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CONTENTS
4
1. CLASSIFICATION OF EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLISTIC
DEVICES...5
1.1 Phono-graphical level...................................................................................5
1.2 Lexical level.................................................................................................6
1.3 Syntactical level...........................................................................................9
1.4 Exercises..11
2. BASIC ELEMENTS FOR A LITERARY TEXT ANALYSIS....................21
3. STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF A LITERARY TEXT22
3.1 Scheme of stylistic analysis.22
3.2 Suggested phrases for analysis23
3.3 Samples of stylistic analysis25
4. EXTRACTS FOR STYLISTIC ANALYSIS27
TESTS35
BIBLIOGRAPHY..48

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1. CLASSIFICATION OF EXPRESSIVE MEANS

AND STYLISTIC DEVICES
Here we are going to use the classification suggested by Prof. Galperin, as it is simply
organized and very detailed. It includes the following subdivision of expressive
means and stylistic devices based on the level-oriented approach:
1. Phonetic and graphical expressive means and stylistic devices.
2. Lexical expressive means and stylistic devices.
3. Syntactical expressive means and stylistic devices.
1.1. Phono-graphical level
To this group belong onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, rhyme, rhythm, graphon
and graphic stylistic means.
Onomatopoeia is the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound
associated with it. (Used for the creation of expressive and emotive connotations).
Ding-dong; silver bells... tinkle, tinkle; whiz; crash; yakety-yak.
Alliteration is the repetition of the same (or similar) sounds or sound clusters,
usually consonants, or stressed syllables in neighbouring words or at short intervals
within a line or passage, usually at word beginnings. To rob Peter to pay Paul; Sense
and Sensibility; Pride and Prejudice.
Assonance is the repetition of similar vowel sounds, usually close together, to
achieve a particular effect of euphony. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered, weak and weary (Poe).
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon. (Gwendolyn Brooks)
Rhyme is the correspondence of two or more words with similar-sounding final
syllables placed so as to echo one another. It is a rhythmical device for intensifying
the meaning as well as for binding the verse together.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls;
And like a thunderbolt he falls. (Alfred Tennyson)
Rhythm is the movement or sense of movement communicated by the arrangement
of stressed and unstressed syllables and by the duration of the syllables and sentence
structure.
Pitch-black when I got home. No moon again. The lodge was in total darkness, and
my headlights swung on the windows as I bounced along the drive. Car lights off.
Black outside.
Graphon is an intentional violation of the graphical shape of the word (or word
combination), used to reflect its authentic pronunciation. Is that my wife?... I see it
is, from your fyce I want the truth I must ave it!.. If thats er fyce there, then
thats er body in the gallery - (Galsworthy).
Graphic stylistic means are employed to bring out or strengthen some word, word
combination or utterance in order to make it more prominent. They include spacing
of graphemes (hyphenation, multiplication) and of lines, all changes of the type
(italics, bold type, capitalization or absence of capital letters), punctuation and
intentional violation of spelling.
1.2. Lexical level
There are three big subdivisions in this class of devices and they all deal with the
semantic nature of a word or phrase.
I. In the first subdivision the principle of classification is the interaction of different
types of a words meanings: dictionary, contextual, derivative, nominal and emotive.
The stylistic effect of the lexical means is achieved through the binary opposition of
dictionary and contextual or logical and emotive or primary and derivative meanings
of a word.
A. The first group includes means based on the interplay of dictionary and contextual
meanings, and to this group belong: metaphor, metonymy, and irony.
Metaphor is a secondary nomination unit based on likeness, similarity or affinity
(real or imaginary) of some features of two different objects. The machine sitting at
the desk was no longer a man; it was a busy New York broker. (O.H.) In the slanting
beams that streamed through the open window, the dust danced and was golden.
(O.W.)
Personification is a variety of metaphor, based on ascribing some features and
characteristics of a person to lifeless objects mostly to abstract notions, such as
thoughts, actions, intentions, emotions, and seasons of the year. Dear Nature is the
kindest Mother still. (Byron)
Metonymy is a stylistic figure in which the name of one thing is substituted for that
of something else on bases of contiguity (nearness) of objects or phenomena. As the
sword is the worst argument that can be used, so should it be the last. (Byron).
Synecdoche is a variety of metonymy in which the part stands for the whole. Blue
suit greened, might have even winked. But big nose in the grey suit still stared.
(Priestly) The town is capable of holding five hundred thousand souls. (J. Swift)
Irony is a transfer based on the opposition of the objects. In verbal irony there is a
contrast between what is literary said and what is meant: It must be delightful to find
oneself in a foreign country without a penny in one's pocket. In dramatic irony there
is a discrepancy between what a character thinks and what the reader knows to be
true. In situational irony an event occurs which is opposite of what is expected.
B. The second group unites means based on the interaction of primary and
derivative meanings. To this group belong: polysemy, zeugma and pun.
Polysemy is the capacity of a word or phrase to have multiple meanings
Crane: 1) a bird; 2) a type of construction equipment; 3) to strain out one's neck
Zeugma is a simultaneous realization within the same short context of two meanings
of a polysemantic unit. The boys took their books and places. (Dickens) At noon Mrs.
Turpin would get out of bed and humour, put on kimano, airs, and the water to boil
for coffee. (O. Henry)
Pun is a play on words based on homonymous and polysemantic words to create a
sense of surprise. Visitor (in a restaurant): Do you serve crabs here? Waiter: We
serve everyone. Sit down.
C. The third group comprises means based on the opposition of
logical and emotive meanings. To this group belong: interjections and exclamatory
words, epithet, and oxymoron.
Interjections and exclamatory words
All present life is but an interjection
An 'Oh' or 'Ah' of joy or misery,
Or a 'Ha! ha!' or 'Bah!'-a yawn or 'Pooh!'
Of which perhaps the latter is most true.
Epithet is an attributive word, phrase or even sentence employed to characterize an
object by giving it subjective evaluation. A well-matched, fairly-balanced give-andtake couple. (Dickens)
Epithets are used singly, in pairs, in chains, in two-step structures, and in inverted
constructions, also as phrase-attributes.
Pairs are represented by two epithets joined by a conjunction or asyndetically as in
wonderful and incomparable beauty or a tired old town. Chains (also called
strings) of epithets present a group of homogeneous attributes varying in number
from three up to sometimes twenty and even more. E.g. Youre a scolding, unjust,
abusive, aggravating, bad old creature.
Two-step epithets are so called because the process of qualifying seemingly passes
two stages: the qualification of the object and the qualification of the qualification
itself, as in an unnaturally mild day.
Phrase-epithets always produce an original impression: the sunshine-in-thebreakfast-room smell, or a move-if-you-dare expression.
A different linguistic mechanism is responsible for the emergence of one more
structural type of epithets, namely, inverted epithets. They are based on the
contradiction between the logical and the syntactical: the giant of a man (a gigantic
man); the prude of a woman (a prudish woman), etc.
Oxymoron is a combination of opposite meanings which exclude each other.
Deafening silence; crowded loneliness; unanswerable reply.
D. The fourth group is based on the interaction of logical and nominal meanings and
includes antonomasia.
Antonomasia is the usage of a proper name for a common noun or the usage of
common nouns or their parts as proper names. Mr. Facing-Both-Ways does not get
very far in this world. (The Times) He would be a Napoleon of peace, or a Bismarck.
II. The principle for distinguishing the second big subdivision is based on the
interaction between two lexical meanings simultaneously materialized in the context.
This kind of interaction helps to call special attention to a certain feature of the object
described. To this subdivision belong: simile, periphrasis, euphemism, hyperbole,

understatement and litotes.
Simile is an explicit statement of partial identity (affinity, likeness, similarity) of two
objects belonging to different semantic spheres. It is an explicit comparison
recognizable by the use of formal markers: as, asas, like, as though, as if, such as; and
informal markers: to resemble, to remind, to seem, to have a look of, to resemble.
Treacherous as a snake; faithful as a dog; slow as a tortoise.
Periphrasis is a roundabout way of speaking or writing, known also as circumlocution.
A gentleman of the long robe (a lawyer); the fair sex (women); A young blood from
Cambridge chanced to enter the inn at Chipping Norton, while Sterne was seated
there. (R. Stevenson)
Euphemism is a variety of periphrasis which is used to replace an unpleasant word or
expression by a conventionally more acceptable one. In private I should call him a liar.
In the Press you should use the words: 'Reckless disregard for truth'. (J. Galsworthy)
Hyperbole is a purposeful overstatement or exaggeration of the truth to achieve
intensity, or for dramatic or comic effect. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to
trade in and the sun and the moon were made to give them light. (Dickens) I loved
Ophelia; forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my
sum. (W. Shakespeare)
Understatement (meiosis) is a deliberate underestimation for emphasis. She wore a
pink hat, the size of a button. (J. Reed) It will cost you a pretty penny.
Litotes is a specific form of meiosis, not an independent trope. It presents a
statement in the form of negation. He was no gentle lamb (London); Mr. Bardell was
no deceiver. (Dickens) She liked money as well as most women, and accepted it with
no little satisfaction. (K. Chopin)
. The third subdivision comprises stable word combinations in their interaction
with the context. To this subdivision belong: clichs, proverbs and sayings, epigrams,
quotations, allusions and violations of phraseological units.
Clich is an expression which has been overused to the point of losing its original
meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful
or novel. Clockwork precision; crushing defeat; the whip and carrot policy.
Proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which
expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity.
Come! he said, milk's spilt. (Galsworthy)
Epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical
statement.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever. (Keats)
All things pass
Love and mankind is grass. (Stevie Smith)
Quotation is the repetition of one expression as part of another one, particularly
when the quoted expression is well-known or explicitly attributed by citation to its
original source, and it is indicated by quotation marks. Ecclesiastes said, 'that all is
vanity'. (Byron)
Allusion is an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, or thing or to a part of

another text. The main sources of allusions in the English language are: literature,
Shakespeares works, mythology, folklore, Bible, historical reminiscences, art, music,
childrens verses etc.
Shakespeare talks of the herald Mercury. (Byron) They pressed behind the two
Englishmen staring like those islands discovered by Captain Cook in the South Seas.
(J. Conrad)
Violation of phraseological units is a stylistic figure in which the literal original
meaning of the word is restored. Little Jon was born with a silver spoon in his
mouth which was rather curly and large.(J. Galsworthy)
1.3. Syntactical level
In defining syntactical devices Galperin proceeds from the following thesis: the
structural elements have their own independent meaning and this meaning may affect
the lexical meaning.
The principal criteria for classifying syntactical stylistic devices are:
the juxtaposition of the parts of an utterance;
the type of connection of the parts;
the peculiar use of colloquial constructions;
the transference of structural meaning.
Devices built on the principle of juxtaposition are inversion, detachment, parallel
constructions, chiasmus, repetition, enumeration, suspense, climax, anticlimax, and
antithesis.
Inversion (several types) is the syntactic reversal of the normal order of the words and
phrases in a sentence. A tone of most extravagant comparison Miss Tox said it in.
(Dickens) Down dropped the breeze. (Coleridge)
Detachment is a separation of a secondary part of the sentence with the aim of
emphasizing it. She was lovely: all of herdelightful. (Dreiser) Mrs. Rymer was a tall
woman, big-boned. (A. Christie)
Parallel constructions are repetitions of similar syntactic structures in close
proximity.
I dont know why I should write this.
I dont want to.
I dont feel able. (Ch. P. Gilman)
Repetition is a reiteration of the same word or phrase to lay an emphatic stress on
certain parts of the sentence. For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs, sighs wishes, wishes
words, and words a letter. (Byron)
There are various types of repetitions: anaphora, epiphora, framing, anadiplosis and
chiasmus.
Anaphora: the beginning of two or more successive sentences (clauses) is repeated
e.g. Farewell to the forests and wild hanging woods, Farewell to the torrents and
loud-pouring floods(Burns)
Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
10
Let the rain sing you a lullaby. (L. Hughes)

