APPENDIX B

Suggested Pattern of the Literary Text Stylistic Analysis

(1) Give a brief personality sketch of the author of the literary text under
analysis. Tips: Enlarge on the innovatory aspects of the writer's literary work in the
line of content (problems, characters) and form (composition, style).

(The text / excerpt / passage under review / consideration is taken from the novel /
short story composed / written by...)

(2) Define the subject-matter and the theme of the given text.

(3) Make a summary of the analyzed text. Tips: Skim the original text with a
regard to its the main idea. Divide the text into sections. Write a one-sentence
summary of each section choosing the words and expressions synonymous to those
used by the author of the summarized text. Avoid any evaluation or comments.

(In the given extract, the author tells a story ... The gist of the story is the delineation
/ depiction / description / portrayal / presentation... of...)

(4) Comment on the narrative method.

4.1. The type of narrative. Tips:

• subjectivized – in the 1st person;
• objectivized – in the 3rd person.
Tips: Explain the stylistic role and value of the chosen type of narrative for text
evaluation. Supply the language material to prove your point of view.

(The … type of narrative makes the text sound more personal; it shortens the
distance between the author and the reader; it gives reliable and first-hand
information; it makes the text more vivid and emotional; it creates the effect of
authenticity / questions the authenticity of the events presented in the text; a reader
becomes a participant of the events, etc.).

4.2. The type of the narrator. Tips: Outline the character of the narrator. Think
about the effect the author’s choice of the narrator creates.

• the 1st person narrator. Decide whether the 1st person narrator is reliable or
unreliable (has biases and prejudices that may influence how he tells the story).

• the 3rd person narrator. Decide whether the 3rd person narrator is omniscient
(unlimited, all-knowing) or limited (concentrated). Support your opinion referring
to the text.
(It gives the reader a greater insight into the minds of characters; allows readers to
form their own opinion about the characters and their motives)

4.3. The form of presentation. Tips: Decide what the passage / story presents:

• direct speech;
• reported / indirect speech (the author's narrative);
• monologue (inner or unuttered, outer or uttered);
• dialogue;
• narration;
• description (static, dynamic, panoramic, general view, close-up);
• stream of consciousness.
Prove your point of view with the examples from the text. Identify the
prevailing narrative form. Think what effect is created by the combination of
different forms of presentation.

(In form it is a narration / description … intermingled with reported speech...;

it helps avoid monotony of the narrative; adds vividness to the excerpt; helps in
character drawing)

(5) Define the slant / stylistic tone of the text. Tips: The slant may be:

• ironical
• humorous
• tragic
• sarcastic
• lyrical
• optimistic
• pessimistic
• melodramatic
• sentimental
• emotional
• unemotional
• pathetic
• dry and matter-of-fact
• gloomy
• bitter
• sarcastic
• cheerful

(The general slant of the narration is… The text is written in … tone, etc.)
 (6) Dwell upon the setting of the text. Tips: Define the type of setting of the
analyzed text and state its function. The setting can be:

• temporal
• geographical / local
• social
► briefly sketched
► detailed

It may function as
• a mirror
• an antagonist
• a means of reinforcing theme
• a way of revealing character
(The setting contributes towards creating mood and atmosphere of the narration…;
The setting is seen through the eyes of…)

(7) Give an account on the plot structure of the analyzed text. Tips: Define
whether the text has a straight line (chronological) or a complex narrative? The
classical plot structure consists of:

• the exposition
• the complications
• the climax
• the denouement
• the closing part / ending

However, the author may employ such techniques as:

► in medias res
► flashback (to the past)
► foreshadowing (towards the future)
► retardation

The plot structure may undergo some transformations – some parts can be omitted, or
repeated, or inverted. If necessary, each part should be divided into smaller logical
parts or episodes. Some stories may have subplots.

(The extract may be subdivided into 2 (5, etc.) logically complete fragments ...)

(8) Methods for conveying characters.

• direct (through the author's or another personage's description);

• indirect (through the character's speech and actions).
150
 (9) The network of images. The text in question should be analyzed from the
point of view of its slant and expressive means (EM) and stylistic devices (SD) of
different language levels that are employed to create the slant.

In addition to that, it is necessary to consider the system of sensory images

(visual, aural, olfactory, gustatory and tactile) that imply either positive or negative
emotions and symbolic images.

