Example Of Stylistic Analysis of Prose/Fiction

Passage: from Joseph Conrad's The Secret Sharer

         On my right hand there were lines of fishing-stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fishermen now gone to the other end of the ocean; for there was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye could reach

(1). To the left a group of barren islets, suggesting ruins of stone walls, towers and block houses, had its foundations set in a blue sea that itself looked solid, so still and stable did it lie below my feet; even the track of light from the westering sun shone smoothly, without that animated gltter which tells of an imperceptible ripple (2). And when I turned my head to take a paring glance at the tug which had just left us anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, with a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one levelled floor half brown, half blue under the enormous dome of the sky (3). Corresponding in their insignificance to the islets of the sea, two small clumps of trees, one o each side of the only fault in the impeccable joint, marked the mouth of the river Meinam we had just left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward journey; and, and far back o the inland level, a larger and loftier mass, the grove surrounding the great Paknam pagoda, was the only thing on which the eye could rest from the vain task of exploring the monotonous sweep of the horizon (4). Here• and there gleams as of a few scattered pieces of silver marked the windings of the great river; and on the nearest of them, just within the bar, the tug steaming right into the land became lost to my sight, hull and funnes and masts, as though the impassive earth had swallowed her up without an effort, without a tremor (5) My eye followed the light cloud of her smoke, now here, now there, above the plain, according to the devious curves of the stream, but always fainter and farther away, till I lost it at last behind the mitre-shaped hill of the great pagoda (6). And then I was left alone with my ship, anchored at the head of the Gulf of Siam (7).

Analysis :

          Our fist impression of this passage is of a meticulously detailed setting of the scene for the story. The description is clearly etched, so that we can reconstruct, in our mind's eye, the whole topography. But more than this, we have a vivid sense of the loneliness of the human observer, set apart from his surroundings, and of 'a mind energetically stretching to subdue a dazzling experience outside the self, in a way that has innumerable counterparts elsewhere in Conrad'.

(i) Lexical Features :

1. Nouns: As a physical description, we expect the passage to contain a large number of physical, concrete nouns (stakes, bamboo, fences, fishermen, ruins, etc), but what is more striking is that these concrete nouns are matched by nouns which are more abstract in one way or another. Significantly, these tend to occur as heads of major noun phrase £ lines of ..... stakes, 'system of ..... fences') so that concreteness is subordinated to abstraction (20,21). First, we may notice that almost half the concrete nouns refer to general topographical features which as it were, divide the field of vision into geographical areas and points of focus : domain, ocean, islets, sea, shore, sky, river, earth, cloud, gulf, etc. Also contributing to the effect are what may be called 'abstract locative' nouns, indicating geometrical features: lines, division, end, track, head, line, edge, joint, sweep, curves, etc. All these nouns refer to objects o vision: the other senses are excluded. Perhaps this is one reason why the observer seems to stand apart from the scene he experiences.

2. General: Other comments on lexis cut across world class divisions. It is important to note that we are given not simply a description of a scene, but an account of the relation between the visual world and its observer, who strives to comprehend and interpret it. This relational emphasis is found in the repetition of the world eye itself, in abstract nouns implying perception (aspect, sign, glitter, ripple, glance, etc), and in verbs like see, mark and look. The passage is concerned not only with objects of perception, but with the process of perceiving them; the occurrence of first person pronouns (over half of the personal pronouns are of this type) is a symptom of this.

          On the other hand, Conrad avoids using verbs with a human agent. The 'eye', as if with a will of its own, becomes the subject-agent in 'as far as the eye could reach' (I), 'My eye followed the light cloud' (6), 'the only thing on which the eye could rest' (4). The only example of an agentive verb with a human subject is 'I turned my head' (3). Other verbs which could involve agency are deprived of their active meaning by being used in the passive participle form: aban-doned, anchored (55); whereas stative verbs are quite frequent: resembling, looked, lie, shone, marked, etc (22). The general feeling is that the narrator, although acutely alive to his environ-ment, is detached and powerless in the face of its immensity.

          Another, related, tendency is in the occurrence of adjectives which express strangeness or lack of definition, often by the use of negatives: half-submerged, mysterious, incomprehensible, unmarked, devious. To these may be added other negative expressions such as insignifi-cance, no sign, without a tremor. Other adjectives, such as still, monotonous, stable, also have a negative element of meaning ('not moving', 'not varied', not easily moved" stressing the uncanny featurelesseness of the scene. These cotrast with a few words which suggest a faint potential disturbance of the underlying calmness; animated, glitter, gleams, ripple. There is a congruity between the eye to which things are 'imperceptible' and the mind to which things are 'incomprehensible'.

(ii)Grammatical Features :

1. Sentence Length : It is perhaps significant, in this opening paragraph, that the sentences move to a peak of length in sentence (4), and thense slope down to the final brevity of (7). (The progression of sentence length in words is : 66 - 59 - 61 - 88 - 61 - 44 - 18). The effect of placing the short sentence at the end is powerful; whereas other sentences relate the setting to the observer, this one relates the observer to his setting, and thereby summarizes what has been implied in the rest of the paragraph. Since this what has been implied in the rest of the para-graph. Since this sentence explains the context for what precedes, we might think it more natural to place it (deprived of the connecting words 'And then' at the beginning of the paragraph. But in that case the expression "I was alone' would have been banal: it is only after we have felt the isolation of the speaker in all its particularity, and have been the last vestige of human life disappear over the horizon, that we can understand the force of the simple statement.