Epiphora: the end of successive sentences (clauses) is repeated. e.g. The white
washed room was pure white as of old, the methodical book-keeping was in peaceful
progress as of old, and some distant howler was hanging against a cell door as of
old.
The thing was a bit of a fraud; yes, really, he decided, rather a fraud. (A. Huxley)
Framing: repetition in which the opening word or phrase is repeated at the end of the
sentence or a group of sentences. Money is what hes after, money. (Galore) Never
wonder. By means of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, settle
everything somehow, and never wonder. (Dickens)
Anadiplosis: device in which the last word or phrase of one clause, sentence, or line
is repeated at the beginning of the next. With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy;
happy at least in my own way. (Bronte)
The seeds ye sowanother reaps,
The robes ye weaveanother wears
The arms ye forgeanother bears. (Shelley)
Chiasmus is a kind parallelism where the word order of the sentence or clause that follows
becomes inverted. Loves fire heats water, water cools not love. (Shakespeare)
In the days of old men made manners
Manners now make men. (Byron)
Enumeration is a repetition of homogeneous parts of the sentence, aimed at
emphasizing the whole utterance. The principle production of these towns... appear to be
soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and dock-yard men. (Dickens)
Suspense holding the reader in tense anticipation is often realized through the
separation of predicate from subject or predicative by the deliberate introduction
between them of a phrase, clause or sentence (frequently parenthetic).
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle-Know ye the land of
the cedar and vine...
'Tis the clime of the East'tis the land of the Sun. (Byron)
Climax (Gradation) presents a structure in which every consecutive sentence or
phrase is emotionally stronger or logically more important than the preceding one.
They looked at hundreds of houses, they climbed thousands of stairs, they inspected
innumerable kitchens. (W. S. Maugham) They shook, they bellowed, they held their
sides,
they
rolled
in
their
seats;
everyone
11
arallel structure. Youth is

lovely, age is lonely; Youth is fiery, age is frost. (Longfellow) She had her husband on
her hands, a terrible joy, and a terrible burden. (D. H. Lawrence)
arallel
structure.
Youth is lovely, age is lonely; Youth is fiery, age is frost. (Longfellow) She had her
husband on her hands, a terrible joy, and a terrible burden. (D. H. Lawrence)
Devices based on the type of connection include asyndeton, polysyndeton, and gapsentence link.
Asyndeton is the omission of the conjunctions that ordinarily join coordinate words or
clauses. Soams turned away; he had an utter disinclination for talk, like one standing
before an open grave... (Galsworthy) That was a long time ago; she and her brothers
were all grown up; her mother was dead. (J. Joyce)
Polysyndeton is opposite to asyndeton and means a repetition of conjunctions in close
succession which are used to connect sentences, clauses, or words and make the
utterance more rhythmical. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could
boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. (Dickens) I know a little of the
principal of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation,
or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard of. (Ch. P.
Gilman)
Gap-sentence link presents two utterances - the second is brought into the focus of
the reader's attention. It was an afternoon to dream. And she took out Jon's letters.
(Galsworthy) She and that fellow ought to be the sufferers, and they were in Italy.
Figures united by the peculiar use of colloquial constructions include ellipsis,
aposiopesis (break-in-the-narrative), and questions in the narrative.
Ellipsis The deliberate omission of one or more principal words (usually the subject
or the predicate). Nothing so difficult as a beginning; how soft the chin which' bears
his touch. (Byron)
Aposiopesis (break-in-the-narrative) denotes a speakers deliberate failure to
complete a sentence, which is caused by the influx of senses, consideration of time
etc. Good intentions but -; you just come home or I'll...
Questions in the narrative are posed to sustain tension and keep the reader
interested. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise?
(Dickens)
Transferred use of structural meaning involves such figures as rhetorical questions
and litotes.
Rhetorical question is a negative or an affirmative statement rather than a question,
possible answer being implied by the question itself. How long must we suffer?
Where is the end? (Norris)
1.4. Exercises
Phono-Graphical Level
Exercise I. Indicate the causes and effects of the following cases of alliteration,
assonance and onomatopoeia:
12
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Streaked by a quarter moon, the Mediterranean shushed gently into the beach.
He swallowed the hint with a gulp and a gasp and a grin.
His wife was shrill, languid, handsome and horrible.
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, the furrow followed free.
The Italian trio tut-tutted their tongues at me.
You, lean, long, lanky lath of a lousy bastard!
Luscious, languid and lustful, isnt she? Those are not the correct epithets.
She is or rather was surly, lustrous and sadistic.
8. Then, with an enormous, shattering rumble, sludge-puff, sludge-puff, the train
came into the station.
9. Dreadful young creatures squealing and squawking.
10. The quick crackling of dry wood aflame cut through the night.
Exercise II. Think of the causes originating graphon and indicate the kind of
additional information about the speaker supplied by it:
1. It dont take no nerve to do somepin when there aint nothing else you can do.
We aint gonna die out. People is goin on changin a little may be but
goin right on.
2. He began to render the famous tune 1 lost my heart in an English garden, Just
where the roses of Kngland grow with much feeling: Ah-ee last mah-ee hawrt
een ahn Angleesh gawrden, Jost whahr thah rawzaz ahv Angland graw.
3. Well, I dunno. Ill show you summat.
4. My daddys coming tomorrow on a nairplane.
5. Wilson was a little hurt. Listen, boy, he told him. Ah may not be able to read
evethin so good, but they aint a thing Ah cant do if Ah set mah mind to it.
6. Oh, well, then, you just trot over to the table and make your little mommy a
gweat big dwink.
7. Said Kipps one day, Ase I should say, ah, hase... Ye know, I got a lot of
difficulty with them two words, which is which. Well, as is a conjunction,
and has is a verb. I know, said Kipps, but when is has a conjunction, and
when is as a verb?
8. He spoke with the flat ugly a and withered r of Boston Irish, and Levi looked
up at him and mimicked All right, Ill give the caaads a break and staaat
playing.
Exercise III. State the functions and the type of the following graphical expressive
means:
1. Piglet, sitting in the running Kangas pocket, substituting the kidnapped Roo,
thinks:
this
shall
take
If
is
I
never
to
flying
really
it.
2. Kiddies and grown-ups too-oo-oo We havent enough to do-oo-oo.
3. When Wills ma was down here keeping house for him she used to run in to
see me, real often.
13
4. He missed our father very much. He was s-l-a-i-n in North Africa.

5. Well teach the children to look at things. Dont let the world pass you by, I
shall tell them. For the sun, I shall say, open your eyes for that laaaarge sun.....
6. Now listen, Ed, stop that, now. Im desperate. I am desperate, Ed, do you hear?
7. Adieu you, old man, grey. I pity you, and I de-spise you.
8. ALL our troubles are over, old girl, he said fondly. We can put a bit by now
for a rainy day. (S.M.)
Lexical Level
Exercise I. Name stylistic figures used in the following sentences and dwell upon
their stylistic functions:
1. His voice was a dagger of corroded brass.
2. A stout middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting on the
edge of a great table. I turned to him. Dont ask me, said Mr. Owl Eyes
washing his hands of the whole matter.
3. Except for a lack of youth, the guests had no common theme, they seemed
strangers among strangers; indeed, each face, on entering, had straggled to
conceal dismay at seeing others there.
4. The topic of the Younger Generation spread through the company like a yawn.
5. Leaving Daniel to his fate, she was conscious of joy springing in her heart.
6. Our secretary is Esther DEath. Her name is pronounced by vulgar relatives as
Dearth, some of us pronounce it Deeth.
7. She saw around her, clustered about the white tables, multitudes of violently red
lips, powdered cheeks, cold, hard eyes, self-possessed arrogant faces, and
insolent bosoms.
8. Penny-in-the-slot machines stood there like so many vacant faces, their dials
glowing and flickering for nobody.
9. We need you so much here. Its a dear old town, but its a rough diamond, and
we need you for the polishing, and were ever so humble....
10. Still two weeks of success is definitely not nothing and phone calls were coming
in from agents for a week.
11. Now let me introduce you thats Mr. Whats-his-name, you remember him,
dont you? And over there in the corner, thats the Major, and theres Mr. Whatdyou-call-him, and thats an American.
12. The delicatessen owner was a spry and jolly fifty.
13. Six oclock still found him in indecision. He had had no appetite for lunch and
the muscles of his stomach fluttered as though a flock of sparrows was beating
their wings against his insides.
14. She and the kids have filled his sisters house and their welcome is wearing
thinner and thinner.
15. It was not unnatural if Gilbert felt a certain embarrassment.
16. For several days he took an hour after his work to make inquiry taking with him
some examples of his pen and inks.
17. Yeah, what the hell, Anne said and looking at me, gave that not unsour smile.
14
18. NotreDame squats in the dusk.

19. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon. I dont really
know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure, that Lady Bracknell is one. In
any case, she is a monster without being a myth.
20. It was an unforgettable face, and a tragic face. Its sorrow welled out of it as
purely, naturally and unstoppably as water out of a woodland spring.
21. I am the new year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time. I am your next
chance at the art of living.
Exercise II. Analyse various cases of play on words, zeugma and semantically false
chains:
1. Dorothy, at my statement, had clapped her hand over her mouth to hold down
laughter and chewing gum.
2. I believed all men were brothers; she thought all men were husbands. I gave the
whole mess up.
3. In December, 1960, Naval Aviation News, a well-known special publication,
explained why a ship is referred to as she: Because theres always a bustle
around her; because theres usually a gang of men with her; because she has
waist and stays; because it takes a good man to handle her right; because she
shows her topsides, hides her bottom and when coming into port, always heads
for the buyos.
4. When I am dead, I hope it may be said: His sins were scarlet, but his books were
read.
5. Most women up London nowadays seem to furnish their rooms with nothing but
orchids, foreigners and French novels.
6. Im full of poetry now. Rot and poetry. Rotten poetry.
7. Bren, Im not planning anything. I havent planned a thing in three years...
Im Im not a planner. Im a liver. Im a pancreas, she said. Im a and
she kissed the absurd game away.
8. Someone at the door, he said, blinking. Some four, I should say by the
sound, said Fili.
9. Hooper laughed and said to Brody, Do you mind if I give Ellen something?
What do you mean? Brody said. He thought to himself, give her what? A kiss?
A box of chocolates? A punch in the nose? A present. Its nothing, really.
Exercise III. In the following excerpts you will find mainly examples of verbal irony.
Explain what conditions made the realization of the opposite evaluation possible:
1. The book was entitled Murder at Milbury Manor and was a whodunit of the
more abstruse type, in which everything turns on whether a certain character, by
catching the three-forty-three train at Hilbury and changing into the four-sixteen
at Milbury, could have reached Silbury by five-twenty-seven, which would have
given him just time to disguise himself and be sticking knives into people at
Bilbury by six-thirty-eight.
15
2. When the, war broke out she took down the signed photograph of the Kaiser and,
with some solemnity, hung it in the men-servants lavatory; it was her one
combative action.
3. I had a plot, a scheme, a little quiet piece of enjoyment afoot, of which the very
cream and essence was that this old man and grandchild should be as poor as
frozen rats, and Mr. Brass revealed the whole story, making himself out to be
rather a saintlike holy character.
4. Shes a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud and if she
has washed her hair since Coolidges second term, Ill eat my spare tire, rim and
all.
5. Several months ago a magazine named Playboy which concentrates editorially on
girls, books, girls, art, girls, music, fashion, girls and girls, published an article
about old-time science-fiction.
6. Apart from splits based on politics, racial, religious and ethnic backgrounds and
specific personality differences, were just one cohesive team.
7. A local busybody, unable to contain her curiosity any longer, asked an expectant
mother point-blank whether she was going to have a baby. Oh, goodness, no,
the young woman said pleasantly. Im just carrying this for a friend.
8. I had been admitted as a partner in the firm of Andrews and Bishop, and
throughout 1927 and 19281 enriched myself and the firm at the rate of perhaps
forty dollars a month.
9. He spent two years in prison, making a number of valuable contacts among other
upstanding embezzlers, frauds and confidence men whilst inside.
Exercise IV. Discuss the structure and semantics of epithets in the following
examples. Define the type and function of epithets:
1. During the past few weeks she had become most sharply conscious of the smiling
interest of Hauptwanger. His straight lithe body his quick, aggressive
manner his assertive, seeking eyes.
2. The Fascisti, or extreme Nationalists, which means black-shirted, knife-carrying,
club-swinging, quick-stepping, nineteen-year-old-pot-shot patriots, have worn
out their welcome in Italy.
3. She has taken to wearing heavy blue bulky shapeless quilted Peoples Volunteers
trousers rather than the tight tremendous how-the-West-was-won trousers she
formerly wore.
4. Harrison a fine, muscular, sun-bronzed, gentle-eyed, patrician-nosed, steakfed, Oilman-Schooled, soft-spoken, well-tailored aristocrat was an out-and-out
leaflet-writing revolutionary at the time.
5. In the cold, gray, street-washing, milk-delivering, shutters-coming-off-the-shops
early morning, the midnight train from Paris arrived in Strasbourg. (H.)
6. She was a faded white rabbit of a woman.
7. I was to secretly record, with the help of a powerful long-range movie-camera
lens, the walking-along-the-Battery-in-the-sunshine meeting between Ken and
Jerry.
8. Thief! Pilon shouted. Dirty pig of an untrue friend!
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9. His shrivelled head bobbed like a dried pod on his frail stick of a body. (J.G.)
10. The children were very brown and filthily dirty. (W. V.)
11. From the Splendide Hotel guests and servants were pouring in chattering bright
streams. (R.Ch.)
Exercise V. In the following examples concentrate on cases of hyperbole and
understatement. Pay attention to other SDs promoting their effect:
1. Newspapers are the organs of individual men who have jockeyed themselves to
be party leaders, in countries where a new party is born every hour over a glass
of beer in the nearest cafe.
2. Four loudspeakers attached to the flagpole emitted a shattering roar of what
Benjamin could hardly call music, as if it were played by a collection of brass
bands, a few hundred fire engines, a thousand blacksmiths hammers and the
amplified reproduction of a force-twelve wind.
3. The car which picked me up on that particular guilty evening was a Cadillac
limousine about seventy-three blocks long.
4. She was a giant of a woman. Her bulging figure was encased in a green crepe
dress and her feet overflowed in red shoes. She carried a mammoth red
pocketbook that bulged throughout as if it were stuffed with rocks.
5. We danced on the handkerchief-big space between the speakeasy tables.
6. She was a sparrow of a woman.
7. And if either of us should lean toward the other, even a fraction of an inch, the
balance would be upset.
8. The rain had thickened, fish could have swum through the air.
Exercise VI. In the following sentences pay attention to the structure and semantics
of oxymorons. Also indicate which of their members conveys the individually viewed
feature of the object and which one reflects its generally accepted characteristic:
1. He caught a ride home to the crowded loneliness of the barracks.
2. There were some bookcases of superbly unreadable books.
3. Heaven must be the hell of a place. Nothing but repentant sinners up there, isnt
it?
4. Sara was a menace and a tonic, my best enemy; Rozzie was a disease, my worst
friend.
5. A neon sign reads Welcome to Reno the biggest little town in the world.
6. Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield are Good Bad Boys of American literature. (V.)
7. Havent we here the young middle-aged woman who cannot quite compete with
the paid models in the fashion magazine but who yet catches our eye?
8. Their bitter-sweet union did not last long.
9. You have got two beautiful bad examples for parents.
10. A very likeable young man with a pleasantly ugly face.
Exercise VII. Pay attention to the stylistic function of various lexical expressive
means used individually and in convergence:
17
1. Constantinople is noisy, hot, hilly, dirty and beautiful. It is packed with uniforms
and rumors.
2. For me the work of Gertrude Stein consists in a rebuilding, an entire new
recasting of life, in the city of words. Here is one artist who has been able to
accept ridicule, to go live among the little housekeeping words, the swaggering
bullying street-comer words, the honest working, money-saving words, and all
the other forgotten and neglected citizens of the sacred and half-forgotten city.
3. Only a couple of the remaining fighters began to attack the bombers. On they all
came, slowly getting larger. The tiny mosquitoes dipped and swirled and dived in
a mad, whirling dance around the heavier, stolid horseflies, who nevertheless
kept serenely and sedately on.
4. An enormous grand piano grinned savagely at the curtains as if it would grab
them, given the chance.
5. Duffy was face to face with the margin of mistery where all our calculations
collapse, where the stream of time dwindles into the sands of eternity, where the
formula fails in the test-tube, where chaos and old night hold sway and we hear
the laughter in the ether dream.
6. The fog comes on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
7. It was a relief not to have to machete my way through a jungle of what-are-youtalking-aboutery before I could get at him.
8. Outside the narrow street fumed, the sidewalks swarmed with fat stomachs.
9. The owner, now at the wheel, was the essence of decent self-satisfaction; a
baldish, largish, level-eyed man, rugged of neck but sleek and round of face
face like the back of a spoon bowl.
10. We plunged in and out of sun and shadow-pools, and joy, a glad-to-be-alive
exhilaration, jolted through me like a jigger of nitrogen.
11. They were both wearing hats like nothing on earth, which bobbed and nodded as
they spoke.
12. These jingling toys in his pocket were of eternal importance like baseball or
Republican Party.
13. His dinner arrived, a plenteous platter of food but no plate. He glanced at his
neighbors. Evidently plates were an affectation frowned upon in the Oasis cafe.
Taking up a tarnished knife and fork, he pushed aside the underbrush of onions and
came face to face with his steak.
First impressions are important, and Bob Eden knew at once that this was no meek,
complacent opponent that confronted him. The steak looked back at him with an air
of defiance that was amply justified by what followed. After a few moments of
unsuccessful battling, he summoned the sheik. How about a steel knife? inquired
Bob.
Only got three and theyre all in use, the waiter replied.
18
Bob Eden resumed the battle, his elbows held close, his muscles swelling. With set
teeth and grim face he bore down and cut deep. There was a terrible screech as his
knife skidded along the platter, and to his horror he saw the steak rise from its bed of
gravy and onions and fly from him. It travelled the grimy counter for a second then
dropped on to the knees of the girl and thence to the floor.
Eden turned to meet her blue eyes filled with laughter.
Oh, Im sorry, he said. I thought it was a steak, and it seems to be a lap dog.
Syntactical Level
Exercise I. Indicate the cases of various types of repetition, parallelism and
chiasmus:
1. I wake up and Im alone and I walk round Warley and Im alone; and I talk with
people and Im alone and I look at his face when Im home and its dead.
2. To think better of it, returned the gallant Blandois, would be to slight a lady,
to slight a lady would be to be deficient in chivalry towards the sex, and chivalry
towards the sex is a part of my character.
3. Halfway along the righthand side of the dark brown hall was a dark brown door
with a dark brown settie beside it. After I had put my hat, my gloves, my muffler
and my coat on the settie we three went through the dark brown door into a
darkness without any brown in it.
4. I really dont see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in
love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal.
5. I wanted to knock over the table and hit him until my arm had no more strength
in it, then give him the boot, give him the boot, give him the boot I drew a
deep breath.
6. Now he understood. He understood many things. One can be a person first. A
man first and then a black man or a white man.
7. She stopped, and seemed to catch the distant sound of knocking. Abandoning the
traveller, she hurried towards the parlour; in the passage she assuredly did hear
knocking, angry and impatient knocking, the knocking of someone who thinks he
has knocked too long.
8. And a great desire for peace, peace of no matter what kind, swept through her.
9. Then there was something between them. There was. There was.
10. He ran away from the battle. He was an ordinary human being that didnt want to
kill or be killed. So he ran away from the battle.
11. Failure meant poverty, poverty meant squalor, squalor led, in the final stages, to
the smells and stagnation of B. Inn Alley.
12. Living is the art of loving.
Loving is the art of caring.
Caring is the art of sharing.
Sharing is the art of living.
13. I notice that fathers is a large hand, but never a heavy one when it touches me,
and that fathers is a rough voice but never an angry one when it speaks to me.
19
Exercise II. Find and analyze cases of detachment, suspense and inversion:
1. She narrowed her eyes a trifle at me and said I looked exactly like Celia
Briganzas boy. Around the mouth.
2. She was crazy about you. In the beginning.
3. How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant country, of resting places
under the free broad sky, of rambles in the fields and woods, and paths not often
trodden-how many tones of that one well-remembered voice, how many glimpses
of the form, the fluttering dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind how
many visions of what had been and what he hoped was yet to be rose up
before him in the old, dull, silent church!
4. Of all my old association, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and
the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me.
5. On, on he wandered, night and day, beneath the blazing sun, and the cold pale
moon; through the dry heat of noon, and the damp cold of night; in the grey light
of morn, and the red, glare of eve.
6. Benny Collan, a respected guy, Benny Collan wants to marry her. An agent could
ask for more?
7. Women are not made for attack. Wait they must.
8. And she saw that Gopher Prairie was merely an enlargement of all the hamlets
which they had been passing. Only to the eyes of a Kennicot was it exceptional.
Exercise III. Specify stylistic functions of the types of connection given below:
1. Then from the town pour Wops and Chinamen and Polaks, men and women in
trousers and rubber coats and oilcloth aprons. They come running to clean and
cut and pack and cook and can the fish. The whole street rumbles and groans and
screams and rattles while the silver rivers of fish pour in out of the boats and the
boats rise higher and higher in the water until they are empty.
2. What sort of a place is Dufton exactly? A lot of mills. And a chemical factory.
And a Grammar school and a war memorial and a river that runs different
colours each day. And a cinema and fourteen pubs. Thats really all one can say
about it.
3. Secretly, after the nightfall, he visited the home of the Prime Minister. He
examined it from top to bottom. He measured all the doors and windows. He
took up the flooring. He inspected the plumbing. He examined the furniture. He
found nothing.
4. With these hurried words Mr. Bob Sawyer pushed the postboy on one side,
jerked his friend into the vehicle, slammed the door, put up the steps, wafered the
bill on the street-door, locked it, put the key into his pocket, jumped into the
dickey, gave the word for starting.
5. Well, guess its about time to turn in. He yawned, went out to look at the
thermometer, slammed the door, patted her head, unbuttoned his waistcoat,
yawned, wound the clock, went to look at the furnace, yawned and clumped
upstairs to bed, casually scratching his thick woolen undershirt.
6. Give me an example, I said quietly. Of something that means something. In
your opinion.
20
7. I got a small apartment over the place. And, well, sometimes I stay over. In the
apartment. Like the last few nights.
8. He is a very deliberate, careful guy and we trust each other completely. With a
few reservations.
Exercise IV. Comment on the stylistic effect gained by antithesis, climax and
anticlimax:
1. Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything
except the obvious.
2. In marriage the upkeep of woman is often the downfall of man.
3. He saw clearly that the best thing was a cover story or camouflage. As he
wondered and wondered what to do, he first rejected a stop as impossible, then as
improbable, then as quite dreadful.
4. I like big parties. Theyre so intimate. At small parties there isnt any privacy.
5. This was appalling and soon forgotten.
6. Rup wished he could be swift, accurate, compassionate and stern instead of
clumsy and vague and sentimental.
7. Is it shark? said Brody. The possibility that he at last was going to confront the
fish the beast, the monster, the nightmare made Brodys heart pound.
8. His coat-sleeves being a great deal too long, and his trousers a great deal too
short, he appeared ill at ease in his clothes.
9. There was something eery about the apartment house, an unearthly quiet that was
a combination of overcarpeting and underoccupancy.
10. Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb, the prison had no knowledge of the
brightness outside.
11. It is safer to be married to the man you can be happy with than to the man you
cannot be happy without.
12. Fledgeby hasnt heard of anything. No, theres not a word of news, says
Lammle. Not a particle, adds Boots. Not an atom, chimes in Brewer.
Exercise V. Comment on the effect produced by the following syntactical expressive
means:
1. In Paris there must have been a lot of women not unlike Mrs. Jesmond, beautiful
women, clever women, cultured women, exquisite, long-necked, sweet smelling,
downy rats.
2. The stables I believe they have been replaced by television studios were on
West Sixty-sixth street. Holly selected for me an old sway-back black-and-white
mare: Dont worry, shes safer than a cradle. Which, in my case, was a
necessary guarantee, for ten-cent pony rides at childhood carnivals were the limit
of my equestrian experience.
3. Think of the connotations of murder, that awful word: the lossof emotional
control, the hate, the spite, the selfishness, the broken glass, the blood, the cry in
the throat, the trembling blindness that results in theirrevocable act, the helpless
blow. Murder is the most limited of gestures.
4. We sat down at the table. The jaws got to work around the table.
21
5. Babbitt stopped smoking at least once a month. He did everything in fact except
stop smoking.
6. Im interested in any number of things, enthusiastic about nothing. Everything is
significant and nothing is finally important.
7. The cigarette tastes rough, a noseful of straw. He puts it out. Never again.
8. The certain mercenary young person felt that she must not sell her sense of what
was right and what was wrong, and what was true and what was false, and what
was just and what was unjust, for any price that could be paid to her by anyone
alive.
9. A girl on a hilltop, credulous, plastic, young: drinking the air she longed to drink
life. The eternal aching comedy of expectant youth.
10. In November a cold unseen stranger whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked
about the colony touching one here and one there with icy fingers. Mr.
Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman.
11. The main thought uppermost in Fifes mind was that everything in the war was
so organized, and handled with such matter-of-fact dispatch. Like a business.
Like a regular business. And yet at the bottom of it was blood: blood, mutilation,
death.
12. In Arthur Calgarys fatigued brain the word seemed to dance on the wall.
Money! Money! Money! Like a motif in an opera, he thought. Mrs. Argyles
money! Money put into trust! Money put into an annuity! Residual estate left to
her husband! Money got from the bank! Money in the bureau drawer! Hester
rushing out to her car with no money in her purse... Money found on Jacko,
money that he swore his mother had given him.
2. BASIC ELEMENTS FOR A LITERARY TEXT ANALYSIS
Plot
Plot is a sequence of events in which the characters are involved, the theme and the
idea revealed. It is a series of actions, often presented in chronological order. The plot
grows out of a conflict that is an internal or external struggle between the main
character and an opposing force. When the story includes an internal conflict, the
main character is in conflict with himself or herself. An external conflict can occur
between the central character and either another character, society, or natural forces,
including Fate.
Plot Structure
Exposition refers to the explanatory information a reader needs to comprehend the
story. The initiating incident is the event that changes the situation established in the
exposition and sets the conflict in motion. In the rising action various episodes occur
that develop, complicate or intensify the conflict. The climax is the point of the
greatest conflict, the emotional high point, the turning point in the plot, or the point at
which the main character is to choose some form of action that will either worsen or
improve his or her situation. The events that follow the climax are known as the
falling action. The falling action leads into the resolution or denouement of the
story.
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Narrative compositional forms

