Прием лексического повтора в коротком английском рассказе

Lexical stylistic device of repetition in English short stories
Among lexical stylistic devices that are used to add expressiveness to the literary works repetition is one of the most effective stylistic strategies. Though repeating is often considered boring, it can wake the reader up and help them to focus on a key idea if used with some stylistic purpose.
A lot of classical authors practiced lexical repetition in short stories to make them more attractive and interesting to the reader, and namely Ray Bradbury, Ernest Hemingway, O’Henry, Virginia Woolf. The works of these writers will be taken for stylistic analysis in this paper.
Short stories of Ray Bradbury have always been popular with various age groups because they are full of different stylistic devices that make reading captivating and emotional. The author employs lexical repetition quite often, especially anaphora, epizeuxis and simple repetitions for emphasis.
The two stories - “All in a Summer Day” and “The Day It Rained Forever” - are taken for analysis from his collection of short stories “A Medicine For Melancholy” written in 1959. This collection represents human psychology with each story focused on some detail or feature of human nature. The scenes vary from an ordinary flat to some planet, from remote future to the present days.
In “All Summer in a Day” the events are futuristic and take place at some school located in the underground city of the planet Venus. The rocket men and women have come to a raining world of Venus to set up civilization.

In this passage due to repetition and humorous colouring the author gives the reader the first clue of the reason why they departed but Trysdale seems to see nothing wrong in his relations with the woman who left some cactus near his door.
He allowed the imputation to pass without denial. Without protest, he allowed her to twine about his brow this spurious bay of Spanish scholarship.
The author uses anadiplosis and synonymic repetition to enhances the desire of the character to remain the best and the cleverest for her though he doesn’t know Spanish at all. And that finally spoils it all - he doesn’t notice the name on the tag tied to the cactus by the woman which she intends to be the green light for him. He regrets loosing her and goes on admiring their relations through anaphora:
How glad, how shy, how tremulous she was! How she fluttered like a snared bird when he laid his mightiness at her feet!
The repetition shows that Trysdale really can’t understand what was wrong until his friend translate the tag on the cactus: “Come and take me”. Here the story ends and the reader can think for themselves what will happen next.
In another story “The Last Leaf” which is considered to be the most popular short story by O’Henry the ending is also a surprise and that makes reading captivating.
Johnsy has fallen ill and is dying of pneumonia. She watches the leaves fall from a vine outside the window of her room, and decides that when the last leaf drops, she too will die. While Sue tries to tell her to stop thinking like that, Johnsy is determined to die when the last leaf falls. But the artist Mr. Behrman who has always dreamt of creating a masterpiece decides to paint the leaf and stick it to the vine. After the storm Johnsy is surprised to see that one leaf is left and she feels better while the artist has come down with pneumonia and died.
O’Henry employs a lot of repetition for Johnsy’s speech to emphasize her desperate belief that she will die:
She was looking out the window and counting — counting backward. (anadiplosis)
An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. (epizeuxis)
I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of thinking. (anaphora) I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, (epizeuxis) just like one of those poor, tired leaves.(synonymic repetition)
“I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall today, and I shall die at the same time.”(anaphora)
“I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I’ll go, too.”- she repeats three times in the story.
O’Henry also uses epizeuxis in the speech of his characters to make it more emotional and expressive:
“But I think you are a horrid old — old flibbertigibbet.”
“You are just like a woman!” yelled Behrman. “Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes.”
Being German the artist speaks wrong English and his mistakes together with repetition produce powerful effect.
A famous British writer Virginia Woolf also pictures interesting characters in her works. The most famous short story by V. Woolf is “A Haunted House” that tells about two ghosts – a man and a woman – who are walking around the house and searching for something. But nobody know what exactly they seek. The enigmatic tone of the story is achieved by simple repetition:
Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure--a ghostly couple.
But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The windowpanes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass.
The epizeuxis in the next sentence renders the sound of the pulse beating:
"Safe, safe, safe" the pulse of the house beat softly. "The treasure buried; the room . . ." the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?”
"Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house beat gladly. 'The Treasure yours."
"Safe, safe, safe," the heart of the house beats proudly.
"Safe! safe! safe!" the pulse of the house beats wildly.
Several cases of anaphora and epizeuxis tell the reader that it’s not the first time the ghosts are looking for something:
So fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burned behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us, coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath the Downs.”
Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy.
ANother short story by V. Woolf which is under analysis in this paper is “Monday or Tuesday”. As well as “A Haunted House” this story is mysterious and has the effect of getting into someone’s thoughts.
The author again employs a lot of repetitions: polyptoton, epizeuxis, simple repetition to describe how incoherent and deep the thoughts are and to render the emotional state of the narrator – pessimistic and far from real life.
LAZY and indifferent, shaking space easily from his wings, knowing his way, the heron passes over the church beneath the sky. White and distant, absorbed in itself, endlessly the sky covers and uncovers, moves and remains. A lake? Blot the shores of it out! A mountain? Oh, perfect—the sun gold on its slopes. Down that falls. Ferns then, or white feathers, for ever and ever——
Desiring truth, awaiting it, laboriously distilling a few words, for ever desiring—(a cry starts to the left, another to the right. Wheels strike divergently. Omnibuses conglomerate in conflict)—for ever desiring—(the clock asseverates with twelve distinct strokes that it is midday; light sheds gold scales; children swarm)—for ever desiring truth. Red is the dome; coins hang on the trees; smoke trails from the chimneys; bark, shout, cry “Iron for sale”—and truth?
V.Woolf by this disjointed stream of repetitions of the words “truth”, “desiring” and “for ever” used in one passage wants to draw the reader’s attention to the inner world of the person, their feelings and emotions instead of events and outside world. The fact that she often employs explanations in brackets also emphasizes her interest in psychological nature of a man.
The author has good reason to repeat the word “truth” so many times. She tries to impose her perception on the reader that the truth due to its unsteady and subtle nature is opposed to the rational analysis. Only music can feel and know the truth.
“Lazy and indifferent” again repeat the author the phrase that opened the story. It is done deliberately to show the depth of the narrator’s thoughts: one fly of the heron is contrasted with the long stream of ideas. During the same period of time the inner world of the narrator experience such strong emotions.
V. Woolf has a special style of writing which makes “A Haunted House” a masterpiece with epithets and metaphors coupled with lexical repetition. This style is often referred to as “psychological novel”. She doesn’t have the narration as it is. She renders the stream of thoughts and shows the world through the human consciousness.
Список использованных источников
Винокур Т.Г. Закономерности стилистического использования языковых единиц. — М., 1980.
Хемингуэй Э. Собрание сочинений (в 4 т), т.1 // Художественная литература, М., 1968.
Galperin I. An Essay in Stylistics Analysis. — M., 1968.
O’Henry 41 Stories // Издательство: Penguin, 2007. 430c.
URL: raybradbury.ru/library/collections
URL: bartleby.com/85/3.html
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