Stylistic analysis of the part of the novel "Rebecca" by Daphne Du Maurier

‘Great cool rooms, filled with flowers. My bedroom, with a fire in the winter…’ (parallel subjects in the nominative sentences).

Nominative sentences – are the sentences with an incomplete syntactic basis. In these sentences the main component expressed by a noun. Such sentences are distributed by the words with emotional connotation, they have laconic brevity and certain expressiveness: ‘Mrs de Winter’; ‘People, always a throng of people’; ‘My bedroom, with a fire in the winter’; ‘A party of twenty-four’. It is also often used in spoken language, so the author needs this device in describing an internal monologue or flow of consciousness.

Aposiopesis is a stylistic device by which the writer deliberately stops short and leaves something unexpressed, but yet obvious, to be supplied by the imagination, giving the impression that she is unwilling or unable to continue. It often portrays being overcome with passion (fear, anger, excitement) or modesty. The ellipsis is also used in the constructions with aposiopesis. There is an example in the offered fragment: ‘He wanted to show me Manderley...’ Daphne Du Maurier made break in the text because the story-teller of the novel was too exited to continue the narration therefore the pause was necessary for her to realize idea of the statement.

Ellipsis – is a figure of speech, the omission of a word or words required by strict grammatical rules but not by sense. The missing words are implied by the context. In the novel this reception is used rather frequently, because the story goes from the first person. This device is used to create an effect of the colloquial language, to represent an internal monologue or flow of consciousness, so to show such speech sphere, where the man does not need to be guided by rules of grammar in order to create the statement. Ellipsis may convey the emotional state of the narrator. ‘Why not come down to Manderley next week-end?’ – in this sentence a subject and an auxiliary verb are omitted.

Rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question posed for special effect rather than for the purpose of getting an answer. Such constructions we can find in the analyzable part of the text in the thoughts of the narrator ‘Was he still laughing at me, was it all a joke?’, and in the direct speech of Maxim ‘I'm being rather a brute to you, aren't I?’. These questions require no answer. The heroes set such question to themselves or assert obvious in the form of a question.

Stylistic semasiology. Metonymy refers to the use of a single characteristic to identify a more complex entity and is one of the basic characteristics of cognition. It is extremely common for people to take one well-understood or easy-to-perceive aspect of something and use that aspect to stand either for the thing as a whole or for some other aspect or part of it. It is based on the associations between two concepts: the object implied and object named. In the given fragment of REBECCA there is just one example of metonymy: ‘…and a violin playing a waltz in the distance’. Course, we understand that the violin can not play by itself that the musician plays on it. But Du Maurier transfer attributes of the man on the musical instrument, omitted man’s necessity, invested it with the ability to play independently.

Metaphor – is defined as a direct comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects. More generally, a metaphor casts a first subject as being or equal to a second subject in some way. Thus, the first subject can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second subject are used to enhance the description of the first. With a help of such device few words, emotions and associations from one context are associated with objects and entities in a different context. In the analyzable part of the text we can see the metaphor: ‘This about me, a whisper on the fringe of a crowd…’ It is known, that there is no fringe at a crowd. Nevertheless we always can use phrases such as at the centre of a crowd. On logic if there is a centre so there is a fringe. Thus the author allocate concept crowd with characteristics of the concept city. And the author attribute to crowd an opportunity to have characteristic feature of city. The given metaphor makes the language of a narration more figurative and associative, so it becomes more stylistically decorated. The next metaphor is ‘It was a premonition, a blank step into the future’. The metaphor a step into the future is settled that’s why some stylists do not allocate given expression as a metaphor at all. But there we also have an attribute blank, which makes this metaphor unique. It means the subconscious, unknown step into the future. This metaphor describes something indissolubly and imperceptibly which had connected the main heroine with her future, had given the prompting about what this future will be.

Oxymorons are a proper subset of the expressions called contradictions in terms. What distinguishes oxymorons from other paradoxes and contradictions is that they are used intentionally, for rhetorical effect, and the contradiction is only apparent, as the combination of terms provides a novel expression of some concept. In REBECCA’s fragment we have ‘violent love’. To describe such feeling as love the positive adjectives are used more often. In the given example the adjective with negative colouring is used thus it receives the meaning strong.