Narration is the authors story about the events and about the actions of personages.
The basic types of narration are first and third person narration. In the first person
narration the narrator is the mouthpiece of the author. This type of narration creates
the effect of immediacy of presentation. The distance between the reader and the
author is shorter when the reader is plunged into the events developing before his
eyes. Narration acquires an intimate, confidential tone. With a third person narration
the distance between the reader and the writer is greater; there is usually a powerful
implicit flow of meaning.
Description supplies the details of appearance of the characters, of the place and time
of action. It comprises the portrait, the landscape and the interior. The portrait helps
to depict the individuality of a personage. The landscape creates the background to
the events.
Argumentation presents causes and effects of the personages behaviour, his (or the
authors) considerations about moral, ethical, ideological and other issues.
Techniques in storytelling
The flashback is the presentation of material that occurred before the events of the
story. It interrupts the chronology and often provides important exposition.
Foreshadowing gives the hints or clues that suggest or prepare the reader for events
that occur later in a work. Suspense is the feeling of anxious anticipation,
expectation, or uncertainty that creates tension and maintains the readers interest.
Coincidence is the chance occurrence of two things at the same time or place to
denote the workings of Fate in a persons life.
Personages speech characterisation
There are several types of characters speech in a literary text: direct speech, indirect
speech, interior speech, and represented speech.
Direct speech reproduces actual communication of the characters. Usually this type
of speech is presented in the form of a dialogue. Dialogue is an important form of the
personages self-evaluation, exposing his cultural, educational level, social status,
occupation etc.
In indirect speech the personages exact words are transformed by the author in the
course of his narrative and undergo some changes.
Interior speech represents the characters inner world, his thoughts, ideas, believes,
and views.
In interior monologue a character observes, contemplates, analyses, plans
something. It is the best way of describing the true nature of a personage.
When the writer does not interfere into the process of the characters thinking it
results in the stream-of-consciousness technique.
Represented speech is a mixture of the viewpoints and language spheres of both the
author and the character.
3. STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF A LITERARY TEXT
23
3.1. Scheme of Stylistic Analysis

1. The extract (passage, paragraph) under consideration (analysis) comes from a
novel (story, short story, essay) written by(name the writer) The author is
famous (well-known, distinguished) English (American etc.) writer (poet,
publicist etc.). (Characterize in 2-3 sentences the literary tradition the given
author belongs to, peculiarities of the authors individual style etc.).
2. The extract describes (concerns, is devoted to, deals with) (In 3-4 sentences
present the summary of the extract you have analyzed).
3. The idea of the story is
4. There are several conflicts in the story. The main conflict is
5. The types of speech employed by the author of the analyzed extract are
(narration, description, meditation, monologue, dialogue, represented speech etc.)
The given passage is rather a description than a narration / a mixture of narration
with some foreshadowing / flashbacks to the past.
6. In order to portray the characters (to describe the setting, to reveal the idea, to
render the general mood) vividly and convincingly the author of the analyzed
passage resorts to the following devices (lexical, syntactical, phonetic, and
graphic).
7. Summing up the analysis of the given extract one should say that the writer
brilliantly uses (indicate the most prominent stylistic features of the
analyzed extract) which help to reveal the main characters nature / to create a
true-to-life atmosphere of the events depicted / bring home to the reader the main
idea of the text.
3.2. Suggested Phrases for Analysis
Here is the list of suggested phrases which may be used to analyse the stylistic
properties of:
The characters speech
The characters are splendidly characterized through their speech which reflects
many peculiarities of the oral type of communication.
The characters speech is emotional and abounds in / is rich in SDs such as
Through the use of the character reveals / expresses his positive / negative /
contemptuous / good attitude to
The characters speech is that of an uneducated man: it abounds in
colloquialisms and vulgarisms such as
The characters pronunciation is also typical of uneducated speech. Such cases
of graphon highlight his social / cultural / educational status.
Features of oral speech can be well illustrated by their syntactical peculiarities
in the characters speech, such as the use of elliptical sentences, incomplete
sentences, detached constructions, parenthetical clauses, asyndetic type of
connection etc.
24
Represented uttered speech reveals what the character thinks. It also creates the
effect of his immediate presence and participation.
The vocabulary of a text
A rigorous analysis of the vocabulary of the story clearly shows that the author
employs
Common words to create a true-to-life realistic atmosphere of the event;
Foreign words / barbarisms / exotic words to create a local colouring / depict
local conditions of life, concrete facts and events / to indicate the characters
social and speech peculiarities / help to create local colouring and add to the
concreteness of the description of the events;
Colloquial words / slang / jargon to create the atmosphere of sincerity and
confidence / to add the informality and emotiveness of the characters speech /
to indicate his social and speech peculiarities;
Poetic words to create an elevated, high-flown tonality of the story;
Archaic / historical words to provide a historical background of the event
depicted / to remind the reader of past / local habits, customs, traditions,
clothes;
Terms / nomenclature words to create a true-to-life atmosphere / to indicate the
characters social and speech peculiarities.
Cases of metaphor, simile, irony, epithets
The metaphor suggests the narrators / characters evaluation of by the
implied comparison of (a character, characters behaviour, appearance, events
etc.)
The metaphor is used to emphasize the main image of the extract under
analysis. It helps to create positive / negative image of
The metaphor exposes as a false / hypocritical / sensitive / loving / caring
person.
The narrators ironic treatment of the subject (character, characters behaviour)
is seen from the use of such epithets as
Snobbery, coldness, ignorance, hypocrisy etc. are the objects of the authors
ridicule and biting irony. The ironical effect is achieved by the use of
Narrators / characters appreciation of is stressed by the highly emotive
epithet.
Cases of hyperbole, meiosis, litotes
The hyperbole is used to intensify the size / colour / quantity / age of /
shows the overflow of emotions of the main character / to intensify the
statement / to create a humorous effect.
The case of meiosis emphasizes the insignificance of
The case of litotes conveys the characters / narrators doubts as to the exact
significance or value of
Cases of antithesis
25
The case of antithesis emphasizes the striking difference between

The case of antithesis stresses the contrast between
Repetitions, parallel constructions
The use of repetitions attracts the readers attention and brings home to him the
idea of / emphasizes / reveals / shows the state of mind of the character / his
agitation / nervousness / emotiveness etc.
The parallel constructions make the thought of clearer, besides such an
arrangement lends an unmistakable eloquence and rhythm / expressiveness to
his utterance.
Any SD
The idea expressed through this SD is to show
The positive / negative features / qualities / attitude of the character is / are
enhanced through the use of
The SD is aimed at revealing the feelings and relations between
The SD explains and clarifies the main idea of the text.
3.3. Samples of Stylistic Analysis
My dad had a small insurance agency in Newport. He had moved there because
his sister had married old Newport money and was a big wheel in the Preservation
Society. At fifteen Im an orphan, and Vic moves in. From now on youll do as I tell
you, he says. It impressed me. Vic had never really shown any muscle before. (N.T.)
The first person singular pronouns indicate that we deal either with the entrusted
narrative or with the personages uttered monologue.
The communicative situation is highly informal. The vocabulary includes not
only standard colloquial words and expressions such as dad, to show muscle
(which is based on metonymy), the intensifying really, but also the substandard
metaphor a big wheel. The latter also indicates the lack of respect of the speaker
towards his aunt, which is further sustained by his metonymical qualification of her
husband (old Newport money).
The syntax, too, participates in conveying the atmosphere of colloquial
informality sentences are predominantly short. Structures are either simple or,
even when consisting of two clauses, offer the least complicated cases of
subordination.
The change of tenses registers changes in the chronology of narrated events.
Especially conspicuous is the introduction of Present Indefinite (Simple) Tense,
which creates the effect of immediacy and nearness of some particular moment,
which, in its turn, signifies the importance of this event, thus foregrounding it,
bringing it into the limelight and making it the logical and emotional centre of the
discourse.
He had heard everything the Boy said however was waiting for the right
moment to wrap up his silence, roll it into a weapon and hit Matty over the head with
it. He did so now. (W.G1.)
26
In this short extract from W. Goldings Darkness Visible the appearance of a