2. Sentence Structure: Sentences (1) - (6) are all quite complex, and have a certain similarity of structure. All except (6) have an introductory adverbial clause or phrase providing a point of orientation before we launch into a main clause. From here, each sentence is elaborated by coordination and subordination -by progressive elaboration of "trailing constituents' (see 7.5.3- 5), as if to imitate the movement from the observer's eye towards the distance Sentence (1) illustrates this characteristic reaching out effect. 'On my right hand' establishes the observer as the point of reference.

3. Prepositions: The passage has an unusually large number of prepositions (9), particularly prepositions of place and direction, such as on and to, and the preposition of (40). In fact, a large part of the syntactic complexity of the sentence comes from the use of prepositional phrases. The role of in particular, is to relate two noun expressions together, and the former of these expressions is always an abstract noun -if we include as 'abstract' geometrical and topographical nouns like 'the straight line of the flat shore', the devious curves of the stream' - and collective nouns such as "a group of barren islets', 'two small clumps of trees'. What this suggests is that perception and cognition go hand in hand (as indeed they do in modern psychological theories) : the eye does not passively record objects in the raw, but structures and schematizes them in cognitively coded groupings. For Conrad, this is as it should be: that see means both to perceive and to comprehend is more than an accident of metaphor. In his struggle with the alien and threatening "beyondness", a man must faithfully use his full sensibility, in which his senses and his understanding are indissolubly joined.

 (iii) Figures of Speech etc.

1. Quasi-Simile : Although Conrad does not use conventional similes of the kind "X" is like "Y", he uses a range of constructions which express or imply similitude: "resembling some mysterious system. (1), "as if abandoned for ever.' (1), "suggesting ruins of stone walls ...(2), "looked solid... (2), ' Corresponding in their insignificance' (4), 'as of a few scattered pieces of silver ... (5), as though the impassive earth had swallowed her up ... (5), "mitre-shaped" (6).

Unlike orthodox similes, a number of these constructions suggest an 'explanation' which we know is not true. These, coupled with the element of mystery and unfathomability, strengthen the impression of a mind stretched to explore and understand. Again, the eye's exploration of the panorama is not inert, but active and imaginative : "looking at' something means grasping what it 'looks like'.

2. Metaphor: This analogizing faculty is also revealed through metaphor. The feeling that the vista, for all its peacefulness, is disquieting, comes to us partly through two diverse types of metaphor: the 'civilizing' metaphor which allows islands (already compared to man-made build-ings) to have foundations (2), the sea to be stable (3), the sea and land to constitute a floor (3), and the sky a dome (3). Such metaphors indicate an unreal calm, because they render the immensities of nature in terms of things which are familiar, solid and manmade In contrast, other metaphors make reference to an animacy which seems to threaten by its very absence. Except for that of the tug being 'swallowed up', these metaphors are expressed through modifying ad-jectives. They are therefore subdued, and scarcely noticeable to a usual reader: the animated glitter' (2), the 'impassive earth' (5), the 'devious curves' (6) (the fact that the earth is impassive, or devoid of feeling, suggests that it has capabilities in that direction). These small hints of life give an uneasy impression that what is apparently to lifeless may have undisclosed resources of power and activity.

3.  Schemes : The passage somehow communicates its visual experience not only with intense realization, but with a sense of wonder. This comes in part from patterns which have an emotively reinforcing effect, particularly pairings of like-sounding words and phrases - larger and loftier" (4) ' without an effort, without a tremof (5) 'fainter and farther' (6). Rhythmic parallelism accompanies the parallelism of grammar. These couplings stress the dominant dimensions of the experience : immensity, stillness, distance. Occasionally consonant and vowel repetitions are employed in a way which lends force to semantic connections :"solid, so still and stable' (2), 'sun shone smoothly' (2). There is onomatopoeia in the alliteration, assonance, and quickening rhythm of 'animated glitter' (I xx x /x) and ^imperceptible ripple' (xx/ xx / x). The speeding-up effect is caused partly by the number of unstressed syllables, partly by short vowels, and partly by the brevity of the stop consonants /p/ and It/. We may contrast these with the broadening, expansive effect of the long vowels and monosyllables in 'enormous dome of the sky' (3). These are not gratuitous embellishments : they integrate into the sound texture of the language the extremes of infinite space and microscopic detail between which the descrip tion so remarkably ranges.

 (iv) Cohesion and Context :

Cohesion: The passage does not make conspicuous use of logical and referential links between sentences: for example, there are no cross-referring demonstratives or linking adverbials, and few third-person pronouns (38). The definite article is sometimes a mark of co-reference : for instance, 'the islets of the sea' (4) refers back to "a group of barrel islets' (2) and the great river' (5) refers back to 'the river Meinam' (4). But continuity between the parts of the description depends largely on the observer, whose vantage point is the pivot around which the cycloramic picture unfolds. Thus most sentences begin with a reference, actual or implied, to the first person narrator: "On my right hand... (1), 'To the left ... (2) 'And when I turned my head ...) 3_, 'My eye followed ...' (6) 'And then I was left alone ... (7). Through this progression, we build up a vista in the round, the lone figure of the narrator at its centre; then, in (4) and 5), the eye focuses on a particular point: the distant river and vanishing tug, whose disappearance from the scene reinforces the narrator's isolation. In the final sentence our attention is abruptly brought back from the remote horizon to the observer himself.