A Literary Stylistic Analysis Of The Rainbow

Stylistics has developed on the basis of traditional western rhetoric in the5thcenturyBC. The ancient Greek famous persons such as Aristotle, Plato provided some brilliantargumentations on rhetoric. However, not until the beginning of the20thcentury, didpeople start to use the methodology and theories of modern linguistics to explore thestyle. Nowadays, in linguists’ eyes, stylistics becomes one of the most significant fields.As a bridge between linguistics and literature, literary stylistics is devoted to the study ofliterary language. Literary stylistics uses the appropriate tools of linguistics to describeand analyze the literature text; to seek the linguistic features that have stylistic functionwith special aesthetic effects and thematic meanings of literary texts, and to illuminate itsliterary values. In order to avoid the intuitive and subjective analysis of literary texts,literary stylistics should proceed from the objective facts instead, and analyze thelanguage of the text depending on a scientific discipline linguistics.The Rainbow is masterpiece of D. H. Lawrence. In1915, The Rainbow was bannedfor obscene just as soon as it was published, but it caused much attention from nationaland international critics. The Rainbow is one of Lawrence’s most famous andcontroversial novels, and is also one of his highest achievements. The Rainbow, theturning point of Lawrence’s literary creation, is also discussed by critics from domesticand international. But it has been mainly analyzed from feminism, psychologicalexploration or realistic aspects. Stylistic perspective, using both literary stylistics andlinguistic method, analyzes The Rainbow from an objective point of view. This thesis isbased on the theory of stylistics. With the method of the literary stylistics analysis, thisthesis is intended to explore the author’s writing style from a stylistic perspective, tryingto explain how the “beauty” of The Rainbow is created through the writer’s linguisticdeviations, choices and narrative techniques, and to appreciate the beauty and strengthhidden under the surface.This thesis consists of an introduction, a main body and a conclusion.The introduction general introduces the development of stylistics, the estimates onD. H. Lawrence and The Rainbow and the previous study in this field, as well as theresearch purpose and the methodology of this thesis. In the second part, there is the main body which contains four chapters.Chapter One introduces the background of literature. As the theoretical framework,supporting this paper, this part has become the theoretical basis. This chapter enumeratesthe main theories of stylistics and the development of stylistics. Stylistics is the disciplineof studying style. People have respective interpretations about the word “style”, but theword “style” is usually defined as the variation in an author’s speaking or writing style.Nowadays, there are various understandings of style, but there are three most influentialtheories in this field: style as choice, style as deviation and foregrounding.Foregrounding is the most significant terms in stylistics. Its theories also play a crucialrole in the research in the thesis. Discourse in a way can be more successful in attractingthe reader’s attention, and can have a significant influence on the readers’ minds. It isbecause that those writing skill possess some distinguishing features, which includedeviation and choice in language and also some special linguistic pattern. This chapteralso introduces the several levels of the literary stylistics, i.e. lexical level, syntax level,rhetoric, discourse. Here, lexical and syntax are both parts of grammatical, so this partexplains the analytical methods that this thesis uses: grammatical category, figures ofspeech and discourse category.Chapter Two to Chapter Four are the main body of the thesis. This part analyzes TheRainbow from three categories with the stylistic theories and methods.Chapter Two analyzes The Rainbow from the grammatical category. Grammaticalcategory can be divided into lexical level and syntactical level. So this part analyzes thenovel from both two levels. Lexical level aims to find the linguistic features withaesthetic value and stylistic significance, explores the stylistic functions of all thelanguage elements, for achieving the purpose to understand and appreciate the novel.Syntactical level is managed to analyze the characteristics of the novel structure. Novelsoften use complex sentences to express people’s inner contradiction and conflict. Thisnovel is a complex sentence and simple sentence combination. The structure gives thereaders an elastic feeling, a tensed and relaxed feeling. This part can make the readerscomprehend the work’s original flavor more easily.Chapter Three carries out an analysis of The Rainbow from the rhetorical angle.Lawrence’s dramatization of the figures of speech becomes the more important sub-theme of the fiction. The most prominent aspect of the foregrounded features is inthe use of words. In the process of using these words, it usually breaks the conventionalrules of language and the figures of speech are produced. In order to achieve“foregrounded” effect, the author makes the words “deviated”. This chapter attempts toanalyze and find out the effects that produced by these devices. With those“foregrounded” language features which can also be called “figure of speech” in abroadsense, we can analyze the novel and appreciate literary works better. Symbolism is one ofthe figures of speech. In The Rainbow, Lawrence uses a lot of symbols and images todepict the characters’ inner mind and reveal their motions and desires. He also describestheir inner changes influenced by the modern industrial civilization in the later half of the19thcentury, expresses the complicate emotion of those people who have inherentmodern spirit. This technique makes Lawrence’s works vital and vivid and enriches thenovel aesthetic perception.Chapter Four comments on the novel from the discourse category. A third personnarrative is mainly adopted in this book. Lawrence has created a new artistic charm andsome novelty through the skillful arrangement and transforming the narrative persons,which contribute to originality. At the same time, Lawrence is sophisticated in choosingdifferent speech representations. For example, the direct speech is commonly used.Stylistic approaches are not only stylistic adornments, and one can not delete it optionallyeither. They can bring emphasis to a works, and make the articles clear and easy tounderstand. In addition, through the regular use of these devices, the writer can give adeep impression to the readers. To sum up, if the style devices are abandoned, anyarticles will be tasteless and insipid.The conclusion mainly sums up the preceding analysis, and draws a conclusion forthis thesis. With the theories of stylistics, this thesis analyzes the style and the languagein The Rainbow, reveals the positive effect on clarifying the theme and enhancing theeffectiveness of expression. Using stylistic analysis allows us to understand D. H.Lawrence and The Rainbow from a more objective angle. As a branch of stylistics,literary stylistics combines linguistics and literary language nowadays, which cannot beovercome by merely linguistics or literature. Through analyzing the novel The Rainbowfrom the perspective of literary stylistics, this thesis seeks to achieve two purposes. On one hand, it is to make readers appreciate The Rainbow from the perspective of literarystylistics, so that the readers can understand the theme of the novel better. On the otherhand, it is to provide objective evidence for the story’s aesthetic value through describingand analyzing the chosen linguistic features and their stylistic effects, thus enabling thereaders to grasp and appreciate the subject’s significance and artistic value better. So thisthesis is a tentative effort to understand and appreciate the work from stylisticperspective and it will hopefully contribute to a better appreciation of literary texts insimilar style. It is also helpful to foreign language teaching and literature criticism, andimproves the English ability of those people who use English as a second language.