Define the type of the symbol regarding the type of knowledge it conveys. We
can distinguish archetypal (related to Jungian archetypes), stereotypical (culturally
grounded), and individual (author's) symbols.

(10) Formulate the message of the analyzed text.

151
 Samples of Suggested Stylistic Analysis
(1) The Story of an Hour
by Kate Chopin
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was
taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that
revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It
was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad
disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had
only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had
hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a
paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild
abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went
away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this
she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed
to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all
aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the
street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some
one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the
eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that
had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite
motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who
has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even
a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed
away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection,
but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What
was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it,
creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color
that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this
thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with
her will – as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted
lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare
and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and
bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of
her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A
clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands
folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and
gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to
come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to
them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for
herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with
which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a
fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a
crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter!
What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-
assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole,
imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg, open the door – you will
make yourself ill. What are you doing Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of
life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and
summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick
prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder
that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a
feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of
Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs.
Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard
who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his gripsack and umbrella.
He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been
one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen
him from the view of his wife.
But Richards was too late.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease – of joy that kills
 Sample Stylistic Analysis
of The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

The story under consideration is written by Kate Chopin, a famous

American writer of short stories and novels, who is known for addressing feminist
issues. "The Story of an Hour", that may be defined as a family drama, focuses on a
woman's reaction to the shocking news that her husband has died in a railroad
accident and then her dramatic response to discovering that he is actually alive.
The action takes place in a single hour in an American home in the last
decade of the nineteenth century. The time frame of the story (an hour) is indicated
already in its title (The Story of an Hour). Another salient position which gives the
initial clue to the overall comprehension of the story is its begging ("Mrs. Mallard
was afflicted with a heart trouble") which foreshadows, to some extent, the ending or
at least hints that Mrs. Mallard’s heart condition will affect the outcome of the story.
The “heart trouble” discussed at the beginning of the story echoes the “heart
disease” mentioned at the end, intensifying the twist ending and bringing the story to
the end.
The general slant of the text is rather dramatic and heightened by the
composition of the text as well as by its vocabulary. The story starts with the
exposition which contains a short presentation of place (her room), the characters
of the story (Mrs. Mallard, her sister Josephine, her husband’s friend Richard) and
introduces the reader to the event depicted in it ("a great care was given to break her
as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death"). The unexpected and
abnormal way Mrs. Mallard took the news ("She didn't hear the story as many
women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance") is
highlighted by the oxymoron "a monstrous joy". Only when “the storm of grief had
spend itself”, she started thinking of the way her life would change. The climax of
the story comes when “[...] a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips.
She said it over and over under her breath: "Free, free, free!" A chain of metaphors
"a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips ", "her pulses beat fast, and
the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body", "a long procession
of years to come that would belong to her absolutely" as well as the repetition
"Free, free, free!", "Free! Body and soul free!" and the hope "she would live for
herself" reveal Mrs. Mallard's unconscious dream to be free. We can guess that she
was unhappy in her family life, her husband "never looked save with love upon her”
This idea is also intensified by the epithet "bitter" in the expression "bitter
moment". The antithesis in the sentence "And yet she had loved him – sometimes.
Often she had not." makes the reader arrive at a conclusion that all her love towards
her husband was just an illusion. Syntactically it is marked by the detachment
"sometimes" and the inversion "Often she had not". In addition, Mrs. Mallard’s
unnatural behaviour is intensified by the metaphor "she was drinking in a very
elixir of life through that open window", the climax "spring days and summer days
and all sorts of days", and the epithet "feverish" in the expression "feverish triumph
in her eyes". The unexpected denouement ("she died of heart disease") is rendered
by the personification "the joy that kills" based on a paradox.
The use of the omniscient third-person narrator enables the reader to see
the story which is not limited to the protagonist’s point of view and makes the
narrative objective and trustworthy.
The author reveals Louise indirectly mainly through her behaviour and words.
Mrs. Mallard turns out to be a highly emotional woman who experiences rather
controversial emotions after her sister informed her of her husband’s death. Louise’s
both physical and emotional “heart trouble” is made obvious through a physical
exhaustion verbalized by the metaphor "pressed down by a physical exhaustion
that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul", the simile "a sob came up
into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob
in its dream"; the epithet "paralyzed" in "a paralyzed inability"; a strong heart
beating ("the pulses beat fast") and a feeling of warm manifested by the metaphor
"the coursing blood warmed". Her future is represented as something fearful ("There
was something coming to her and she was waiting for her, fearfully), unknown and
even mysterious ("What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to
name").
The syntax, too, imparts expressivity to the given story. The text abounds in
emphatic constructions ("It was her sister Josephine who told her […]; It was he
who had been in the newspaper office […]; It was Brently Mallard who entered
[…]"; conversion ("There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy
armchair. Into this she sank […]; different kinds of repetition: 1) separate words, e.
g. open, free; 2) phrases and sentences, e.g. “She breathed a quick prayer that life
might be long. It was only yesterday that she had thought with a shudder that life
might be long.”
A special emphasis in the story is given to use of the symbolic images. For
example, springtime may parallel the new exciting life that Mrs. Mallard anticipates;
patches of blue sky – the emergence of her new life; the open window from which
Louise gazes may represent the freedom and opportunities that await her after her
husband’s death.
To sum it up, the system of symbols, expressive language and syntax,
compressed composition create a sensual independent image of the main character
who died overwhelmed by elation at her new-found independence and the
opportunities of a new life.
(2) Lust for Life
by I. Stone
He didn’t know that Mauve was undergoing the metamorphosis of the creative
artist. He began a canvas lethargically, working almost without interest. Slowly his
energy would pick up as ideas began to creep into his mind and become formulated.
He would work a little longer, a little harder each day. As object appears clearly on
the canvas, his demands upon himself became more exiting. His mind would flee
from his family, from his friends and other interests. His appetite would desert him
and he would lie awake nights thinking of things to be done. As his strength went
down his excitement went up. Soon he would be living on nervous energy. His body
would shrink on its ample frame and the sentimental eyes become lost in a hazy mist.
The more he became fatigued, the more desperately he worked. The nervous passion
which possessed him would rise higher and higher. In his mind he knew how long it
would take him to finish; he set his will to last until that very day. He was like a man
ridden by thousand demons; he had years in which to complete the canvas, but
something forced him to lacerate himself every hour of the twenty-four.

