Comparative Analysis Of Monkey Grip And The Spare Room From The Perspective Of Literary Stylistics

Helen Garner(1942-), as a shining literary star in Australian literature, embodies some uniquecharacteristics and special significance. The publication of her first novel in1977, Monkey Grip,declared the emerging of a new type of woman writing and symbolized a turning point of Australianwoman literature, and she was referred to as an “icon of Australia literary feminist”(Goldsworthy,1996:96), becoming one of the most controversial but welcomed literary figures in modern Australia.The Spare Room, as Garner’s latest novel, was published in2008, until when she had remained silentfor almost sixteen years in Australian novel world after the publication of Cosmo Cosmolino. Withmore than twenty years’ baptism and experience of life, Garner shows tremendously different focusesand tone in this new work, and displays a more complicated writing style. Besides, this novel bringsGarner back to the public as a writer once again and helps her gain a lot of award.This study employs certain modern stylistic theories to make sets of comparative analysis from theperspective of literary stylistics, which include aspects of linguistic description, qualitative prominenceand quantitative prominence, and character speech presentation, and thus to analyze the representativelanguage features carrying the thematic meaning and aesthetic significance of the two novels.The analysis of linguistic descriptions of the two novels includes four categories–graphological,lexical, grammatical and rhetorical. The systematical analysis of representative writing skills andlinguistic descriptions in the two novels draws a conclusion that they take on extensive similarities. Tobegin with, they are all narrated in first person point of view and the plots are arranged in a diary-basedform. Secondly, the linguistic descriptions of both novels have something significant in common,including daily language, vivid vocabulary and rhetorical devices like metaphor, parallelism andrepetition, etc, which help to shape characters’ personality and develop thematic meaning of their own.Besides, there are graphological deviations in both novels to emphasize what the author wants readersto pay attention to.Through the analysis of the foregrounded phenomenon, the thesis writer finds that both novelsadapt quantitative and qualitative prominence in narration. The descriptions of Javo’s eyes, takingdrugs and people having sex appear continuously in Monkey Grip; while abundant descriptions emergeabout Nicola’s sweating and shuddering and Garner’s striping and changing bed clothing in The SpareRoom, which form typical quantitative prominence. Besides, there are several representativequalitative prominences in both novels–relatively long sentences, which produce certain effects theyare meant to do. These foregrounded parts have created significant impact of the novels’ thematicmeanings upon readers, and symbolized certain aesthetic and stylistic values, which form stylisticfeature of Garner’s writing. Through the interpretation of speech presentations in both novels, it is discovered that certain kindof speech presentation does have relative significance in which it contributes to more vivid descriptionof thematic meaning and characters’ feature. Direct speech displays a portrait of characters’ direct andvivid conversing with each other, while free direct speech works well in presenting information such ascharacters’ connotation, personality and speaking tone. Narrative report of speech act highly extractsthe narration, while free indirect speech produces a sense of sarcasm which increases the semanticintensity of narration.The conclusion and analysis of those similarities and differences show the reason why Garner appliesfirst person point of view to narrate both novels. Besides, the active feminism philosophy reflected inMonkey Grip has been changed into a milder way of feminist thinking in The Spare Room, whichexplains on a large scale the differences of the two novels. The final parts enlarge the research scope ofthis study by integrating literary stylistics and traditional criticism, which reveals the influence ofGarner’s different creative writing philosophy showed in her works.