Contents
Contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1
Introduction -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2
Chapter 1
1.1 General Notes on Style and Stylistics ------------------------------------------------------------4
1.2 Basic Concepts and Categories of Linguostylistics --------------------------------------------6
1.3 Metaphor and Simile--------------------------------------------------------------------------------8
Chapter 2
2.1 General Stylistic Analysis on “The Great Gatsby” --------------------------------------------------15
2.2 Metaphors and Similes Expressing the Concept of Wealth in “Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------20
Conclusion-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------33
Bibliography---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------37
Introduction
The aim of the present research is to examine metaphors and similes expressing the concept of wealth in the novel “The Great Gatsby” by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. The novel is one of the most outstanding works of the famous American writer, where Fitzgerald gives the reader an idea of American Dream, and also persuades us that money cannot buy happiness. As we see, the concept of wealth is present throughout all the novel. And to make it more expressive, Fitzgerald has applied to numerous expressive means and stylistic devices, where metaphor and simile play leading roles.
Reading means decoding, and if the reader is not able to understand those “codes” under which the writer has “locked” the main points of his work, the reader will not get the idea of the whole book. And our role, as linguists, is to help readers to understand the written texts better, to grasp the meanings the writer put to his works. So, the topicality of this paper is absolutely justified as to understand the novel, to get the main characters and Fitzgerald’s attitude towards them, one must be able to comprehend what the author meant by use of this or that stylistic device.
This paper may be defined as stylistic analysis, as we treat with the style of the writer, the stylistic means and devices he used. And such an analysis is an attempt to find the artistic principles underlying the writer’s choice of language. However, all texts have their individual qualities; the linguistic features which recommend themselves to the attention in one text, will not necessarily be important in another text even by the same author ( not speaking about that by a different one).
Our problem here is, first of all, to go through style and stylistics, to give its definition, to find out its main concepts and basic categories, after which we can easily pass onto the concepts of metaphor and simile and their use in Fitzgerald’s novel.
We divided the paper into 2 chapters, each consisting of several parts.
In chapter one, “General notes on style and stylistics” and “Metaphor and Simile”, we mainly dealt with style and stylistics, tropes and figures of speech, metaphor and simile. There is drawn a distinct line between style and stylistics. The subject the linguostylistics concerns with is defined. You can also find language vocabulary layers in this chapter. Aftermath, the category of variation is presented, on the basis of which we passed onto the topic of tropes and figures of speech. Their main difference is shown, two realizations in speech; metaphor and simile are displayed. We treated with these devices in comparison to each other, trying to give sufficient proof that they are different, though having some common features. We touched upon the problem of metonymic and metaphoric similes, which is of great significance to not confuse metaphor and simile.
Chapter 2 “Metaphors and similes expressing the concept of wealth in “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald”, is dedicated to the main topic of our paper. It is made up of two parts: the first, comparatively little part, presents the general style of Fitzgerald. Numerous examples are given to see what parts of speech the writer mostly used to color his work, what type of narration he used, what symbols he involved to express the basic theme he wanted.
Part two contains the metaphors and similes expressing the concept of wealth in the novel, that is it is the main part of our work. We went through the whole novel trying to point out all the metaphors and similes bearing the concept of wealth and luxury. Each example is stylistically described and analyzed.
The conclusion is our final position to the topic, our deduction on Fitzgerald’s style and especially that used in the novel.
Bibliography covers all the theoretical and practical books, textbooks, dictionaries, fiction and poetry we made use of during our research.
Chapter 1
General Notes on Style and Stylistics
Before coming to the main topic of our research, we find it reasonable to speak about style and stylistics, its basic concepts and categories.
The term style comes from Latin stylus which means a stick made of material for writing. The subject of stylistics has so far not been definitely outlined. This is due to a number of reasons. First of all there is confusion between the terms style and stylistics. The first concept is so broad that it is hardly possible to regard it as a term. We speak of style in architecture, literature, behavior, linguistics, dress and other fields of human activity. Style can be applied to everything.