Sample Stylistic Analysis of Lust for Life by I. Stone

The excerpt from “Lust for Life” by I. Stone is a masterly portrayal of the
emotional state of the painter while he goes through the stages of creation. The
artist is shown through the prism of his view on painting. Right from the beginning
of his creation process he is not enthusiastic about his work (lethargically, without
interest), then, slowly, he became inspired and even taken by creation. His
noticeable uneasiness is rendered by the metaphor (lost in a hazy mist) as well as
by the comparative constructions ("The more he became fatigued, the more
desperately he worked"; "would rise higher and higher"). The simile "he was like a
man ridden by thousand demons" reveals the demonical nature of creation. In
addition, the idea of the destructive effect of painting upon the artist is manifested
verbally by the metaphor "but something forced him to lacerate himself". The
image of creation as an uncontrollable phenomenon, which has a power over the
painter, is strengthened by the metaphor "the nervous passion which possessed
him".
 (3) ‘Tender is the Night’
by F.S. Fitzgerald
On the shore of the French Riviera, about half-way between Marseilles and the
Italian border, stood a large, proud, rose-coloured hotel. Deferential palms cooled its
flushed façade, and before it stretched a short dazzling beach. Now it has become a
summer resort of notable and fashionable people; in 1925 it was almost deserted after
its English clientele went north in April; only the cupolas of a dozen old villas rotted
like water lilies among the massed pines between Gausse’s Hotel des Étrangers and
Cannes, five miles away.
The hotel and its bright tan prayer rug of a beach were one. In the early morning
the distant image of Cannes, the pink and cream old fortifications, the purple Alp that
bounded Italy, were cast across the water and lay quavering in the ripples and rings
sent up by sea-plants through the clear shallows.