person who was an unnoticed witness to a conversation is described. The
unexpectedness of his emergence is identified with the blow in the sustained
metaphor which consists of three individual verb metaphors showing stages of an
aggressive action.
The abrupt change of sentence length and structure contributes to the
expressiveness of the passage.
And out of the quiet it came to Abramovici that the battle was over, it had left him
alive; it had been a battle a battle! You know where people go out and push little
buttons and pull little triggers and figure out targets and aim with the intention to
kill, to tear your guts, to blow out our brains, to put great ragged holes in the body
youve been taking care of and feeding and washing all youi life, holes out of which
your blood comes pouring, more blood than you ever could wash off, hold back, stop
with all the bandages in the world! (St.H.)
Here we deal with the change of the type of narration: from the authors
narrative, starting the paragraph, to represented inner speech of the character. The
transition tells on the vocabulary which becomes more colloquial (cf. guts) and
more emotional (cf. the hyperbole all the bandages in the world); on the syntax
brimming with parallelisms; on tne punctuation passing on to the emphatic points of
exclamation and dashes; on the morphology. Naive periphrases are used to describe
the act of firing and its deadly effect Third person pronouns give way to the second
person (you, your) embracing both communicants the personage (author) and
the reader, establishing close links between them, involving the reader into the
feelings and sentiments of the character.
Very important is repetition. Besides syntactical repetition (parallelism)
mentioned above, pay attention to the repetition of battle, because it is this word
which on one hand, actually marks the shift from one type of narration to another (the
first battle bringing in the authors voice, the last two that of Abramovici). On
the other hand, the repetition creates continuity and cohesion and allows the two
voices merge, making the transition smooth and almost imperceptible.
This is Willie Stark, gents. From up home at Mason City. Me and Willie was in
school together. Yeah, and Willie, he was a bookworm, and he was teachers pet.
Wuznt you, Willie? And Alex nudged the teachers pet in the ribs. (R.W.)
Alexs little speech gives a fair characteristic of the speaker. The substandard
gents, colloquial me, irregularities of grammar (me and Willie was),
pronunciation (graphon wuznt), syntax (Willie, he was), abundance of set
phrases (he was a bookworm, he was a teachers pet, from up home) all this
shows the low educational and cultural level of the speaker.
It is very important that such a man introduces the beginning politician to his
future voters and followers. In this way R. P. Warren stresses the gap between the
aspiring and ambitious, but very common and run-of-the-mill young man starting on
his political career, and the false and ruthless experienced politician in the end of this
road.
27
Note the authors ironic attitude towards the young Stark which is seen from the
periphrastic nomination of the protagonist (teachers pet) in the authors final
remark.
From that day on, thundering trains loomed in his dreams hurtling, sleek,
black monsters whose stack pipes belched gobs of serpentine smoke, whose seething
fireboxes coughed out clouds of pink sparks, whose pushing pistons sprayed jets of
hissing steam panting trains that roared yammeringly over farflung, gleaming
rails only to come to limp and convulsive halts long, fearful trains that were
hauled brutally forward by red-eyed locomotives that you loved watching as they
(and you trembling) crashed past (and you longing to run but finding your feet
strangely glued to the ground). (Wr.)
This paragraph from Richard Wright is a description into which the characters
voice is gradually introduced first through the second person pronoun you, later
also graphically and syntactically through the so-called embedded sentences,
which explicitly describe the personages emotions.
The paragraph is dominated by the sustained metaphor trains = monsters.
Each clause of this long (the length of this one sentence, constituting a whole
paragraph, is over 90 words) structure contains its own verb-metaphors belched,
coughed out, sprayed, etc., metaphorical epithets contributing to the image of the
monster -thundering, hurtling, seething, pushing, hissing, etc. Their
participial form also helps to convey the effect of dynamic motion. The latter is
inseparable from the deafening noise, and besides roared, thundering, hissing,
there is onomatopoeic yammeringly.
The paragraph abounds in epithets single (e.g. serpentine smoke), pairs (e.g.
farflung, gleaming rails), strings (hurtling, sleek, black monsters), expressed not
only by the traditional adjectives and participles but also by qualitative adverbs
(brutally, yammeringly). Many epithets, as it was mentioned before, are
metaphorical, included into the formation of the sustained metaphor. The latter,
besides the developed central image of the monstrous train, consists of at least two
minor ones red-eyed locomotives, limp and convulsive halts.
The syntax of the sentence-paragraph shows several groups of parallel
constructions, reinforced by various types of repetitions (morphological- of the -ingsuffix, caused by the use of eleven participles; anaphoric -of whose; thematic of
the word train). All the parallelisms and repetitions create a definitely perceived
rhythm of the passage which adds to the general effect of dynamic motion.
Taken together, the abundance of verbs and verbals denoting fast and noisy
action, having a negative connotation, of onomatopoeic words, of repetitions all of
these phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactical means create a threatening and
formidable image, which both frightens and fascinates the protagonist.
4. EXTRACTS FOR STYLISTIC ANALYSIS
Task 1. Read the passage.
Task 2. Identify the theme and the range of ideas of the fragment. Set the priority of
the ideas. Point out the SD that suggested the ideas.
28
W. Somerset Maugham
Cakes and Ale or the Skeleton in the Cupboard
Roy was very modest about his first novel. It was short, neatly written, and, as is
everything he has produced since, in perfect taste. He sent it with a pleasant letter to all
the leading writers of the day, and in this he told each one how greatly he admired his
works, how much he had learned from his study of them, and how ardently he
aspired to follow, albeit at a humble distance, the trail his correspondent had blazed.
He laid his book at the feet of a great artist as the tribute of a young man entering upon
the profession of letters to one whom he would always look up to as his master.
Deprecatingly, fully conscious of his audacity in asking so busy a man to waste his
time on a neophyte's puny effort, he begged for criticism and guidance. Few of the
replies were perfunctory. The authors he wrote to, flattered by his praise, answered at
length. They commended his book; many of them asked him to luncheon. They could
not fail to be charmed by his frankness and warmed by his enthusiasm. He asked for
their advice with a humility that was touching and promised to act upon it with a
sincerity that was impressive. Here, they felt, was someone worth taking a little trouble
over.
His novel had a considerable success. It made him many friends in literary circles and
in a very short while you could not go to a tea party in Bloomsbury, Campden Hill, or
Westminster without finding him handing round bread and butter or disembarrassing
an elderly lady of an empty cup. He was so young, so bluff, so gay, he laughed so
merrily at other people's jokes that no one could help liking him. He joined dining clubs
where in the basement of a hotel in Victoria Street or Holborn men of letters, young
barristers, and ladies in Liberty silks and strings of beads ate a three-and-sixpenny
dinner and discussed art and literature. It was soon discovered that he had a pretty gift
for after-dinner speaking. He was so pleasant that his fellow writers, his rivals and
contemporaries, forgave him even the fact that he was a gentleman. He was generous in
his praise of their fledgeling works, and when they sent him manuscripts to criticize
could never find a thing amiss. They thought him not only a good sort, but a sound
judge.
He wrote a second novel. He took great pains with it and he profited by the advice his
elders in the craft had given him. It was only just that more than one should at his
request write a review for a paper with whose editor Roy had got into touch and only
natural that the review should be flattering. His second novel was successful, but not
so successful as to arouse the umbrageous susceptibilities of his competitors. In fact it
confirmed them in their suspicions that he would never set the Thames on fire. He was
a jolly good fellow; no side, or anything like that: they were quite content to give a leg
up to a man who would never climb so high as to be an obstacle to themselves. I know
some who smile bitterly now when they reflect on the mistake they made.
But when they say that he is swollen-headed they err. Roy has never lost the modesty
which in his youth was his most engaging trait.
"I know I'm not a great novelist," he will tell you. "When I compare myself with the
giants I simply don't exist. I used to think that one day I should write a really great
novel, but I've long ceased even to hope for that. All I want people to say is that I do
my best. I do work I never let anything slipshod get past me. I think I can tell a good
29
story and I can create characters that ring true. And after all the proof of the pudding
is in the eating: The Eye of the Needle sold thirty-five thousand in England and eighty
thousand in America, and for the serial rights of my next book I've got the biggest
terms I've ever had yet."
And what, after all, can it be other than modesty that makes him even now write to the
reviewers of his books, thanking them for their praise, and ask them to luncheon?
Nay, more: when someone has written a stinging criticism and Roy, especially since
his reputation became so great, has had to put up with some very virulent abuse, he does
not, like most of us, shrug his shoulders, fling a mental insult at the ruffian who does
not like our work, and then forget about it; he writes a long letter to his critic, telling
him that he is very sorry he thought his book bad, but his review was so interesting in
itself, and if he might venture to say so, showed so much critical sense and so much
feeling for words, that he felt bound to write to him. No one is more anxious to
improve himself than he and he hopes he is still capable of learning. He does not want
to be a bore, but if the critic has nothing to do on Wednesday or Friday will he come
and lunch at the Savoy and tell him why exactly he thought his book so bad? No one
can order a lunch better than Roy, and generally by the time the critic has eaten half a
dozen oysters and a cut from a saddle of baby-lamb, he has eaten his words too. It is
only poetic justice that when Roy's next novel comes out the critic should see in the
new work a very great advance.
Task 3. Read the comments
Task 4. Make an outline of the comments.
Task 5. Make a list of expressions that may come in useful in the analysis
William Somerset Maugham
Cakes and Ale
Comments
The extract is taken from the very beginning of the book and gives a mock-serious
portrait of a prosperous and fashionable literary mediocrity. The story is told by
another writer, and the main point that interests him is the secret of Kear's success.
The reader is made fully aware of the fact that this success has nothing to do with
artistic merit, but is chiefly due to Kear's skill in marketing his work and in using
every kind of publicity to assist the spread of his books. He makes himself a public
figure, cringes before reviewers and leading writers, finds his way into clubs and
drawing-rooms and spares no effort in pleasing the public. Maugham's style is clear-cut
and elegant. The composition of Kear's portrait deserves special attention. After a
description of the character's background, education and outward appearance (omitted
in the present selection), the novelist produces a sketch of his literary career in a series
of paragraphs, in which the author's narrative is subtly blended with the reported
speech of the hero and different people who come into contact with him. We get to
know about the methods used by Rear in securing the support of celebrities, critics,
the public and his fellow writers. A play upon contrasts and contradictions and
affirming the very opposite of the obvious truth lies at the basis of Maugham's sarcastic
30
method in portraying his characters. The keywords of the last paragraph are "sincerity"
and "hypocrisy", occurring several times. The novelist mockingly assures his reader
that there is no hypocrisy about his hero because hypocrisy is a difficult vice. The
main point in proving that he is no time-server and no hypocrite is that "Roy has
always sincerely believed what everyone else believed at the moment". At the end
of the paragraph Maugham manages to reveal in a few tiny but significant touches
what sort of cant Roy's novels were made of. Each paragraph forms a complete unit.
The shaft of Maugham's ridicule seems to be directed not only against the pushing gogetter but also against the people who fall an easy prey to his flattery, and whose
opinion (phrased in familiar colloquial style and in semi-direct speech) closes each
paragraph: "Here, they felt, was someone worth taking a little trouble over"; "They
thought him not only a good sort, but a sound judge". His fellow writers tolerated him
on account of his mediocrity: "...he would never set the Thames on fire. He was a jolly
good fellow; no side, or anything like that: they were quite content to give a leg up to a
man who would never climb so high as to be an obstacle to themselves." He did climb
very high, however, so that the same people "smile bitterly now when they reflect on
the mistake they made". The bitterness of Maugham's irony is all the more to be felt
