Analisi stilistica di “Cime tempestose”, Dispense di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Analisi stilistica di “Cime tempestose” e più Dispense in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science (JHSS) ISSN: 2279-0837, ISBN: 2279-0845. Volume 2, Issue 5 (Sep-Oct. 2012), PP 46-50 www.iosrjournals.org www.iosrjournals.org 46 | Page Stylistic Analysis of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights Dr. Lata Marina Varghese (Associate Professor, Department of English, Catholicate College, Pathanamthitta, Kerala, INDIA) Abstract: Few debut novels have aroused as much controversy as Wuthering Heights based on themes, style or on techniques. Although, Wuthering Heights scandalized and nauseated the Victorians, modern critics, nevertheless, speak highly of the strength of the novel‘s structure and on Emily Brontë‘s dynamic and disciplined handling of language. A novel comes into existence through the creativity of the writer. And the readers come in contact with the fictional world of the novels through its language. Hence, for comprehending fictional texts, a close study and analysis of language is a necessary prerequisite. Stylistic analysis is used as an analytical tool to see textual patterns and its significance. It is based on statistical data that validate how language, vocabulary and syntax are used to bring about interpretation of the text. Wuthering Heights presents a variety of styles. Stylistically, much ahead of her time, Brontë culled a form best suited to articulate her subject and ideas effectively. This paper is, therefore, an attempt to discover what is striking about Brontë‘s narrative style. Keywords: Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Stylistic analysis I. Introduction Few debut novels have aroused as much controversy as Wuthering Heights based on themes, style or on techniques. The fact that Wuthering Heights, on its promulgation had been deemed as ‗coarse‘, ‗immoral‘, and ‗unwomanly‘, in itself testifies that it deserves serious critical deliberation. Wuthering Heights scandalized and nauseated the Victorians. ‗Brutal‘, ‗disagreeable‘ and ‗diabolical‘ have been some of the adjectives lavished on it by the early reviewers. Modern critics, nevertheless, speak highly of the strength of the novel‘s structure and on Emily Brontë‘s dynamic and disciplined handling of language. Stylistically, much ahead of her time, Brontë culled a form best suited to articulate her subject and ideas effectively. In fact, Mark Schorer praises Wuthering Heights as, ―one of the most carefully constructed novels in the language‖ (Volger 63). The novel, as an effective medium for the criticism and interpretation of life, comes into existence through the creativity of the writer. A literary text is an artifice; a work of art. The readers come in contact with the fictional world of the novels through its language. The fictional world of the novel is a ‗verbal‘ world that is determined at every point by the words in which it is represented. Hence, for comprehending fictional texts, a close study and analysis of language is a necessary prerequisite. David Lodge in The Language of Fiction has made this significant statement, ―The novelist‘s medium is language: what he does, qua novelist, he does in and through language‖ (Preface 1966:1X). The creativity of fiction depends to a large extent on the novelist‘s artistic manipulation of the resources of language in order to attain certain aesthetic effect. Therefore, to understand a text, both ―Literary Competence‖ (Jonathan Culler) and ―Linguistic Competence‖ (Chomsky), are indispensable criteria. But a reader must not remain content to just ―look in language; rather he should look through language‖ (Leech and Short 38), for analytical techniques of linguistics are very much sine qua non for understanding the aesthetic effect of a literary text. Hence, linguistic observation and literary insight are complementary and necessary for a proper interpretation of a literary text. Analyzing involves ‗tearing apart‘ a text into its multifarious components to discover the function of each part and in pinpointing how the author ‗puts‘ it all together to create an aesthetic whole. This promotes a deeper understanding and fuller appreciation of the literary text. Northrop Frye (1961) in his essay Myth, Fiction and Displacement, observes ―...every word, every image, even every sound made audibly or inaudibly by the words is making tiny contribution to the told movement...‖(402 ). An analysis, thus, explains what a work of literature means, since it is essentially an articulation in defence of an author‘s ‗vision‘ of life. Besides, it shows how resources of language –images, the essential process of meaning-making, are utilized to create works of literature. As a result, the reader acquires greater awareness of recognising and using narrative devices, tools and techniques present in the text. This in turn exerts a profound influence on the reader‘s response to the imaginative ‗world‘ created by the novelist. The primary texture of a text is its language. It is through language that the content of a text finds its fullest expression. So, when a text is analyzed, its linguistic features are of prime importance. One of the most obvious features of a writer‘s individual style is his fondness for certain words or types of words, which provides a clue to the predominant attitude of the writer. Besides, lexis is perhaps, that level of linguistic form at which variables can be treated with the greatest freedom and hence are of greater significance in the study of Stylistic Analysis of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights www.iosrjournals.org 47 | Page language. The vocabulary consists of lexical words and grammatical words, of which the lexical words refer