Sample Stylistic Analysis

of Tender is the Night by F.S. Fitzgerald

The excerpt is taken from the novel Tender is the Night by F.S. Fitzgerald. It
presents a description of a plush hotel situated on the shore. The vivid depiction of
the hotel and scenery is created via numerous expressive means and stylistic devices
among which are: the epithets "rose-coloured", "flushed" dazzling", "deserted" and
the metaphoric epithet "proud". The latter underlies the idea that the building
looks great and imposing. The simile "villas rotted like water lilies" can be
interpreted in two ways: on the one hand, a negatively charged adjective rotted
stresses a contrast between the beautiful hotel and the putrefied lilies; on the other
hand, the comparison with water lilies may hint at the fact that there was something
beautiful about these building.
The syntax also adds to the expressiveness of the description. The complete
inversion in the opening sentence (which serves as a salient position in the text)
allows to put off the most important information ("stood a large, proud, rose-
coloured hotel") thus highlighting the object in focus in the given passage. The use
of the antithesis in the third sentence helps to get a clear picture of the hotel
condition in many other occasions. The contrast works in favour of modern
condition, underlying the growing significance and popularity of the building. The
enumeration ("the distant image of Cannes, the pink and cream old fortifications,
the purple Alp that bounded Italy") points to the peculiarities of the setting.
Connected asyndetically these homogeneous parts of the sentence make the
description panoramic.
Numerous references to colours ("rose-coloured hotel", "the pink and cream
old fortifications"," the purple Alp") contribute to the pleasant and versatile portrayal
of the hotel, which can be perceived as a symbol of luxury and upscale life of
wealthy people staying there.
 (4) E-books will never be our friends. Traditional books are here to
stay. Some things are worth cutting down a tree for
by Ben Macintyre
On my bookshelves sits a rare first edition. At ten years old it is already an
antique, but it is in excellent condition for it has hardly been read. It is a lump of
moulded plastic, one of the first attempts to replicate the reading experience on a
handheld screen. Back in 1998, on this page, I predicted that this little machine would
become the most revolutionary concept in publishing since the invention of the mass-
market paperback in 1936. The e-book, I prophesied, would change the way we read
for ever. Having written those words, I put my e-book away, and never turned it on
again.
The death of the traditional book has been predicted, wrongly, from the very
start of the digital revolution. This week, as British publishers announced the further
digitisation of their lists, the demise of the book was announced yet again. The
electronic book would replace the paper variety, many of us believed, as surely as the
grey squirrel has driven out the red. Yet this has not happened: the printed book is the
same object, in essence, that it always was. Music, film and television have all
transferred rapidly to digital format; reading in short form - blogs, journalism, e-mail
- has thrived on the web since its inception.
But long-form literature has proved stubbornly resistant. Alongside those of us
writing premature obituaries for the paper book were the traditionalists, insisting that
the act of reading is so sacred that no machine could replicate it. In 1994, the novelist
Annie Proulx declared: Nobody is going to sit down and read a novel on a twitchy
little screen. Ever.
In fact, both sides of that debate were wrong. The electronic book will soon be
a fact of culture. It took roughly five and a half centuries to perfect the paper book;
the perfect electronic book should arrive in about a year. But it will never kill off the
traditional book. Indeed, the two sorts of book may turn not to be rivals, but
symbiotic species, sharing the same territory in amicable co-existence.
The problem with early e-books was technological and aesthetic. I never read
my lump flickering plastic again because it made my eyes water; the battery tended
to run out on the edge of a cliff-hanger moment; many books were then unavailable
in digital format, and the object itself was remarkably unlovely.
Book lovers argue that the tactile experience of reading can never be
reproduced by a bleeping gadget – the gentle musty smell, the heft in the hand, the
possibility of dropping it in the bath.
They are right, but those physical factors are secondary. Books work because,
at their best, we forget they are there. The physical book magically disappears,
leaving the reader to enter another world. The e-book, by contrast, with its buttons
and hard plastic, tended to intrude on the consciousness, standing between the reader
and the words. It was hard to get lost in an electronic book, because one keeping
tripping over signposts.
The new e-readers have addresses many of those problem. Some come bound
in leather, and all are designed to look not like zigmos, but like books. The print,
thanks to the invention of E Ink, which uses chemical beneath the screen to define
each letter, is now is clear as any printed book. Increasingly, books can be
downloaded from anywhere and carried around in their hundreds, in a pocket.
Permanently linked to the internet, the book becomes a way of discovering new
books. Electronic books may even fuel a new boom in literacy, for in the new
electronic bookshop nothing need go out of print, and buying a new book is cheap,
easy and instantaneous.