as he pretends to justify Rear's hypocrisy and in his preface to the book writes that this
practice of advertizing one's own books is very common, and that one cannot help
feeling sympathy, for "it would be brutal to look with anything but kindness at an
author who takes so much trouble to persuade the world at large to read books that he
honestly considers so well worth reading". The reader has to decide for himself
whether he is to believe the preface or the novel. In the extract under consideration, as
well as in the rest of the novel, the attitude of the novelist to his character seems
mostly to be cynically sarcastic. Credit must be given to Maugham for being
extremely resourceful in moulding the portrait. Twice in the extract we come across a
specific kind of speech characterization: it is Kear's letters written after the
publication of his first novel to every leading writer of the day and later on to his
critics, and especially to those whose reviews were unfavorable. The letters are
rendered in a kind of represented speech. Their audacious flattery is reflected in the
choice of trite eulogistic stock phrases making a parody of second-rate literary
criticism: "to admire greatly"; "to aspire ardently"; "a great artist"; "to look up to as
one's master"; "so much critical sense"; "so much feeling for words". There are also
such hackneyed metaphors as: "to blaze the trail"; "to follow a trail"; "to lay one's
book at the feet of a great artist" and so on. The servility of Kear's manner is manifest
in the choice of epithets; "at a humble distance"; "a neophyte's puny effort".
Maugham's irony is rather prominent in the solemn ring of emphatic parallel
constructions into which all these flowery expressions are arranged: "how greatly he
admired..."; "how much he had learned..."; "how ardently he aspired..." A reiteration
of the emphatic so before homogeneous attributes extolling Rear's charm ("He was so
young, so bluff, so gay, he laughed so merrily at other people's jokes...") also sounds
mocking enough. Thus Kear is ably drawn in many various ways: by rendering his
letters, by repeating the general opinion held of him and by describing the particulars
of his manner towards people. As an illustration of Maugham's skill in using every
nuance of the language to serve some special stylistic purpose, we might mention his
31
use of pronouns. Revealing, for instance, Kear's attitude to his own art, Maugham
pointedly stresses his egotism and self-complacency by making him use the first
person singular almost to the exclusion of any other form (the word "I" occurs 16 times
in one paragraph). In this way the speech intended as a proof of Kear's modesty rings
brazenly boastful. On the other hand, Maugham hints that the reader should not flatter
himself by thinking he is any better than the people he is reading about. So the writer
manages to involve us into the events of the book by using the second person in his
narration. The above mentioned paragraph begins as follows: "I know I'm not a great
novelist," he will tell you." The same trend of mocking at everybody including himself
is marked when it is the first person plural that is employed to unite the author with
the other writers: "...he does not, like most of us, shrug his shoulders, fling a mental
insult at the ruffian who does not like our work, and then forget about it". This
specific, cynical quality of Maugham's irony is manifest in his manner of building
sentences that contain contradicting components.
This device allows Maugham to reveal the incongruity of the world around him and is
an effective means of carrying his irony, as, for instance, in the question opening the
description of Kear's method of dealing with criticism: "And what, after all, can it be
other than modesty that makes him even now write to the reviewers of his books,
thanking them for their praise, and ask them to luncheon?" The question is keenly
ironical and the reader is well prepared to see through this pretence even before the
last phrase, referring to luncheon. Maugham never spares Kear in laying bare his
egotistical motives, but at the same time he treats him with a sort of contemptuous
sympathy. This tolerance has for its basis Maugham's outlook: he considers life a
struggle for existence in which only the strong survive. According to him it is a
senseless chaos, and as to evil and good, they simply do not exist.
Task 6. Read the passage.
Task 7. Identify the theme and the range of ideas of the fragment. Set the priority of
the ideas. Point out the SD that suggested the ideas.
Oscar Wild
The Picture of Dorian Gray
He sighed, and, having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry's note. It
was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper, and a book that might
interest him, and that he would be at the club at eight-fifteen. He opened The St.
James's languidly, and looked through it. A red pencil-mark on the fifth page caught
his eye. It drew attention to the following paragraph:
'INQUEST ON AN ACTRESS.An inquest was held this morning at the Bell Tavern,
Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of Sibyl Vane, a
young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre, Holborn. A verdict of death
by misadventure was returned. Considerable sympathy was expressed for the mother
of the deceased, who was greatly affected during the giving of her own evidence,
and that of Dr. Birrell, who had made the postmortem examination of the deceased.'
32
He frowned, and, tearing the paper in two, went across the room and flung the
pieces away. How ugly it all was! And how horribly real ugliness made things! He
felt a little annoyed with Lord Henry for having sent him the report. And it was
certainly stupid of him to have marked it with red pencil. Victor might have read it.
The man knew more than enough English for that.
Perhaps he had read it, and had begun to suspect something. And, yet, what did it
matter? What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane's death ? There was nothing to
fear. Dorian Gray had not killed her.
His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him. What was it, he
wondered. He went towards the little pearl-coloured octagonal stand, that had always
looked to him like the work of some strange Egyptian bees that wrought in silver, and
taking up the volume, flung himself into an arm-chair, and began to turn over the
leaves. After a few minutes he became absorbed. It was the strangest book that he
had ever read. It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of
flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him. Things that he
had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him. Things of which he had
never dreamed were gradually revealed.
It was a novel without a plot, and with only one character, being, indeed, simply a
psychological study of a certain young Parisian, who spent his life trying to realize in
the nineteenth century all the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every
century except his own, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods
through which the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere artificiality
those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural
rebellions that wise men still call sin. The style in which it was written was that
curious jeweled style, vivid and obscure at once, full of argot and of archaisms, of
technical expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work of
some of the finest artists of the French school of Symbolistes. There were in it
metaphors as monstrous as orchids, and as subtle in colour. The life of the senses was
described in the terms of mystical philosophy. One hardly knew at times whether
one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid
confessions of a modern sinner.
It was a poisonous book. The heavy odour of incense, seemed to cling about its pages
and to trouble the brain. The mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of
their music, so full as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately
repeated, produced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter, a
form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of the falling
day and creeping shadows.
Cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed through
the windows. He read on by its wan light till he could read no more. Then, after
his valet had reminded him several times of the lateness of the hour, he got up, and,
going into the next room, placed the book on the little Florentine table that always
stood at his bedside, and began to dress for dinner.
It was almost nine o'clock before he reached the club, where he found Lord Henry
sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored.
33
'I am so sorry, Harry,' he cried, 'but really it is entirely your fault. That book you
sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the time was going.'
'Yes; I thought you would like it,' replied his host, rising from his chair.
'I didn't say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference/
'Ah, you have discovered that?' murmured Lord Henry. And they passed into the
dining-room.
Task 8. Read the comments
Task 9. Make an outline of the comments.
Task 10. Make a list of expressions that may come in useful in the analysis
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
Comments
The interest of the present selection is manifold. In the first place it affords an
example of the most characteristic features in Wilde's method and style. On the other
hand, the main interest of its second part lies in showing the writer's tastes and his
attitude to his literary environment. The events in the excerpt, although they are
concerned only with a very small part of the whole plot, are nevertheless significant
in that respect. The decadent writers of the nineties are known to have asserted the
superiority of beauty and pleasure over all other considerations. The reader, however,
is at once prompted to ask himself: how can pleasure be the highest good, if it brings
death and crime in its wake? The novel as a whole is a psychological study bringing
to light the gradual debasement of Dorian's nature. Finally he has on his conscience
every vice and crime, including deliberate murder. The meaning of what is happening
to Dorian (even when we have only the above passage to guide us) very clearly
refutes the decadent theories set forth in the "yellow book" that enthralls the hero.
The first ominous signs of the degradation are manifest in the callousness with which
Dorian responds to the newspaper information concerning the inquest. He is annoyed,
he frowns, tears the paper in two. His utter lack of feeling is clear from the
exclamations proving he is not concerned with the tragedy of Sybil Vane, but with the
ugliness of the inquest. There is a distinct undercurrent of fear very subtly suggested
and exposing to the full the hero's monstrous egotism. He persuades himself he has
nothing to do with Sybil Vane's death, but is nevertheless afraid of his valet Victor
who might suspect something.
The short newspaper information quoted in full makes in its crude journalese a sharp
contrast to the refined language of the French novel as described by Wilde. The last
act of Sybil Vane's tragedy is narrated in a few law terms (inquest, coroner, verdict,
death by misadventure, post-mortem examination, the deceased). The standard and
hackneyed phraseology jars on the ear ("considerable sympathy was expressed", "the
mother... who was greatly affected"). The contrast between the newspaper and the
novel, between reality and fiction, life and art, is sustained by the hero's reaction: he
is "annoyed" by the newspaper, seeing nothing but ugliness in its terrible reality, and
"absorbed" and "fascinated" by the novel. The book of the French symbolist is called
34
"the strangest book he [Dorian] had ever read", which is with Wilde decidedly a
compliment. "Strange", "curious", "mysterious", "mystical" things are always
attractive according to the decadent standard. Wilde himself in some of his works
strives for a "curious jewelled style, vivid and obscure at once". He delights in queer
and vaguely morbid imagery ("dimly dreamed", "as monstrous as orchids", "spiritual
ecstasies", "morbid confessions", "poisonous book", "odour of incense", "trouble the
brain", "a malady of dreaming"). An apostle of the cult of beauty, Wilde is always a
"connoisseur", a well-informed judge in art, who relishes every opportunity of
describing objects of ornamental arts: furniture, jewellery, tapestries, ivory etc., and
presses upon the reader his hero's refined taste.' Notice, for instance, the description
of the stand from which the book is taken: "the little pearl-coloured octagonal stand,
that had always looked to him like the work of some strange Egyptian bees that
wrought in silver". In these three lines the novelist twice resorts to jewellery as a
source for his images. There is, perhaps, no other English writer so fond of gems and
jewels as Wilde is. Another piece of furniture mentioned in the scene is a "little
Florentine table". One is immediately aware of Renaissance associations, so this other
table must also be a rarity. Wilde's fascination with everything that is artificial and
rare is revealed in the manner the "yellow book" is described: "It seemed to him that
in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were
passing in dumb show before him." All pins, even the "seven deadly ones", would be
attractive to Wilde, so long as they were dressed in "exquisite raiment".
The general character of the imagery representing the contents of the "yellow book" as
a theatrical pantomime, and not as something in nature, is typical. Of this the allusion
to flutes affords a good example. Flutes, harps and lutes were much favoured
attributes of refined "beauty" in the decadent conception. These were the musical
instruments of verse, they were painted in pictures, reproduced in stucco on the fronts
of houses etc. The word raiment, a bookish and archaic synonym for 'dress', conveys
to the extended metaphor an elaborately ancient hue. Wilde's favourite epithets
exquisite and delicate speak volumes of the author's esthetic views, with their
