Read, translate, analyse the following examples paying attention to ellipsis and its stylistic functions.

1. Surrey all in one blaze like a forest fire. Great clouds of dirty yellow smoke rolling up. Nine carat gold. Sky water-green to lettuce green. A few top clouds, yellow and solid as lemons. River disappeared out of its hole. Just a gap full of the same fire, the same smoky gold, the same green. Far bank like a magic island floating in the green. (J.Cary)

When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up, and the watchers was gone. There wasn't nobody around but the family and the widow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if anything had been happening, but I couldn't tell....

...There wasn't no other sound but the scraping of the feet on the floor and blowing noses—because people always blows them more at a funeral than they do at other places except church.” (Same passage from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain)

2. "And what are the dimensions of a Revolution?" The voice was genial and mellow, and the face of the tall dignified old man, who had just entered the room, leading Sylvie by the hand, and with Bruno riding triumphantly on his shoulder, was too noble and gentle to have scared a less guilty man: but the Lord Chancellor turned pale instantly, and could hardly articulate the words "The dimensions your-- your High Excellency? I--I--scarcely comprehend!"

"Well, the length, breadth, and thickness, if you like it better!" And the old man smiled, half-contemptuously.

The Lord Chancellor recovered himself with a great effort, and pointed to the open window. "If your High Excellency will listen for a moment to the shouts of the exasperated populace--" ("of the exasperated populace!" the Sub-Warden repeated in a louder tone, as the Lord Chancellor, being in a state of abject terror, had dropped almost into a whisper) "--you will understand what it is they want. (L.Carroll. Birthday-Presents)

3. The shopman recovered himself from a stunning surprise and burst out:

"Gentlemen, are you drunk? A duel! A duel in my garden. Go home, gentlemen, go home. Why, what did you quarrel about?"

"We quarrelled," said Evan, in the same dead voice, "… about religion." The fat shopkeeper rolled about in his chair with enjoyment.

"Well, this is a funny game," he said. "So you want to commit murder on behalf of religion. Well, well my religion is a little respect for humanity, and …"

"Excuse me," cut in Turnbull, suddenly and fiercely, pointing towards the pawnbroker's next door. "Don't you own that shop?"

"Why …er …yes," said Gordon.

"And don't you own that shop?" repeated the secularist, pointing backward to the pornographic bookseller.

"What if I do?" (G.Chesterton. The Ball and the Cross)

4. LORD CAVERSHAM.You are a very charming young lady!

MABEL CHILTERN. How sweet of you to say that, Lord Caversham! Do

come to us more often. You know we are always at home on Wednesdays,

and you look so well with your star!

LORD CAVERSHAM. Never go anywhere now. Sick of London Society.

Shouldn't mind being introduced to my own tailor; he always votes on

the right side. But object strongly to being sent down to dinner

with my wife's milliner. Never could stand Lady Caversham's bonnets.

MABEL CHILTERN. Oh, I love London Society! I think it has immensely

improved. It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and

brilliant lunatics. Just what Society should be.

LORD CAVERSHAM. Hum! Which is Goring? Beautiful idiot, or the

other thing?

MABEL CHILTERN. I have been obliged for the present to

put Lord Goring into a class quite by himself. But he is developing

charmingly!

LORD CAVERSHAM. Into what?

MABEL CHILTERN. I hope to let you know

very soon, Lord Caversham! (O.Wilde. An Ideal Husband)

5. Jeeves is a tallish man, with one of those dark, shrewd faces. His eye

gleams with the light of pure intelligence.

"Jeeves, we want your advice."

"Very good, sir."

I boiled down Corky's painful case into a few well-chosen words.

"So you see what it amount to, Jeeves. We want you to suggest some way

by which Mr. Worple can make Miss Singer's acquaintance without getting

on to the fact that Mr. Corcoran already knows her. Understand?"

"Perfectly, sir."

"Well, try to think of something."

"I have thought of something already, sir."

"You have!"

"The scheme I would suggest cannot fail of success, but it has what may

seem to you a drawback, sir, in that it requires a certain financial

outlay."

"He means," I translated to Corky, "that he has got a pippin of an

idea, but it's going to cost a bit." (P.G.Wodehouse)

6. 'Ursula,' said Gudrun, 'don't you REALLY WANT to get married?' Ursula

laid her embroidery in her lap and looked up. Her face was calm and

considerate.

