Stylistics of the English Language 9 Koroteeva Valentina Vladimirovna,

flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They were coming

toward where the flag was and I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree. They took the flag out, and they were hitting. Then they put the flag back and they went to the table, and he hit and the other hit. Then they went on, and I went along the fence. Luster came away from the flower tree and we went along the fence and they stopped and we stopped and I looked through the fence while Luster was hunting in the grass.
"Here, caddie." He hit. They went away across the pasture. I held to the fence and watched them going away.
"Listen at you, now." Luster said. "Aint you something, thirty three years old, going on that way. After I done went all the way to town to buy you that cake. Hush up that moaning. Aint you going to help me find that quarter so I can go to the show tonight."
They were hitting little, across the pasture. I went back along the fence to where the flag was. It flapped on the bright grass and the trees.
"Come on." Luster said. "We done looked there. They aint no more coming right now. Let’s go down to the branch and find that quarter before them niggers finds it."
It was red, flapping on the pasture. Then there was a bird slanting and tilting on it. Luster threw. The flag flapped on the bright grass and the trees. I held to the fence. [William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury]

no words of more than two syllables - mostly monosyllabic
34

nouns are concrete
4 adjectives (curling, bright, red, bright) - primarily visual – Benji’s world appears to be a simple and concrete one dominated by the sense of sight
A lot of lexical repetition (hit (5), go (8)) – a restricted world
caddie - a golf term (an attendant who carries clubs, etc., for a player) and a name of the sister Benji loves – Caddy – the reason to watch the game intently

7 – compound, 2 – complex
Benji shows the tendency common

in the writing of young children to string sentences of coordinated main clauses together – descriptive style
The tendency towards coordination and away from subordination – doesn’t distinguish major from minor information
Naivety of the mind style – primitive – few verb forms apart from past simple
No adverbials, only of place
The use of transitive verbs (without naming the object) demonstrates that he sees no purpose in the golfers’ actions.

grass and the trees” – (NO “in the breeze” )

suggests two-dimensionality of Benji’s world horizontal (on the grass) and vertical (the trees)
As if Benji just gives direct sensory impressions without any analysis or thought to deliver it to somebody – inability to synthesize information reasonably for the reader’s benefit
Primacy is given to the VISUAL field in which objects reside rather than to the objects themselves – the golfers come not towards the flag, but towards “where the flag was”
The extract illustrates what a mentally disabled person can think about the world

the sentence level:
Inversion
Repetition
Omission
Interaction
Syntactical “transposition”
Convergence

narrative style:
“Once upon a time there was a poor miller.

He lived in a small house. The miller worked at the mill, and his three sons helped him. The miller had no horse. He used his donkey to bring wheat from the fields.The years went by. The miller grew old and died.”
[Puss in Boots by Charles Perrault]

a year ago today seemed already to belong in a

different age. One would have thought the horrors of the present would have swallowed it up like a drop of water. It was not so.” 
[Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, ch.2]
occasionally mark the climactic point in the narrative:
“She saw there an object. That object was the gallows. She was afraid of the gallows.”
[Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent, ch.12]

ideas to others more important, coordinates those of equal weight,

and ties into a neat package as many suggestions, modifiers, and asides as the mind can attend to in one stretch.”
[J.Barzun, 1975, 156]

complex whole:
“The tireless resilient voice that had just lobbed this

singular remark over the Bella Vista bar window-sill into the square was, though its owner remained unseen, unmistakable and achingly familiar as the spacious flower-boxed balconied hotel itself, and as unreal, Yvonne thought.”
[Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, ch.2]
***(a sequence of impressions - the “tireless” voice, the attendant circumstances of that perception, then to the impression the voice made (unmistakable, unreal) and finally to the perceiver herself)

The tireless resilient voice that… was unmistakable and achingly familiar…

Relative Subordinate Clause - …voice that had just lobbed this singular remark over the Bella Vista bar window-sill into the square…
Subordinate Clause of Concession - …though its owner remained unseen…
Incomplete Subordinate Clause of Comparison – …[familiar] as the spacious flower-boxed balconied hotel itself…

which some elements of the sentence happen to be foregrounded

– Had I known it…
the change in the expressivity of

the utterance:
If I had known it… - Had I known it…
the change of the register:
The job of which I spoke – the job I spoke of