Personification – is the presentation of unanimated objects, phenomena or ideas as if they were human beings. It makes the narration more emphatic: ‘…the words going slowly to my head’.

Epithet is a descriptive word or phrase that has become a fixed formula. It has various shades of meaning when applied to real or fictitious people, divinities, objects and biological nomenclature. It also means a derogatory word or phrase used to insult someone. In the given fragment of the text we can find three groups of epithets. There are simple epithets which just characterize the objects and subjects: ‘white frock’; ‘shady hat’; ‘long scissors’; ‘old lady’; ‘long candles’; ‘great cool rooms’; ‘the tangerine was very sour’; ‘I had a sharp, bitter taste’. We can see a number of estimated epithets which give an evaluation of the subjects and objects: ‘she’s simply charming’; ‘for being so good’; ‘you look so lovely’; ‘how happy you have made him’. And there are only two examples of the expressive and figurative epithet: ‘poor darling’; ‘violent love’.

Antonomasia is a stylistic device: the substitution of any epithet or phrase for a proper name; the opposite substitution of a proper name for some generic term is also sometimes called antonomasia. The surname of the main hero of the novel is de Winter. Probably, Du Maurier wanted that such surname represented Maxim as cold, secluded, prickly person. But even heart of Mr de Winter can melt, warming with love. By the way, this surname suits his ex-wife Rebecca (somewhere in the text of the novel is told, that she was perfect by her ice beauty), and it contradicts with the essence of his unnamed new wife.

Synonymia is the use of several synonyms together to amplify or explain a given subject or term. It is a kind of repetition that adds emotional force or intellectual clarity. Synonymia often occurs in parallel fashion. The novel REBECCA contains interesting cases of synonymia using. As it’s already mentioned the main heroine is not named and she is often described by pronouns. So pronouns can be enlisted in a synonymic line of the words, which are described the narrator. From the lexis of the given fragment we can separate such synonyms: I, you, wife, Mrs, she, madam, bride. All offered synonyms are used by the author to replace a name of the narrator, to keep an intrigue, and at the same time to show, that the main heroine of the novel can remain unnamed all the time. Sometimes Daphne names the heroine on a surname de Winter, but it is not enlisted in a synonymic line, because the author makes it to show, that the girl is married now and in many ways she depends on her husband, and on the other hand - to show that from now on she will be compared with Maxim’s ex-wife.

Some stylistic devices of semasiology are used to create interesting turns of a plot. For example, during all the fragment Du Maurier forces a situation, creates an atmosphere of suspense – is a deliberate postponing of the completion of the main sort until the end of the utterance. It produces psychological effect, conveys the stays of expectation, uncertainty. The author interrupts the narration to describe naive dreams of the heroine. Such lyrical deviation forces the reader to expect impatiently, how the main turn of a plot will be finished.

Also the given part of the text demonstrate the element of irony, mockery. For example, when the romantic ideas of the heroine were rudely interrupted by the Maxim’s statement about the tangerine. This the moment is very symbolical. It is possible to say, that the life of the narrator will be not as sweet as she dreamt, but as bitter, as that tangerine.

In the analyzable part of the novel the atmosphere of suspense and some irony elements were described with a help of anticlimax – is an abrupt declension (either deliberate or unintended) on the part of a writer from the dignity of idea which he appeared to be aiming at. Anticlimax deforms the narration in the highest point by the final notion as something opposite to what was expected. In REBECCA at that moment, when the dreams absorbed the narrator, with the help of this device the idyll of romanticism was destroyed by absolutely not romantic utterance about sour fruit.

Stylistic lexicology. In the given fragment of REBECCA we can find two examples of using phraseological units: ‘You would feel then you were getting your money's worth’ (it means to get something worth the price that you paid); ‘My mind ran riot then…’ (if your imagination, emotions, thoughts etc run riot, you cannot or do not control them). The stylistic function of phraseological units is not nominating of any new phenomena, they give a concrete definition and figuratively emotional evaluation of the subjects, phenomena, actions.