exaggerated fastidiousness, and scorn for everything rough or "vulgar". The standards
of refinement, however, are sometimes trivial: making mild fun of the English upper
classes, Wilde nevertheless is rather fond of rendering the routine of aristocratic "high
life": dressing for dinner, dining at the club about nine o'clock, etc. The passage is also
significant as it sets forth the ethical conception of the decadents, expressed with the
usual affected pose so characteristic of this trend: "renunciations that men have
unwisely called virtue... those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin". The word
sin is a favourite with Wilde. In the above excerpt it is used twice, the third instance
being its derivative sinner. In reading the novel we come across it an infinite number
of times. In every case it receives a very specific emotional colouring evoking
something irresistibly attractive, if forbidden. "Epater le bourgeois" (to amaze and
shock the bourgeois) is undoubtedly the slogan behind this. Wilde defies the
hypocritical puritanism of the middle-class and tickles the sophisticated nerves of the
aristocracy. In the matter of vocabulary Wilde is fastidious and yet somewhat
monotonous: the same words that were in vogue with the decadents appear over and
over again, almost on every page, the above pages being no exception. Alongside
35
with sin, strange, exquisite and delicate that have already been mentioned, these are:
passion, dream, subtle, elaborate, dim. This last word might be, perhaps, specially
noted, for it is very typical of Wilde that he ex-cells in describing coming darkness
("falling day and creeping shadows"; "cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a
copper-green sky gleamed through the windows"; "wan light"). The delicate epithet
fascinating becomes the core of something like a paradox in a short dialogue between
Dorian and Lord Henry: "I didn't say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is
a great difference." As it is more natural and usual to be charmed by what one likes,
the statement is self-contradictory. At the same time, although apparently absurd, this
paradox becomes clearer, if we take into consideration that the original meaning of
the word fascinated was 'dominated.
TESTS
Test 1. Identify the stylistic devices and expressive means employed by the author,
account for the stylistic effect:
1. As well as the shrieks there was a dull continuous roar; an elemental sound, like a
forest fire or a river in spate. As his reluctant legs bore him upwards he arrived at the
inevitable deduction: the party was being a success.
2. If he was useful to Marta as a cavalier when she needed one, she was even more
useful to him as a window on the world. The more windows on the world a
policeman has the better he is likely to be at his job, and Marta was his lepers
squint on the theatre.
3. Marta, bless her black-and-white chic and her disgruntled look, was the nearest
thing to real distinction in the room.
4. And there was something in the implied comment of his remark about the
megaphone, in the detachment with which he was watching the scene, that divorced
him from his surroundings.
5. He has just a pieds-a-terre in town.
6. Walter saved from Marguerite Merriam and settling down to marry Liz; all family
together in the old homestead and too cozy for words.
7. That boy was making as impression on me in thirty seconds flat and a range of
twenty yards, and Im considered practically incombustible.
8. - What did you think of her?
- Oh, she was mad, of course.
- How mad?
- Ten tenths.
- In what way?
- You mean how did it take her? Oh, a complete indifference to everything but the
thing she wanted at the moment.
9. Well, theres a dreadful fascination about it, you know. One thinks: thats the
absolute sky-limit of awfulness, nothing could be worse. And so next week you listen
to see if it really can be worse. Its a snare. Its so awful you cant even switch off.
You wait fascinated for the next piece of awfulness, and the next.
10. What did Marguerite find so wonderful about him?
36
I can tell you that. His devotion. Marguerite liked picking the wings off flies.
Walter would let her take him to pieces and then come back for more.
11. It Marguerite Merriam was too bad even for Walter Whitmore, then Liz is too
good for him. Much too good for him.
1. The car was a two-seater Rolls; a little old-fashioned in shape as rolls cars, which
last for ever, are apt to be.
2. - But arent you going to pack for me?
- Pack for you?
- But your aunt said you were to.
- That was a mere figure of speech.
- Not the way I figure it. Anyhow, come up and watch while I pack. Lend me your
advice and countenance. Its a nice countenance.
3. This is when I think lights look best, Liz said. While it is still daylight. They are
daffodil yellow and magic. Presently when it grows dark they well go white and
ordinary.
4. The last raw scar of new development had faded behind them, and they were now
in an altogether country world.
5. She was a little sorry to see that her mother did not like Searle. No one would ever
suspect it, of course, but Liz knew her mother very well and could gauge with
micrometer accuracy her secret reactions to any given situation. She was aware now
of the distrust that seethed and bubbled behind that bland front, as lava seethes and
bubbles behind the smiling slopes of Vesuvius.
6. - We have often had people we didnt know anything about down here at a
moments notice
- Indeed we have.
7. For the introspective Liz, on the other hand, life had become all of a sudden a sort
of fun-fair. A kaleidoscope. A place where no surface ever stayed still or horizontal
for more than a few seconds together. Where one was plunged into swift mock
danger and whirled about in coloured lights.
8. But a light went out of the room with him, and sprang up again when he came
back. She was aware of every movement of his, from the small mallet of his
forefinger as it flicked the radio switch to the lift of his foot as it kicked a log in the
fireplace.
9. So that poor Emma, walking up the spotless brick path to hand in a basket of eggs
on her way to Evensong, was walking all unaware into her Waterloo.
10. And then, quite suddenly, Walter was gone.
He went without noise and without a goodnight. Only the bang of the door called
their attention to his exit. It was as eloquent slam, furious and final; a very pointed
exit.
37
1.I am sorry to be a nuisance, but I am busy this morning getting rid of the
undergrowth in this case.
Undergrowth?
I want to get rid of all people who ant possibly enter into the case at all.
I see. You are collecting alibis.
2. They were like two dogs walking round each other, Reeve said. No row, but a
sort of atmosphere. The row might burst out any moment, if you see what I mean.
3. Mr. Ratoff, can you suggest how Leslie Searle came to be in the river?
Came to be? He fell in, I suppose. Such a pity. Pollution. The river is so beautiful
it should be kept for beautiful things. Ophelia. Shalott. Do you think Sharlott would
make a ballet?
4. Silas has a thing about fertility. He holds that the highest function of a woman is
the manufacture of progeny. So disheartening for a woman, dont you feel, to be
weighed against a rabbit, and to know that she will inevitably be found wanting. Life
by Fertility out of Ugliness. That is how Silas sees it.
5. At the mention of Searle Weekley began a diatribe against moneyed dilettantes
which in view of Weekleys income and the sum total of his mornings work
Grant thought inappropriate. He cut him short.
6. The morning smelt very fresh and sweet. The sour smell of vomited milk and
rough-dried dish-cloths that had hung about the house was nothing to the smell of
soured humanity that filled the place where Silas Weekley worked.
7.When Grant walked into the Mill House at a quarter to seven he felt that he had
riddled Salcott St. Mary through a small-meshed sieve, and what he had left in the
sieve was exactly nothing. He had a very fine cross-section of life in England, and he
was by that much the richer.
8. I am so glad that it is not Walter who has disappeared, she said, wafting him to
a chair with one of her favorite gestures and beginning to pour sherry.
Glad? Grant said, remembering Marthas expressed opinion of Walter.
If it was Walter who had disappeared, I should be a suspect, instead of a sleeping
partner. Grant thought that Marta as sleeping partner must have much in common
with sleeping dogs.
9.She was a woman who not only appreciated good food and good drink but was
possessed of that innate good sense that is half-way to kindness.
10. You are very accommodating for a policeman, she remarked.
Criminals dont find us that way, he said.
I thought providing accommodation for criminals was the end and object of
Scotland Yard.
Test 4. Translate the following sentences into Russian, paying special attention to the
stylistic devices and expressive means employed by the author:
1. Do you know that Hollywood stars go down on their knees to get Leslie Searle to
photograph them? It is something they cant buy. A privilege. An honour.
2. This was the spark that ignited Serge.
38
3. But there was never any successful argument against Arthurs methods. Arthur just
put a friendly arm round one and leaned. The arm was like a limb of a beech tree, and
the pressure was that of a landslide.
4. But Cormac Ross has sufficient West Highland blood in him to find it difficult to
say no. He liked to be liked. So he engaged Cromarty as his smoke-screen. When and
author could be received with open arms, the open arms were Cormac Rosss. Then
an author had regretfully to be turned down it was on account of Cromartys
intransigence.
5. So, full of good burgundy and the prospects of cheques to come, Walter went on
the the studio and his mind one more began to play tricks on him and run away back
to Salcott instead of staying delightedly in the studio as was its habit.
1. What made him sick, of course, was not the box of candy. He was sick of an
emotion that was old before candy was invented.
2. Lavinia was the sandy little woman by the middle window. She had bought herself
a fashionable hat for the occasion, but had done nothing to accommodate it; so that
the hat perched on her birds-nest of ginger hair as if it had dropped there from an
upper window as she walked along the street. She was wearing her normal expression
of pleased bewilderment and no make-up.
3. The trouble welled up and overflowed into words, almost against her will, some
seven days later. She was dictating as usual to Liz, but was making heavy weather of
it.
4. I know it isnt his fault it isnt anything he does but theres no denying that he
is an upsetting person. Theres Serge and Toby Tullis not on speaking terms
That is nothing new!
But they had become friends again, and Serge was behaving quite well and working,
and now
5. Lavinia Fitch dear, kind, abstracted Lavinia manufacturer of fiction for the
permanently adolescent, had after all a writers intuition.
1. Why are you telling me this? Liz said , half angry. Lavinia stopped doodling and
said disarmingly: Liz darling. I dont quite know, except perhaps that I was hoping
you would find some way of reassuring Walter. In your own clever way. Which is to
say, without dotting any Is or crossing any Ts.
2. And yet Lavinia had been so right. Walters first easy taking-for-granted attitude to
the visitor had changed to a host and guest relationship.
3. she would think up some small exclusive thing to do with Walter; something
that would be tete-a-tete. It had been too often a triangle lately. Or too often, perhaps,
the wrong tete-a-tete.
4. So that he listened with only and ear-and-a-half to what his superior was saying to
him until a familiar name caught his whole attention.
39
5.Oxfordshire say they want to put it in our laps not because they think the problem is
insoluble but because its a kid-glove affair.
1. It was exactly like touching a snail, he thought. The instant closing-up and
withdrawal. One moment she was frank and unselfconscious. The next moment she
was startled and defensive.
2. Never, she said, had she had to do for a nicer young man. She had met dozens of
young men, gentlemen and others, who considered a girls ankles, but Mr. Searl was
the only one she had ever men who considered a girls feet.
Feet?
He would say: You an do this and that, and that will save you coming up again,
wont it. And she could only conclude that this was an American characteristic,
because no Englishman she had ever come across had ever cared two hoots whether
you had to come up again or not.
3. As he went out to get his car he said: Have you any Press staying in the house?
Three, Reeve said. The Clarion, the Morning News, and the Post. They are out
now, sucking the village dry
Also ran: Scotland Yard, Grant said wryly, and drove away.
4. Every third cottage in the place has an alien in it. All degrees of wealth, from Toby
Tullis the playwright, you know who has a lovely house in the middle of the
village street, to Serge Ratoff the dancer who lives in a converted stable. All degrees
of living in sin, from Deenie Paddington who never has the same weekend guest
twice, to poor old Atlanta Hope and Bart Hobart who have been living in sin, bless
them, for the best part of thirty years. All degrees of talent from Silas Weekley, who
writes those dark novels of country life - all steaming manure and slashing rain, to
Miss Easton-Dixon who writes a fairy-tale book once a year for the Christmas trade.
5.Liz had been falling in and out of love more or less regularly since the age of seven,
but she had never wanted to marry anyone but Walter, who was Walter, and different.
Even with Tino Tresca, of the yearning eyes and the tenor that dissolved ones heart
like a melting ice, even with Tresca, craziest of all her devotions it was possible to
forget for minutes together that she was in the same room with him. (With Walter, of
course, there was nothing remarkable in the fact that they should be sharing the same
air: he was just there and it was nice).
Texts for stylistic analysis
Ode to My Socks by Pablo Neruda (translated by Robert Bly)
Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
40
as if they were two cases

knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honoured in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.
Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.
The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.
Song by Christina Rossetti
WHEN I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
41
And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
Alistair MacLean
Santorini
The President of the United States was no longer a young man and at half past five
on that morning in the Oval Office he was showing every year of his age. The lines
of care and concern were deeply entrenched in his face and the skin, beneath the
permanent tan, had a greyish tinge to it. But he was alert enough and his eyes were
as clear as could be expected of an elderly man who had had no sleep whatsoever
that night.
'I am beginning, gentlemen, to feel almost as sorry for myself and ourselves as I am
for those unfortunates in Santorini.' The 'gentlemen' he was addressing were the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Hollison of the FBI, John Heiman, the
Defense Secretary, and Sir John Travers, the British Ambassador.
'I suppose I should, in all decency, apologize for bringing you all together at this
unearthly hour of the morning, but, frankly, I have no decency left in me. I'm right
at the undisputed top of my self-pity list.' He rifled some papers on his desk.
'Admiral Hawkins and his men are sitting on top of a ticking time-bomb and it
seems that nature and circumstances are conspiring to thwart their every attempt to
rid themselves of this canker in their midst. With his latest report I had thought that
I had reached the ultimate nadir. Inevitably, 1 was wrong.' He looked sorrowfully at
the deputy head of the FBI. 'You had no right to do this to me, Richard.'
'I am sorry about that, Mr President,' Hollison may well have meant what he said
but the sorrow was completely masked by the expression and tone of bitter anger.
'It's not just bad news or damnably bad news, it's shattering news. Shattering for
you, shattering for me, most of all shattering for the General. I still can hardly bring
myself to believe it.
Could you put us in the picture, please?''
That shouldn't take too long. It's a most damnably ugly picture, Sir John, because
it reflects badly - just how badly it's only now beginning to dawn on me on both
Americans in general and the Pentagon in particular.
'The central figure in the scenario, of whom you have of course heard, is a certain
Adamantios Spyros Andropulos who is rapidly emerging as an international criminal
of staggering proportions. As you know, he is at present being held aboard the frigate
Ariadne. He is an exceptionally wealthy man I'm talking merely of hundreds of
42
millions of dollars, it could be billions for all I so far know and he has money,
laundered money under false names, hidden away in various deposit accounts all
over the world, Marcos of the Philippines and Duvalier of Haiti are, or were, rather
good at this sort of thing, but they're being found out, they should have employed a
real expert like Andropulos.'
'He can't be all that expert, Richard,' Sir John said. 'You've found out about him.'
'A chance in a million, a break that comes to a law agency once in a lifetime. In any
but the most exceptional and extraordinary circumstances he would have taken the
secret to the grave with him. That he was found out is due entirely to two things
an extraordinary stroke of luck and an extraordinary degree of astuteness by those
aboard the Ariadne,
'Among his apparently countless worldwide deposits Andropulos had tucked away
eighteen million dollars in a Washington bank through an intermediary or nominee by
the name of George Skepertzis. This nominee had transferred over a million dollars
apiece to the accounts of two men registered in the bank as Thomas Thompson and
Kyriakos Katzanevakis. The names, inevitably, are fictitious no such people exist.
The only bank clerk who could identify all three men had left the bank. We showed
him a group of photographs. Two of them he recognized immediately but none of
the photographs remotely resembled the man going by the name of George
Skepertzis.
'But he was able to give us some additional and very valuable information about
Skepertzis.The lattter wanted to know about the banking facilities in certain specified
towns in the United States and Mexico.
'The bank clerk provided our agent with the names and addresses of the banks
concerned. We checked those against two lists regarding Andropulos's banking
activities Skepertzis had made enquiries about banks in five cities and, lo and
behold and to nobody's surprise, all five also appeared on the lists concerning
Andropulos.
'We instituted immediate enquiries. It turns out that friend Skepertzis has bank
accounts in all five cities. All under his own name. In each of those banks close on
three-quarters of a million dollars have been transferred to the accounts of a
certain Thomas Thompson and a certain Kyriakos Katzanevakis. It's a measure of
those two gentlemen's belief in their immunity to investigation that they hadn't even
bothered to change their names. Not that that would have mattered in the long run
- not after we had got around to circulating photographs.
A silence ensued, a silence that was long and profound and more than a little
gloomy. It was the President himself who finally broke it.
'A stirring tale, is it not, Sir John?'
'Stirring, indeed. Richard had the right term for it shattering.'
'But - well, have you no questions?'
'No.'
The President looked at him in near disbelief. 'Not even one little question?'
'Not even one, Mr President.'
'But surely you must want to know the identities of Thompson and Katzanevakis?'
43
'I don't want to know. If we must refer to them at all I'd rather just refer to them as
the general and the admiral.' He looked at Hollison. 'That would be about right,
Richard?'
'I'm afraid so. A general and an admiral.
'The point is that you all seem convinced there appears to be a certain doomladen certainty about this that this affair, this top-level treason, if you will, is
bound to become public knowledge. I have one simple question. Why?'
'Why? Why?' The President shook his head as if bemused or stunned by the naivete
of the question. 'God damn it, Sir John, it's bound to come out. It's inevitable. How
else are we going to explain things away? If we are at fault, if we are the guilty
party, we must in all honesty openly confess to that guilt. We must stand up and be
counted.'
'We have been friends for some years now, Mr President. Friends are allowed to
speak openly?'
'Of course, of course.'
'Your sentiments, Mr President, do you the greatest possible credit but, I am
referring to what is practical and politic. It's bound to come out, you say. Certainly
it will but only if the President of the United States decides that it must. How, you
ask, are we going to explain things away? Simple. We don't Mr President, you have a
duty not to speak out. There is nothing whatsoever to be gained, and a very great
deal to be lost. at best you will be hanging out a great deal of dirty washing in public
and all to no avail, to no purpose: at worst, you will be providing invaluable
ammunition for your enemies. Such open and, if I may say so, ill-advised confession
will achieve at best an absolute zero and at worst a big black minus for you, the
Pentagon and the citizens of America. The Pentagon, I am sure, is composed of
honourable men. Sure, it may have its quota of the misguided, the incompetent,
even the downright stupid: name me any large and powerful bureaucratic elite that
has never had such a quota. All that matters, finally and basically, is that they are
honourable men and I see no earthly justification for dragging the reputations of
honourable men through the dust because we have discovered two rotten apples at
the bottom of the barrel.
'I can only nod emphatic agreement,' John Heiman, the Defense Secretary said. 'If
I may mix up two metaphors - if I am mixing them - we have only two options. We
can let sleeping dogs lie or let slip the dogs of war. Sleeping dogs never harmed
anyone but the dogs of war are an unpredictable bunch. Instead of biting the enemy
they may well turn, in this case almost certainly would turn, and savage us.'
The President looked at Hollison. 'Richard?'
'You're in the card-game of your life, Mr President. You've got only one trump and
it's marked "Silence.
James Grover Thurber
Thurber, James Grover (18941961)American humorous writer and journalist.
His essays, sketches, fables and stories were mostly published in the New-Yorker
(American humorous weekly). Thurber published more than twenty books among
which the most popular are 7s Sex Necessary?, Let Your Mind Alone, The Last
44
Flower, Men, Women and Dogs, Alarms and Diversions. The posthumous
collection of his short stories was published in 1962 under the title Credos and
Curious.
There's No Place Like Home
If you are thinking about going abroad and want to preserve your ardour for
travelling, don't pore over a little book called Collins' Pocket Interpreters: ' France,
which I picked up in London. Written especially to instruct the English how to
speak French in the train, the hotel, the quandary, the dilemma, etc., it is, of
course, equally useful I might also say equally depressing to Americans. I have
come across a number of these helps-for-travellers, but none that has the heavy
impact, the dark, cumulative power of Collins's. 2
Each page has a list of English expressions, one under the other, which gives
them the form of verse. The French translations are run alongside. Thus, on the
first page, under The Port of Arrival', we begin (quietly enough) with 'Porter, here
is my baggage!'-'Porteur, void mes bagages!' From then on disaster follows fast
and faster until in the end, as you shall see, all hell breaks loose.3 The volume
contains three times as many expressions to use when one is in trouble as when
everything is going all right. This, my own experience has shown, is about the right
ratio, but God spare me from some of the difficulties for which the traveller is
prepared in Mr Collins's melancholy narrative poem. I am going to leave out the
French translations, because, for one thing, people who get involved in the messes
and tangles we are coming to invariably forget their French and scream in English
anyway. The phrases, as I have said, run, one under the other, but herein I shall
have to run them one after the other (you can copy them down the other way, if
you want to).
Trouble really starts in the canto called 'I n the Customs Shed'. 4 Here we have: 'I
cannot open my case.' 'I have lost my keys.' 'Help me to close this case.' 'I did
not know that I had to pay.' 'I don't want to pay so much.' 'I cannot find my
porter.' 'Have you seen porter 153?' That last query is a little masterstroke of
writing, I think, for in those few words we have a graphic picture of a tourist lost in
a jumble of thousands of bags and scores of customs men, looking frantically for one
of at least a hundred and fifty-three porters. We feel that the tourist will not find
porter 153, and the note of frustration has been struck.
Our tourist (accompanied by his wife, I like to think) finally gets on the train for
Paris having lost his keys and not having found his porter and it comes
time presently to go to the dining-car, although he probably has no appetite, for the
customs men, of course, have had to break open that one suitcase. Now, I think, it
is the wife who begins to grumble: 'Someone has taken my seat.' 'Excuse me, sir,
that seat is mine.' 'I cannot find my ticket!' 'I have left my ticket in the compartment.'
'I will go and look for it.' 'I have left my gloves (my purse) in the dining-car.'
Here the note of frenzied disintegration, so familiar to all travellers abroad, is
sounded. Next comes The Sleeper', which begins, ominously, with 'What is the
matter?' and ends with 'May I open the window?' 'Can you open this window,
please?' We realize, of course, that nobody is going to be able to open the window
45
and that the tourist and his wife will suffocate. In this condition they arrive in
Paris, and the scene there, on the crowded.station platform, is done with superb
economy of line: 'I have left something in the train.' 'A parcel, an overcoat.' 'A
mackintosh, a stick.' 'An umbrella, a camera.' 'A fur, a suitcase.' The travellers
have now begun to go completely to pieces.
Next comes an effective little interlude about an aeroplane trip, which is one of
my favourite passages in this swift and sorrowful tragedy: 'I want to reserve a
place in the plane leaving tomorrow morning.' 'Whendo we start?' 'Can we get
anything to eat on board?' 'When do we arrive?' 'I feel sick.' 'Have you any paper
bags for air-sickness?' The noise is terrible.' 'Have you any cotton wool?' 'When are
we going to land?' This brief masterpiece caused rne to cancel an air trip from
London to Paris and go the easy way, across the Channel.
We now come to a section called 'At the Hotel', in which things go from worse to
awful: 'Did you not get my letter?' 'I wrote to you three weeks ago.' 'I asked for a
first-floor room.' ' I f you can't give something better, I shall go away.' The
chambermaid never comes when I ring.' 'I cannot sleep at night, there is so
much noise.' 'I have just had a wire. I must leave at once.' Panic has begun to
set in, and it is not appeased any by the advent of The Chambermaid': 'Are you the
chambermaid?' There are no towels here.' The sheets on this bed are damp.' This
room is not clean.' 'I have seen a mouse in the room.' 'You will have to set a
mouse trap here.' (I am sure all you brave people who are still determined to come
to France will want to know how to say 'mouse trap' in French: it's souriciere;
but you better bring one with you.) The bells of hell at this point begin to ring
in earnest: These shoes are not mine.' The bulb is broken.' The radiator is too
warm.' The radiator doesn't work.' 'It is cold in this room.' This is not clean,
bring me another.' 'I don't like this.' 'I can't eat this. Take it away!'
I somehow now see the tourist's wife stalking angrily out of the hotel, to get
away from it all (without any shoes on) and, properly enough, the booklet
seems to follow her course first under 'Guides and Interpreters': 'You are asking
too much.' 'I will not give you any more.' 'I shall call a policeman.' 'He can settle
this affair.' Then under 'Inquiring the Way': 'I am lost.' 'I was looking for '
'Someone robbed me.' That man robbed me.' That man is following me everywhere.'
She rushes to The Hairdresser', where, for a, change, everything goes quite
smoothly until: The water is too hot, you are scalding me!' Then she goes shopping,
but there is no surcease: 'You have not given me the right change.' 'I bought this
two days ago.' 'It doesn't work.' 'It is broken.' 'It is torn.' 'It doesn't fit me.'
Then to a restaurant for a snack and a reviving cup of tea: 'This is not fresh.'
'This piece is too fat.' 'This doesn't smell very nice.' There is a mistake in the
bill.' 'While I was dining someone has taken my purse.' 'I have left my glasses
(my watch) (a ring) in the lavatory.' Madness has now come upon her and she
rushes wildly out into the street. Her husband, I think, has at the same time
plunged blindly out of the hotel to find her. We come then, quite naturally, to
'Accident', which is calculated to keep the faint of heart nay, the heart of oak
safely at home by his own fireside: 5 There has been an accident!' 'Go and fetch a
policeman quickly.' 'Is there a doctor near here?' 'Send for the ambulance.' 'He is
46
seriously injured.' 'She has been run over.' 'He has been knocked down.' The
back, a bone.' The face, the finger.' The foot, the head.' The knee, the leg.'
The neck, the nose.' The wrist, the shoulder.' 'He has broken his arm.' 'He has
broken his leg.' 'He has a sprained ankle.' 'He has a sprained wrist.' 'He is
losing blood.' 'He has fainted.' 'He has lost consciousness.' 'He has burnt his face.'
' I t is swollen.' 'It is bleeding.' 'Bring some cold water.' 'Help me to carry him.'
(Apparently, you just let her lie there, while you attended to him but, of course,
she was merely run over, whereas he has taken a terrific tossing around.) 6 We
next see the husband and wife back in their room at the dreary hotel, both in
bed, and both obviously hysterical. This scene is entitled 'Illness': 'I am
feeling very ill, send for the doctor.' 'I have pains in -'I have pains all over.' The
back, the chest.' The ear, the head.' The eyes, the heart.' The joints, the kidneys.' The lungs, the stomach.' The throat, the tongue.' 'Put out your tongue.'
The heart is affected.' 'I feel a pain here.' 'He is not sleeping well.' 'He cannot
eat.' 'My stomach is out of order.' 'She is feverish.' 'I have caught a cold.' 'I have
caught a chill.' 'He has a temperature.' 'I have a eough.' 'Will you give me a prescription?' 'What must I do?' 'Must I stay in bed?' 'I feel better.' 'When will you
come and see me again?' 'Biliousness, rheumatism.' 'Insomnia, sunstroke.' 'Fainting, a fit.' 'Hoarseness, sore throat.' The medicine, the remedy.' 'A poultice, a
draught.' 'A.tablespoon-fill, a teaspoonful.' 'A sticking plaster, senna.' 'Iodine.'
The last suicidal bleat for iodine is, to me, a masterful touch.
Our couple finally get on their feet again, for travellers are tough they've got
to be but we see under the next heading, 'Common \Vords and Phrases', that
they are left forever punch-drunk and shattered: 7 'Can I help you?' 'Excuse me.'
'Carry on!' 'Look here!' 'Look down there!' 'Look up there!' 'Why, how?' 'When,
where?' 'Because.' That's it!' 'It is too much, it is too dear.' 'It is very cheap.'
'Who, what, which?' 'Look out!' Those are Valkyries, 8 one feels, riding .around,
and above, and under our unhappy husband and wife. The book sweeps on to a
mad operatic ending of the tragedy, with all the strings and brasses and
woodwinds going full blast: 9 'Where are we going?' 'Where are you going?'
'Come quickly and see!' 'I shall call a policeman.' 'Bring a policeman!' 'I shall
stay here.' 'Will you help me?' 'Help! Fire!' 'Who are you?' 'I don't know you.'
'I don't want to speak to you.' 'Leave me alone.' 'That will do.' 'You are
mistaken.' 'It was not I.' 'I didn't do it.' 'I will give you nothing.' 'Go away
now!' 'It has nothing to do with me.' 'Where should one apply?' 'What must
I do?' What have I done?' T have done nothing.' 'I have already paid you.' 'I
have paid you enough.' 'Let me pass!' 'Where is the British consulate?' The oboes
take that last, despairing wail, and the curtain comes down. 10
So you're going to France?
REGINALD ON BESETTING SINS
THE WOMAN WHO TOLD THE TRUTH
There was once (said Reginald) a woman who told the truth. Not all at once, of course,
but the habit grew upon her gradually, like lichen on an apparently healthy tree. She
had no childrenotherwise it might have been different. It began with little things, for
47
no particular reason except that her life was a rather empty one, and it is so easy to
slip into the habit of telling the truth in little matters. And then it became difficult to
draw the line at more important things, until at last she took to telling the truth about
her age; she said she was forty-two and five monthsby that time, you see, she was
veracious even to months. It may have been pleasing to the angels, but her elder sister
was not gratified. On the Woman's birthday, instead of the opera-tickets which she
had hoped for, her sister gave her a view of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives,
which is not quite the same thing. The revenge of an elder sister may be long in
coming, but, like a South-Eastern express, it arrives in its own good time. The
friends of the Woman tried to dissuade her from overindulgence in the practice, but
she said she was wedded to the truth; whereupon it was remarked that it was scarcely
logical to be so much together in public. (No really provident woman lunches regularly with her husband if she wishes to burst upon him as a revelation at dinner. He
must have time to forget; an afternoon is not enough.) And after a while her friends
began to thin out in patches. Her passion for the truth was not compatible with a large
visiting-list. For instance, she told Miriam Klopstock exactly how she looked at the
Ilexes' ball. Certainly Miriam had asked for her candid opinion, but the Woman
prayed in church every Sunday for peace in our time, and it was not consistent.
It was unfortunate, every one agreed, that she had no family; with a child or two in
the house, there is an unconscious check upon too free an indulgence in the truth.
Children are given us to discourage our better emotions. That is why the stage, with
all its efforts, can never be as artificial as life; even in an Ibsen55 drama one must
reveal to the audience things that one would suppress before the children or servants.
Fate may have ordained the truth-telling from the commencement and should justly
bear some of the blame; but in having no children the Woman was guilty, at least, of
contributory negligence.
Little by little she felt she was becoming a slave to what had once been merely an idle
propensity; and one day she knew. Every woman tells ninety per cent of the truth to
her dressmaker; the other ten per cent is the irreducible minimum of deception
beyond which no self-respecting client trespasses. Madame Draga's establishment was
a meeting-ground for naked truths and overdressed fictions, and it was here, the
Woman felt, that she might make a final effort to recall the artless mendacity of past
days. Madame herself was in an inspiring mood, with the air of a sphinx who knew
all things and preferred to forget most of them. As a War Minister she might have
been celebrated, but she was content to be merely rich.
"If I take it in here, andMiss Howard, one moment, if you pleaseand there, and
round like thissoI really think you will find it quite easy".
The Woman hesitated; it seemed to require such a small effort to simply acquiesce in
Madame's views. But habit had become too strong. "I'm afraid", she faltered, "it's just
the least little bit in the world too"
And by that least little bit she measured the deeps and eternities of her thraldom to
fact. Madame was not best pleased at being contradicted on a professional matter,
and when Madame lost her temper you usually found it afterwards in the bill.
And at last the dreadful thing came, as the Woman had foreseen all along that it must;
it was one of those paltry little truths with which she harried her waking hours. On a
48
raw Wednesday morning, in a few ill-chosen words, she told the cook that she
drank. She remembered the scene afterwards as vividly as though it had been painted
in her mind by Abbey. The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she
went.
Miriam Klopstock came to lunch the next day. Women and elephants never forget an
injury.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. .. . XVIII-XX . / ..
, .. . .: , . -, 1967. 366 .
2. .. :
/ .. . : - . . ,
2010. 240 .
3. .. . / ..
. .: , 2008. 224 .
4. Kukharenko, V.A. A Book of Practice in Stylistics: a Manual / V.A. Kukharenko.
Vinnytsia: Nova knyha, 2003. 160 p.
5. Maugham, W.S. Cakes and Ale or the Skeletons in the Cupboard / W.S. Maugham.
M.: , 2000. 256 .
6. Munro, H.H. The Collected Short Stories by Saki / H.H. Munro (Saki).
Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1993. 494 p.
7. Tey, J. To Love and to Be Wise / J. Tey. New York: Berkley Medallion Books,
1975. 226 p.
49
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5

1. CLASSIFICATION OF EXPRESSIVE MEANS

described. To this subdivision belong: simile, periphrasis, euphemism, hyperbole,

Allusion is an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, or thing or to a part of

Let the rain sing you a lullaby. (L. Hughes)

arallel structure. Youth is

4. He missed our father very much. He was s-l-a-i-n in North Africa.

18. NotreDame squats in the dusk.

Narrative compositional forms

3.1. Scheme of Stylistic Analysis

The case of antithesis emphasizes the striking difference between

In this short extract from W. Goldings Darkness Visible the appearance of a

as if they were two cases

And if thou wilt, remember,

_ _____ 20 _.

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