But as soon as one problem is solved, e-books have another on their hands.
Whatever the potential of digital books, the issue of copyright remains crucial and
unresolved. Unless copyright in the written word is defended with equal vigour on
paper and in digital form, then the very technology that may revitalize publishing
could also inflict huge damage. The costly and unnecessary Hollywood writer’s strike,
now ended after more than three months, is a stark warning of what can happen when
potential profits from technological change are not fully understood nor fairly
distributed.
Sorting out the copyright issue is vital, because even farther into the future, the
acts of writing and reading may become complementary, even mutually reinforcing.
Just as readers of newspapers react and comment on live news and opinion, so books
may become less the product of one individual writing in lonely isolation, and more
of a collaborative effort. Naturally, this is more applicable to non-fiction writing:
Zadie Smith is unlikely to react well to having readers peering over her shoulder.
Already several books have been published as a result of reader feedback from ideas
that began as blogs.
None of this, however, spells doom to the physical book. A reader who falls in
love with a book, even if first read in electronic form, will still want to own it. Books
do more than furnish a room: they are our intellectual companions.
Some books are worth sacrificing a tree to make; others are not, and that is the
distinction that the electronic book offers. Ruskin once observed that literature is
“divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time”. The
books of all time will remain on paper, but those of the hour will increasingly be
digital: the airport novel, the reference book, the celebrity memoir. A personal library
will no longer be the repository of unread paperbacks, but a genuine index to
individuality, as it was in the days when books were rare precious.
Annie Proulx was wrong: people will read novels, including hers, on a screen,
but whatever they then decide to own the book, and keep it as a reflection of who
they are, will depend on how much they love her writing.
 Sample Stylistic Analysis
of E-books will never be our friends by Ben Macintyre
The article under review appeared in a renowned British quality
newspaper The Times. This is an analytical article which focuses on the status
of traditional books and e-books in the age of a large-scale digitization. The
author discusses two conflicting views on the problem and tries to reconcile
them by dwelling upon the advantages and disadvantages of the books. It adds
plausibility to the author’s contemplation and shows his personal concern of a
matter under discussion.
Ben Macintyre begins with the prediction that e-books will replace the
paper books. He mentions that e-books win over traditional ones as they are
simply downloaded from anywhere and carried around in their hundreds in a
pocket. Moreover, linked to the Internet, the book becomes a way of finding new
books. Finally, e-books are cheap, easy and quick to buy. The enormous
potential of e-books for promoting reading is rendered by the metaphor “may
fuel a new boom in literacy”. Yet, the unsolved problem with e- books is an
undefended copyright. Tradionalists, on the contrary, persists in claiming that no
e-book can recreate the special atmosphere and tactile experience of reading
printed books. Thus, the article is aimed at drawing the reader's attention to the
problem of amicable coexistence of two types of books, which, according to the
author, ‘are not rivals, but symbiotic species’.
The article structurally consists of the headline, lead, and the main
body. The headline is concise and directly introduces the subject matter of
the article as well as the author’s viewpoint. The lead restates the main idea of
the article by arguing that “Traditional books are here to stay. Some things are
worth cutting down a tree for” thus highlighting the conflict.
Throughout the article the author discusses the fate of two books using
figurative language of life (thrive on, remain) and death (kill off, demise, drive
out, obituary, spell doom, disappear). The article, in general, is built on the
personification regarding a book as a human being. The personification starts
from the very headline where the books are called friends (“E-books will never
be our friends”).
Although Ben Macintyre tries to sound objective and balance his opinion,
nevertheless, he constantly expresses his negative attitude to e-books. His
skepticism is conveyed by the following periphrases: “a lump of moulded
plastic, my lump of flickering plastic, blipping gadget”. The difference between
two types of books is presented as a contrast between two types of literature.
This contrast is intensified verbally by means of the antithesis “the book of
the hour and the book of all time” which shows the superiority of printed books
over e-books. The author’s belief is jokily expressed by the simile “the
electronic book will replace the paper variety as surely as the grey squirrel has
driven out the red” that sounds memorable.
It is worth mentioning that such syntactical peculiarities of the article as parenthetical
words and clauses, detachments, participial constructions reveal a deliberative
manner of writing and the author’s desire to reconcile alternative viewpoints. Ben
Macintyre concludes that “people will read novels […], but whether they decide to
own the book […] will depend on how much they love her writing.” Thus, he places
the responsibility for the survival of printed books on the authors