to what is being interpersonally expressed; grammatical words provide the syntactic framework of a sentence. Similarly, stylistic analysis of sentence structures is a necessary foundation for understanding a text. Although the grammar of a language is represented by its conventional structuring, difference in the kinds of sentence patterns reflects different attitudes to experience. A study of the patterns of syntactic prominence helps in revealing the thesis or theme which adds to the meaning of a work. Besides, it also helps to detect and analyse ambiguity. Hence, the role of syntax in language is to weave into a single fabric the different threads of meaning that are derived from the variety of linguistic function. Apart from lexis and syntax, many critics have also stressed the importance of imagery in literature, for it is a concrete representation of sense impression, a feeling or an idea that appeals to one or more of the human senses. Hence, imagery or figurative language, as a structuring device, is of prime importance in a novel as it helps in learning about local effects. It is the craft and veracity of narrative patterns present in Emily Brontë‘s Wuthering Heights that has impelled a stylistic analysis of the novel. Stylistic analysis, based on statistical data, is used as an analytical tool in order to discover the textual patterns present in the text and to note its significance. This helps in validating how language, vocabulary and syntax, are used to bring about interpretation of the text. In addition, it also reveals the mechanisms which underlie the work‘s meaning or style. Although a Victorian novel, the richness and complexity of Wuthering Heights continue to inspire critical interpretations even after more than a hundred years of its publication. This is no doubt a tribute to the creative genius of its author. As a work of art, the novel invites criticism which is mainly stylistic and pertains to image patterns and formal structure. Wuthering Heights presents a variety of styles ranging from Catherine‘s poetic discourse, Heathcliff‘s verbal violence, Lockwood‘s superior literary tone and fashionable cliché, Nelly‘s homiletic rhetoric to Joseph‘s biblical Yorkshire dialect and unintelligible muttering--all producing an interplay of accents and idioms, giving rise to what Bakhtin terms as ―dialogical heteroglossia‖. However, the single most distinctive feature of Wuthering Heights is its dialogue with Brontë‘s emphasis on personal idiolect. To make this possible she dismantles language in order to make the language of social behaviour in her fictional world intelligible to her readers. Consequently, the diction used by various characters reveals their speech style. But although a skilled craftswoman, Brontë, desists from ornate verbal display. Her linguistic style depends largely on her admirable choice of words, though it is marked by hyperbolic excess especially in the dramatic speeches of Catherine and Heathcliff. The directness of Brontë‘s style is amply demonstrated in the very opening paragraphs of Chapter one in the novel. This is one of the innumerable examples of the direct method of introducing movement by means of extra accent upon certain focusing words. Each sentence goes straight as a dart to the impression sought to be conveyed (Allot 143): Pure bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun (2). The paragraph conveys a vivid impression of the way the wind blows up on the heights. Similarly, Lockwood‘s entry into the interior of the house is matched exactly with the action it describes. ―One step brought us into the family sitting-room, without any introductory lobby or passage‖ (2). On closer analysis, one discovers that the most distinctive single trait in Emily Brontë‘s narrative style is repetition. Everything in the novel is a kind of double. There are not only verbal repetitions, but the plot, structure, narrators, and the characters themselves form a double to each other. There are even two diary accounts, Catherine‘s diary forming a kind of inner text to Lockwood‘s diary which forms the outer text. Most of the repeated words in the text are content words (Noun, Verb, Adjective and their derivatives). Words repeated tend to stick longer in the mind. But repetition is confined not only to words or sentences but extends to include even ideas (images) that express the theme(s) of the novel. At the lexical level, the very texture of language, i.e., vocabulary is examined. Emily Brontë‘s range of diction is remarkable. Stevie Davies, in fact, elucidates that the copious and literary vocabulary in the novel is founded in a pithy Anglo-Saxon- derived lexis and that the vocabulary is often Latinated and polysyllabic (1998:100-101). One is introduced to Wuthering Heights first through the filter of Lockwood‘s language. The most distinctive feature in Lockwood‘s speeches is its ‗literariness‘. It is stilted, pompous, mannered, ‗bookish‘ and riddled with clichés. Besides, he uses hackneyed and affected language, like in his description of his sea- side flirtation with ―a most fascinating creature--a real goddess‖ (3) who was also a ―poor innocent‖. Further, he speaks of Cathy as Heathcliff‘s ―amiable lady‖, then of Hareton as the ―favoured possessor of the beneficent fairy‖ (9). Taking Cathy to be Hareton‘s wife, he fantasizes himself to be a possible seducer of Cathy. ―She has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer ignorance that better individuals existed! A sad pity…I must beware how I make her regret her choice‖ (8). However, Lockwood‘s narration presents a conflict between the literary genre and the social reality the narrative has moved into; the chasm between his mannered literary language and the domestic reality at the Heights. His speech is often marked by artificiality due to