maxim was delighted with a lovely children's spontaneity of the narrator.
Parallelism is a balance of two or more words words, phrases, or clauses. The application of parallelism in sentence construction improves writing style and readability. In fiction the basic function of parallelism is the amplification of the communicative and expressive importance of the statement There are a few examples of the parallel constructions: …we would walk in the garden together, we would stroll down that path in the valley to the shingle beach (parallel grammatical bases of the sentence); I knew how I would stand on the steps after breakfast, looking at the day, throwing crumbs to the birds(parallel participles); I considered my name, and the signature on cheques, to tradesmen, and