Maid, from Arnold, 2010, c.222]
of the direct complement:
“One poem they

read over and over; Swinburne’s “Triumph of Time”…”
[F.Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise]
“Plato he does not read and he disparaged Socrates…”
[English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson]
“Her love letters I returned to the detectives for filing.”
[Gr.Greene, End of the Affair, from Arnold, 2010, c.222]

quality conveyed:
“In some places there are odd yellow tulips, slender,

spiky, and Chinese-looking.”
[D.H.Lawrence, from Arnold, 2010, c.222]
“…and Amory at quarter-back, exhorting in wild despair, making impossible tackles, calling signals in a voice that had diminished to a hoarse, furious whisper, yet found time to revel in the blood-stained bandage around his head…”
[F.Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise]

or puts emphasis on a particular idea:
“up you go”, “off

they sped”
“There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind.”
[L.Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, from Arnold, 2010, c.221]

“I’ve got a crazy streak,’ – she faltered, - ‘twice before I’ve done things like that.”
[F.Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise]

norm
conveys the connotations of emotionality, expressivity and stylization

all about you   
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
If

you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;   
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
   Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise…

the utterance (parallelism)
meaning (e.g., pleonasm, through synonyms, parallel constructions)

writer]
“Take time today to appreciate someone who does something you

take for granted.”
[the author unknown]
“The bad news is time flies.
The good news is you are the pilot.”
[Michael Altshuler, motivational speaker]

balanced against each other by the reversal of their structures

in order to produce an artistic effect:
‘Either you run the day, or the day runs you.’ (J.Rhon, motivational speaker)
‘Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.’ [Socrates]

successive clauses in such a way that the second clause

starts with the same word which marks the end of the previous clause:
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
[Yoda, Star Wars by George Lucas]
“What I present here is what I remember of the letter, and what I remember of the letter I remember verbatim (including that awful French).”
[V.Nabokov, Lolita]

clause or sentence at the end of that same clause or

sentence:
“Believe not all you can hear, tell not all you believe. ”
[Native American proverb]
“A lie begets a lie.”
[English Proverb]
“The king is dead; long live the king.”
[English Saying]

at the end of some narrative structure
is similar to epanalepsis

on the sentence level:

"No wonder his father wanted to know what Bosinney meant, no wonder." (G. Galsworthy)

in order to achieve an artistic effect:
“It was the best

of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
[Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities]

end of successive clauses in order to achieve an artistic

effect:
“The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come.” [Nelson Mandela]

it is helpful to remember that there have always been times

like these. " [Paul Harvey]
“Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.” [Unknown]
“He retained his virtues amidst all his – misfortunes – misfortunes which no prudence could foresee or prevent.” [Francis Bacon]

same words at the end of successive sentences with a

differing middle part:
“When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it.”
[Bill Clinton]
"The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes…” [T.S. Eliot, Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917]

root are repeated:
“Judge not, that ye be not judged”
[ Matthew 7:1]
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
[Lord Acton]
“Love is an

irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”
[Robert Frost]

two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words,

or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect:
“Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.” 
[Robert Frost (1874-1963)]

otherwise be omitted:

“Mrs. Hurst and her sister allowed it to

be so—but still they admired her and liked her, and pronounced her to be a sweet girl, and one whom they would not object to know more of.”
[J.Austen, Pride and Prejudice]

depends on the liver.’
“Camus said that suicide was the only

true philosophical question.’ ‘Apart from ethics and politics and aesthetics and the nature of reality and all the other stuff’” [Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (2011)]
"For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail." [attributed to Benjamin Franklin and others]

have the same or similar meanings:
“Your acting is completely devoid of emotion.”

(devoid=“completely empty”)
“Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.”
[Shakespeare, Hamlet]

took a sip of beer, and then said with sudden

vehemence, ‘I hate the way the English have of not being serious about being serious. I really hate  it.’

[Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (2011)]