Website design By BotEap.comThe exploration of how the formal features of a text contribute to the creation of literary effect has given rise to the field of stylistics. Sharing analytical techniques from linguistics and literary criticism, the stylistic method can be essentially defined as consisting of a linguistic description of a given text, followed by an interpretation to fully understand the work, before an evaluation to determine whether it is of any use. artistic value.

Website design By BotEap.comStylistics has its origins in the Formalist school, particularly in the work of the Russian linguist and literary theorist Roman Jakobson, who devised a list of language functions to determine the nature of any given text. The most important of these in relation to the evaluation of literariness is the ‘poetic function’, which identifies language that is self-referential, since it emphasizes the linguistic qualities of the words themselves, ignoring other characteristics of a particular work. Jakobson believed that the poetic function was the most frequent in works that would be considered literary.

Website design By BotEap.comThe poetic function is manifested mainly through deviation and parallelism. These involve the foregrounding of language within a text, either by deviating from established linguistic norms or by perceptibly repeating words, phrases, and grammatical structures.

Website design By BotEap.comThe first page of Arundhati Roy’s The God of small things includes many examples of deviation and parallelism. For example, in the first paragraph there is a complex and abundant use of alliteration and assonance. These are characteristic of parallel structures in the text, referring here specifically to the repetition of consonant and vowel sounds respectively. The alliteration occurs with the repetition of the letter ‘r’ in the very short sentence: “Red bananas ripen” and of the ‘b’ in the sentence “black crows gorge on shiny mangoes”, while assonance is evident in the reiteration of ‘i’ in the phrase “the river shrinks” and ‘a’ in “fatally bewildered”. Groups of words with associated meanings and similar phonetic or morphematic structures, called phonemes, are also evident, for example in the words “bright” and “bright”.

Website design By BotEap.comReviewing the parallel structures of a text is part of a descriptive analysis, although to obtain a deeper understanding, the stylist must interpret the meaning of a work through the linguistic choices that the author has made. One of the purposes of the repetition in Roy’s passage is to make subtle connections between the conveyed theme. For example, the alliteration in the phrase “black ravens gorge themselves on bright mangoes” immediately juxtaposes the darkness of the ravens with the brightness of the mangoes. This use of contrast creates a higher degree of semantic density, as the text becomes filled with multiple meanings.

Website design By BotEap.comThe reader may assume that the concept of color is an important narrative trope in The God of small things, a presumption that is proven through the “red bananas”, the “indecent green” of the field and the “moss green” of the brick walls. All of these phrases serve to create a vivid impression of the world in which the novel takes place.

Website design By BotEap.comThe use of images and metaphors within a text is considered a form of linguistic deviation. Through stylistic analysis, two notable aspects on the first page of Roy’s novel illustrate the foreground through diversion. The first is in the very poetic line “bright sun that excited children snatch up to play.” This sentence deviates from the norms of language usage in that it compares “sunlight” to a physical object that can actually be touched. This fanciful description cannot be taken literally, so it is metaphorical. Later in the passage a house is described with its “steep gabled roof draped over the ears like a low hat”. The building is represented as if it were a living human being, personified through the use of “wore”, “ears” and “hat”.

Website design By BotEap.comThe God of small things it clearly abounds in elaborate figurative language and advanced linguistic patterns, factors that serve to establish a greater degree of literariness within the text. Its literary value can be assessed if a sufficient understanding of it has been gained through rigorous interpretive investigation of its stylistic properties.