'I don't know,' she replied. 'It depends how you mean. 'Gudrun was slightly taken aback. She watched her sister for some moments.

'Well,' she said, ironically, 'it usually means one thing! But don't

you think anyhow, you'd be - ' she darkened slightly - 'in a better

position than you are in now.' A shadow came over Ursula's face.

'I might,' she said. 'But I'm not sure.'

Again Gudrun paused, slightly irritated. She wanted to be quite

definite.

'You don't think one needs the EXPERIENCE of having been married?' she

asked.

'Do you think it need BE an experience?' replied Ursula.

'Bound to be, in some way or other,' said Gudrun, coolly. 'Possibly

undesirable, but bound to be an experience of some sort.'

'Not really,' said Ursula. 'More likely to be the end of experience.'

Gudrun sat very still, to attend to this.

'Of course,' she said, 'there's THAT to consider.' This brought the

conversation to a close. Gudrun, almost angrily, took up her rubber and

began to rub out part of her drawing. Ursula stitched absorbedly.

'You wouldn't consider a good offer?' asked Gudrun.

'I think I've rejected several,' said Ursula.

'REALLY!' Gudrun flushed dark - 'But anything really worth while? Have

you REALLY?' (D.Lawrence)

'A thousand a year, and an awfully nice man. I liked him awfully,' said

Ursula.

'Really! But weren't you fearfully tempted?'

'In the abstract but not in the concrete,' said Ursula. 'When it comes

to the point, one isn't even tempted - oh, if I were tempted, I'd marry

like a shot. I'm only tempted NOT to.' The faces of both sisters

suddenly lit up with amusement.

'Isn't it an amazing thing,' cried Gudrun, 'how strong the temptation

is, not to!' They both laughed, looking at each other. In their hearts

they were frightened.

REPRESENTED SPEECH

Direct speech can be viewed as a stylistic device only in its setting in the midst of the author's narrative or in contrast to all forms of indirect speech. Direct speech is only the speech of a character in a piece of emotive prose.

But there is another way of reporting a character's speech, or, still more commonly, his thoughts. This is neither direct speech, which reproduces the speaker's exact words, nor is it indirect speech, which retells the character's words from the author's point of view, and is characterized by such formulas as He said that... The third way of reporting a character's speech or his thoughts stands apart from those two. And it’s reported, or represented, or inner speech, i.e. this type of speech is not uttered but presented as one’s inner thoughts and ideas. Sometimes the character’s direct speech is so discreet and unemotional, reserved and weighty that the reader can’t make out his or her real attitude to the events and personages around. The only way to learn it is the inner speech. A typical specimen of this third way may be seen in the following extract from "Swan Song" by J.Galsworthy, who is rightly considered to be a master of Inner monologues:

Jon Forsyte's sensations on landing at Newhaven, by the last possible boat, after five and a half years' absence, had been most peculiar. All the way by car to Wansdon under the Sussex Downs he was in a sort of excited dream. England! What wonderful chalk, what wonderful green! What an air of having been there for ever! The sudden dips into villages, the old bridges, the sheep, the beech clumps! And the cuckoo — not heard for six years!

The extract is a small part of a rather extended represented speech of the youngest Forsyte long before the opportunity to express it out loud in the form of the direct speech. Several exclamatory sentences in a short text signal about those ruffled emotions and utter excitement, happiness and delight Jon experiences.

Inner speech is not always marked by the inverted commas or other ways. That’s why it’s important to differentiate it from the direct speech or author’s narration. In the following extract from W.S.Maugham’s story “Red” one can single out some specific inner speech items.

Then he sank heavily in his chair. Was that the man who had prevented him from being happy? Was that the man whom Sally had loved all these years and for whom she had waited so desperately? It was grotesque. He had been cheated.

He wondered why he had ever loved her so madly. He had laid at her feet all the treasures of his soul, and she had cared nothing for them. Waste, what waste!

