III. Phonetic Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices
Alliteration - the repetition of consonants, usually in the beginning of words. (The Italian trio tut-tutted their tongues at me. T. Capote)
Assonance - the repetition of similar vowels, usually in stressed syllables. (Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.)
Graphon - the intentional violation of the graphical shape of a word. One of the most effective means of supplying information about the speaker’s origin, social and educational background, physical and emotional condition. (Whereja get all these pictures? he said. Meetcha at the corner. Wuddaya think she’s doing out there? J.D. Salinger)
Onomatopoeia - words in which the sounds imitate those of the signified object or action. (“Sh-sh”. “But I am whispering”. This continual shushing annoyed him. A. Huxley)
Part II glossary of literary terms
Allusion - an indirect reference, by word or phrase, to a historical, literary, mythological, biblical fact or to a fact of everyday life made in the course of speaking or writing. (“No”, he said wistfully, “I suppose not. It’s time to dress”. To dress – to dine, and if to dine, to sleep – to sleep, to dream. And then what dreams might come! (J. Galsworthy). The allusion here is to the famous monologue of Hamlet – “To be or not to be”).
Anticlimax - a situation or event that does not seem exciting because it happens after something that was much better.
Apostrophe - a digressive address, a turning away from the main thread of a discourse of writing, in order to address specially some person thing, present or absent. (“<…> The story should end here. I wish it would as heartily as you who read it wish it did. But we must go to the bottom of a well of truth.
The next day a person who called himself Kelly, called at Anthony Rockwall’s house …” (O. Henry)
Bombast - high-flown, exaggerated, grandiose speech, inappropriate and too pretentious for the occasion. Bombastic language contains long important sounding words that have no real meaning.
Cliché - a stereotyped expression, a trite phrase that has lost precise meaning through iteration (“to sow the seeds of doubt”, “to have clean hands”). Accordingly, love scenes in the moonlight, the villain’s renunciation, and other time-worn scenes are clichés of situations.
Epilogue - 1. a concluding part added to a literary work.
2. something that happens at the end of a series of events.
Far-fetched - a surprising and unexpected situation that is extremely
coincidence unlikely to be or to happen; not real, deliberately made,
artificial coincidence.
Flash-back - a part of a story in which the author turns back to earlier experiences in order to deepen the meaning of present experiences.
Grotesque - an artistic device characterized by fantastic exaggeration and aimed at representing human beings or their life as comically distorted, awkward. Grotesque often implies interweaving the fantastic with the real. Satirists often resort to grotesque.
Incongruous - a comparison that seems strange and unsuitable because
comparison it is so unexpected in a particular situation and so different from everything around it.
Inflated - a bombastic loquacity of a person; the practice of
circumlocution using too many important-sounding words to express an idea, instead of saying it directly.
In medias res - beginning a narrative at an exciting point, with some important event instead of that chronologically first, literally “in the middle of things.”.
Leitmotif - a theme throughout a literary composition, associated [΄laitmouِti:f] with a certain person, situation or sentiment.
Local colour - writing in which the background is stressed so as to suggest a particular place or region. Dialogue in such writing is apt to be in dialect.
Malapropism - a grotesque misuse of a word, an amusing substitution of one word for another based on a blunder in the use of words. (“Illiterate him (for obliterate), I say, quite from your memory”, “as headstrong as an allegory (for alligator) on the banks of the Nile” R.B. Sheridan)
Message - the main idea of a piece of art. A literary work carries the message not only in a straightforward way but through the characters, events and the author’s conceptions.
Mock-seriousness - not real, but intended to be very similar to a real situation, pretended seriousness.
Novelette - a piece of prose fiction longer than a story but shorter than a novel and having the construction of a novel.
Novella - a kind of narrative or story, characterized by a compact plot with a point.
Paradox - a statement which though it appears to be self-contradictory, nevertheless involves truth or at least an element of truth. (“Wine costs money, blood costs nothing.” B. Shaw; “I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don’t talk politics”. O. Wilde)
Paraleipsis, - a passing over with brief mention, so as to emphasize
Paralipsis the suggestiveness of what is being omitted.