Style is a concept that can be applied to any two or more objects provided; they are essentially the same while differing in some additional characteristics. ( S.K.Gasparian, A.I.Matevosyan, 2011:8) Linguostylistics is a discipline that fills the gap between linguistics and literary criticism, thus being of great importance for philology. The word style , which is both a linguistic term and a literary critical one, is at the same time widely used in all possible spheres of human life.
In Armenian linguistic school there has been set 3 types of style: functional, situational and individual, i.e. style of the writer. We have similar divisions also in English stylistics.
The concept of style, in general, presupposes the existence of objects that are essentially identical but differ in some secondary features. Thus, we may conclude that the concept of linguistic style is based on similarity and difference. It is assumed that every linguistic unit is correlated with a certain object, referent or thing meant. The process of regular correlation between these is called naming and it is the subject of a certain discipline called onomasiology. Due to this correlation linguistic elements acquire an inherent property, that is signification , which enables every speaker to use the word in a particular way to denote objects. Thus, through signification the linguistic unit has the power of denotation, that is it can be used in speech to refer to a certain object.
The subtle relationship which arises between signification and denotation, creates connotation. These three categories- signification(sense), denotation(what it denotes) and connotation are parts of linguistic meaning.
Linguostylistics is concerned with the part of linguistic meaning that we call connotation- those additional subservient properties of linguistic unit, those overtones which are usually of expressive-emotional-evaluative character.
It should be noted that in the case of style in language these overtones or connotations are inherent, that is form a permanent part of the stylistic characteristics of a language. In the case of style in speech we deal with adherent connotations which are evoked when linguistic units are combined or used in specified ways. Here it is worth mentioning that the word-stock of every language can roughly be divided into three layers:
Literary words which serve to satisfy the communicative demands of official, scientific, poetic messages.
Colloquial ones which are employed in non-official everyday communication.
Neutral words, that possess no stylistic connotation, are suitable for any communicative situation and form the dominant layer of language vocabulary.
The Basic Concepts and Categories of Linguostylistics
The main linguostylistic category is that of variation. Accordingly, we differ the following types of stylistic variation:
Phonetic ( e.g. often-oft)
Structural (e.g. stylistic-stylistical, clothed-clad, etc.)
Diachronic (e.g. you-thou, your- thy, etc.)
Stylistic variation proper (to die- to kick the bucket- to pass away- to join the majority, etc.)
In the case of neutral and literary styles the category of variation manifests itself in language, whereas in the case of colloquial- both in language and speech. Thus, it becomes clear that the category of variation can be very well interpreted in term of paradigmatics,which is the associative level, and syntagmatics, which is the linear level.
In linguistics there are different terms to denote particular means by which utterances are foregrounded; i.e. made more conspicuous, more effective and therefore imparting some additional information. They are called expressive means, stylistic means, stylistic markers, stylistic devices, tropes, figures of speech and other names. (I.R. Galperin, 1981:25) In the European philological tradition there have always existed phenomena regarded as linguostylistic concepts proper. These are tropes and figures of speech, the distinction between which goes back to ancient philology, to the times of Aristotle, Cicero and others.
Both tropes and figures of speech are regarded as manifestations of the category of variation on the paradigmatic and syntagmatic levels respectively. And their study is based on their numerous realizations in speech, such as, e. g. , through metaphor, simile, alliteration, pun, repetition, etc..
The term trope was widely used in Russian philological school. Tropes are based on the transfer of meaning, when a word or a word-combination is used to denote an object which is not normally correlated with this word.(Ахманова О.С., 1966:481) The aim of tropes is to give expressiveness and emotional character to the utterance. Tropes are paradigmatic phenomena as they are based on association or analogy.
The stylistic effect of a figure of speech is achieved due to the unusual arrangement of words and syntactic constructions the aim of which is to enhance the expressiveness of the utterance. (Ахманова О.С., 1966:492) Since devices of figures of speech are concerned with the arrangement of words, they mostly function on syntagmatic level, that is the liner level of a particular speech event.
Both tropes and figures of speech are widely used both in fiction and poetry being recognized as effective means of figurative language.