Stylistic Features of Oscar Wilde’s Wrightings

In these words repeated for several time we can guess the great emotional background. Wilde has a graphic eye and the use of repetition which as it may seem is one of the weak expressive means helps us to be closer to the hero, to understand his feelings. Depending on the position of a repeated unit occupied in the sentence there are four types of repetition: anaphora, epiphora, framing and anadiplosis. The first function of repetition is to intensify the utterance.

Here are some more examples of repetition:

e.g. “Oh, Arthur, do not love me less, and I will trust you more. I will

trust you absolutely.”(p.88)

“Do not hold me, mother. Do not hold me- I’ll kill him!”(p.151)

“Choose! Oh, my love, choose!”(p.51)

In the first example we have anadiplosis. The structure of this device is the following: the last phrase of one part of an utterance is repeated at the beginning of the next part, thus hooking the two parts together. The writer doubles this phrase for better concentration of the reader. If the repeated phrase come at the beginning of two or more consecutive sentences, we have anaphora, as in the second example. As for the third example, here we have framing (or as it is often called “ring repetition”). It is the repetition of the same unit at the beginning and at the end of the same sentence.

As you must have seen from the brief description, repetition is a powerful means of emphasis. Besides, repetition adds rhythm and balance to the utterance.

Wilde often uses parallel constructions, a perfect means of creating the clean-cut syntax of his plays. By Prof. Galperin I.R.: “Parallel construction is a device which may be encountered not so much in the sentence as in the macro-structures dealt with earlier, viz. the syntactical whole and the paragraph. The necessary condition in parallel construction is identical, or similar, syntactical structure in two or more sentences or parts of a sentence”.30

As you must have seen from the brief description, repetition is a powerful means of emphasis. Besides, repetition adds rhythm and balance to the utterance.

Parallel constructions deal with logical, rhythmic, emotive and expressive aspects of the utterance. They create rhythmical shape of the sentence, make it more emotional.

e.g. “Nobody is incapable of doing a foolish a foolish

thing. Nobody is incapable of doing a wrong

thing.” (p.216)

“How hard good women are! How weak bad men are!”

(p.77)

“Oh! Wicked women bother one. Good women bore

one.” (p.68)

These examples prove that Oscar Wilde wishes to give a musical value to every phrase. The parallel constructions produce a certain rhythm, wonderful sound and expressiveness.

Enumeration is the next syntactical stylistic device used by O.Wilde in his plays.

According to Prof. Galperin I.R., enumeration is a stylistic device by which separate things, objects, properties or actions are named one by one so that they produce a chain, the links of which, being syntactically in the same position (homogeneous parts of speech), are forced to display some kind of semantic homogeneity, remote though it may seem.31

e.g. “Bad women as they are turned, may have in them

sorrow, repentance, pity, sacrifice.” (p. 67)