The text contains general questions, expressive exclamations, affirmative sentences which are also common for direct speech. But, firstly, the quotation marks are missing, and secondly, in passage general questions are posed by the referent of ‘he’, so far as it is known from the context there was nobody to direct questions to. Besides the exclamation Waste, what waste! is attributed to the same person. It may be stated that inner speech articulates the stream-of-consciousness and avoids suggesting that the actual process of reflection and sensation occurs by distancing the language, which reproduces it, from verbal

communication in suppressing both first- and second-person pronouns.

Presumably, the number of possible stylistic functions of inner speech in a particular text is unlimited. It can be a vehicle of irony, empathy, stream-of consciousness or polyvocality, dreams, hallucinations and other such mental states, moving in the direction of stream-of-consciousness, impressions in the mind but not identical with it. Anyway, it gives a reader a chance to learn true, impartial and unpretentious opinion, or state of mind of the character.

Read, translate, analyse the following examples paying attention to inner speech and its stylistic functions. Discuss the language peculiarities that mark the shift from the author's speech to represented inner speech.

1. Then he would bring her back with him to New-York - he, Eugene Wilta, already famous in the East. Already the lure of the big eastern city was in his mind, its palaces, its wealth, its fame. It was the great world he knew, this side of Paris and London. He would go to it now, shortly. What would he be there? How great? How soon? So he dreamed. (Th.Drreiser)

2. Angela looked at him with swimming eyes. He was really different from anything she had ever known, young, artistic, imaginative, ambitious. He was going out into a world which she had longed for but never hoped to see — that of art. Here one was telling her of his prospective art studies, and talking of Paris, what a wonderful thing! (Th.Dreiser)

3 Oh, love, love! Edward! Edward! Oh, he would not, could not remain away. She must see him—give him a chance to explain. She must make him understand that it was not want of love but fear of life—her father, everything, everybody—that kept her so sensitive, aloof, remote. (Ch.Dickens)

4. And then he laughed at himself. He was getting nervy and hot up like everybody else in the house. (R.Chandler)

6. She thought of June’s father, young Jolyon, who had run away with that foreign girl. And what a sad blow to his father and to them all. Such a promising young fellow! A sad blow, though there had been no public scandal, most fortunately, Jo’s wife seeking for no divorce! A long time ago! And when June’s mother died, six years ago, Jo had married that woman, and they had two children now, so she had heard. Still, he had forfeited his right to be there, had cheated her of the complete fulfillment of her family pride, deprived her of the rightful pleasure of seeing and kissing him of whom she had been so proud, such a promising young fellow! (J.Galsworthy)

7. Serve him right for sticking at the price; the only thing the fellow thought of was money. Had he given too much, though? It wanted a lot of doing to — He dared say he would want all his money before he had done with this affair of June’s. He ought never to have allowed the engagement. She had met this Bosinney at the house of Baynes, Baynes and Bildeboy, the architects. He believed that Baynes, whom he knew — a bit of an old woman — was the young man’s uncle by marriage. After that she’d been always running after him; and when she took a thing into her head there was no stopping her. She was continually taking up with ‘lame ducks’ of one sort or another. This fellow had no money, but she must needs become engaged to him — a harum-scarum, unpractical chap, who would get himself into no end of difficulties. (J.Galsworthy)

8. He held a small pickled onion delicately on the end of his fork. "There is," he said, "the question of my equipment."

Esme Fanshaw heard his voice as though it issued from the wireless -there was a distortion about it, a curious echo. She shook her head. He is not real, she thought... But he was here, Mr. Amos Curry, in a navy-blue pin stripe suit and with a small neat darn just below his shirt collar. He was sitting at her kitchen table - for she had hesitated to ask him into the dining room, which in any case was rarely used, the kitchen had seemed a proper compromise. He was here. She had made a pot of coffee, and then, after an hour, a cold snack of beef and pickles, bread and butter, her hands were a little moist with excitement. She thought again how rash she had been, she said, he is a total stranger, someone from the street, a casual caller; I know nothing at all about him. But she recognized the voice of her mother, then, and rebelled against it. Besides, it was not true, for Mr. Curry had told her a great deal. She thought, this is how life should be, 1 should be daring, I should allow myself to be constantly surprised. Each day I should be ready for some new encounter. That is how to stay young. She was most anxious to stay young. (From "A Bit of Singing and Dancing" by S. Hill)

8. He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort! What magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. "Put it back, put it back!" He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire, his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! (A.Bierce)

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1035