[ِpærә´lipsis]
Pleonasm, - an over-fullness of words in speaking or writing;
redundance the use of more words than are necessary to express the
[´pli:әnæzm] bare idea, either as a fault of style or as a device purposely used for special force or clearness. (“I’ll tell you, Governor, if you’ll only let me get a word in. I’m willing to tell you. I’m wanting to tell you. I’m waiting to tell you” G.B. Shaw)
Prologue - the introductory part of a literary work. The part of the story presenting the life of the characters before the actual beginning of the narrative.
Purple passage, - a passage which is conspicuous for effectiveness, in a
Purple patch literary composition that is characteristically dull, commonplace, or uninspired.
Reiteration - repetition of a statement or word in order to make the idea as clear as possible.
Repartee - a clever, ready and witty retort.
[,repa:´ti:]
Slice of life - a depiction of life as it is lived without any trimmings.
Soliloquy - a speech in a play in which a character talks to
[sә´lilәkwi] himself so that the audience knows his thoughts; thinking aloud.
Story within a story - an interpolated story within a novel or story.
Subplot - one line, accompanying and often paralleling the main action of a novel.
Suspense - a device to produce a state of uncertainty, usually with anxiety or expectation. The deliberate sustaining of anticipation by means of postponement; the retarding of the satisfaction of knowing how it all comes out.
Unities of time, - the three principles of dramatic composition
place, and action requiring that play should contain one main action occurring within twenty-four hours, and in one place.
P
LAN
PART III OF
TEXT INTERPRETATION
I. Author:
Who is the author of the story? What do you know about his creative activity?
II. Plot:
Summarize the text with the utmost brevity.
III. Setting:
time and place
time span
Where is the scene laid? When does the action take place? Are there any place-names and time-indicators? Is the setting presented explicitly or implicitly? What time span does the story cover?
IV. Form of narration:
a) narrative methods: narration, description, dialogue
a first / third person narrative
narrator
Is the story a combination of the author’s narration and the character’s dialogue; the description and represented speech? Can the narrator be identified with the author?
V. Plot structure:
the basic narrative pattern
components of plot structure (exposition, complication, climax, denouement)
What is the basic narrative pattern? Does each incident grow logically out of the preceding incident and lead naturally to the next? Are the elements of the plot-structure ordered chronologically? What is the role of exposition? What events lead to the climax? Where is the climax?
VI. Conflict:
multiple / local (single)
external / internal
emotional / physical / moral / intellectual, etc.
What is the conflict of the story?
VII. Characters:
major / minor
character presentation: direct / indirect
Who is the major / minor character? Are the characters round or flat? What means does the author use the reveal the character?
VIII. Style:
the language: bookish / neutral / spoken
the syntax of the text: length of the sentences, the underlying stylistic devices
What can you say about the language of the story? What makes the author use this or that style? What stylistic devices does the author use to make the plot quick / slow moving, lyrical thought provoking, emotional, nervous? What can you say about the syntax of the text?
PART
IX
TEXTS
FOR INTERPRETATION
TEXT ONE
THE OPEN WINDOW
by Hector Huges Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)
“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel”, said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me”.
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
“I know how it will be”, his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice”.
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice division.
“Do you know many of the people round here?” asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.
“Hardly a soul,” said Framton. “My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here”.
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” pursued the self-possessed young lady.
“Only her name and address”, admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.
“Her great tragedy happened just three years ago”, said the child; “that would be since your sister’s time”.
“Her tragedy?” asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.
“You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon”, said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.
“It is quite warm for the time of the year”, said Framton; “but has that widow got anything to do with the tragedy?”
“Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it”. Here the child’s voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. “Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing, “Bertie, why do you bound?” as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window-“
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.
“I hope Vera has been amusing you?” she said.
“She has been very interesting”, said Framton.
“I hope you don’t mind the open window”, said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; “my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you men folk, isn’t it?”
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.
“The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise”, announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably wide-spread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. “On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement”, he continued.
“No?” said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention – but not to what Framton was saying.
“Here they are at last!” she cried. “Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: “I said, Bertie, why do you bound?”
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.
“Here we are, my dear”, said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window; “fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?”
“A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel”, said Mrs. Sappleton; “could only talk about his illness, and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost”.
“I expect it was the spaniel”, said the niece calmly; “he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make any one lose their nerve”. Romance at short notice was her specially.
In what vein is the story written?
Find the most humorous episodes and indicate language and compositional means employed to achieve humorous effect.
What form of narrative is chosen by the author and why? What opportunities does this form give to the author?
Is the turn of events unexpected in the story? How is suspense created in the story?