Contents Introduction

Stylistic analysis

The goal of improving the textual analysis of information access systems is a motivating factor for stylistic research. In addition, readers, authors, and information specialists of whatever persuasion are aware of stylistic variation. This provides us with the added philological motivation for research: that of understanding text, readers, and authors better. Style may be roughly defined as the “manner” in which something is expressed, as opposed to the “content” of a message. Stylistic variation depends on author preferences and competence, familiarity, genre, communicative context, expected characteristics of the intended audience and untold other factors, and it is expressed through subtle variation in frequencies of otherwise insignificant features of a text that, taken together, are understood as stylistic indicators by a particular reader community. Modeling, representing, and utilizing this variation is the business of stylistic analysis.

 The story under the title “The Moon and Sixpence” was written by famous English writer - W. Somerset Maugham.


         The extract under the discussion acquaints us with the protagonists – Captain Nichols and his wife and describes us the situation in this family. Reading the text we find out the main problem lying in the power of wife on her husband and complete obedience and silence of Captain Nichols. While reading on we realize he reconciled this fact and continues such an existence.
Let’s turn to the general definition of the text under the study. First of all we should say it is told in the first person narrative and we constantly feel and see the presence of the author: “I am certain that…”, “I never heard her speak…” etc.
Then we should note the narration is interlaced with descriptive passages and basically these exact passages present us full sketch of the characters.
It is enough to have a look at the first sentence of the text. There we obtain the most significant characteristic of Captain Nichols. It is conveyed through a wonderful case of oxymoron, which is a feature of Maugham’s style: “married bachelor”. Indeed, it gives us the key image of the hero. The rest of his traits of character such as fear of wife, submission, inactivity are just included in his portrayal.
What concerns his wife, while describing her the author twice used intensifiers, which demonstrate she wasn’t a usual “bird”: “She gave me an impression of extraordinary tightness”, “Captain Nichols was frightened to death of her”. The following sentence depicts her nature at full rate: “Her plain face with its narrow lips was tight, her skin was stretched tightly over her bones, her smile was tight, her hair was tight, her clothes were tight…” The case of parallel construction together with the repetition of the word “tight” proves that Maugham attempted to underline this feature of hers.
 Besides, a very specific and even philosophic metaphor applied by the author also illustrates her world: “inexorable as fate and remorseless as conscience”. Thus, we realize Mrs. Nichols wasn’t a match for her husband; she possessed callousness, cunning and insincerity which for sure were not the nouns suitable to portray Captain Nichols.
Furthermore, reading the following sentence combined with the case of parallel construction we can imagine that she had no desire to leave him, as he was a convenient victim for her: “He could as little escape her as the cause can escape the effect.”
To crown it all, she didn’t show her higher position to people, she tried not to address to him directly, but for example send a daughter, and all that proves she was a rational and reserved person.
“She did not call him; she gave no sign that she was aware of his existence; she merely walked up and down composedly.” Here the repetition of pronoun “she” reveals her strict and reticent but complete power on him.
 We can assume that even her daughter lacked her love and support, as the author shows her as “a pale-faced, sullen child of seven”. Is that the influence of mother? I guess so.
Speaking about the extract, we can add that the prevailing mood of it is rather pessimistic. The majority of the sentences is quite long, as they bare some description to the reader.
We can outline the inner conflict of man in the extract. Surely Captain Nichols realizes his position in the family, but he undertakes no steps to make himself free, and this is his greatest problem. Thus, the extract provokes contradictory assessments, as we see Captain is able to change his life but has no wish to do that.

 When I was reading the book I found some words   which can be famous quotes. I think here they are:

           “When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her.”   

           “It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.”

           “Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed.”

           “There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.”

           “The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is better than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life.”

           “Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.”

           “Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.”
“Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.”



           “I could have forgiven it if he'd fallen desperately in love with someone and gone off with her. I should have thought that natural. I shouldn't really have blamed him. I should have thought he was led away. Men are so weak, and women are so unscrupulous.”



           “For men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes place among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid on it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life. There are few men to whom it is the most important thing in the world, and they are not the very interesting ones; even women, with whom the subject is of paramount interest, have a contempt for them.”



“Women are strange little beasts,' he said to Dr. Coutras. 'You can treat them like dogs, you can beat them till your arm aches, and still they love you.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Of course, it is one of the most absurd illusions of Christianity that they have souls.”



“A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.”



“I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul's good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.”



“It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.”



“Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.”



“Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part.”



“I think I was a little disappointed in her. I expected then people to be more of a piece than I do now, and I was distressed to find so much vindictiveness in so charming a creature. I did not realize how motley are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandeur, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart.”



“The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.”



“People talk of beauty lightly, and having no feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so that it loses its force; and the thing it stands for, sharing its name with a hundred trivial objects, is deprived of dignity. They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon; and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.”



“With the superciliousness of extreme youth, I put thirty-five as the utmost limit at which a man might fall in love without making a fool of himself.”



“I do not suppose she had ever really cared for her husband, and what I had taken for love was no more than the feminine response to caresses and comfort which in the minds of most women passes for it. It is a passive feeling capable of being roused for any object, as the vine can grow on any tree; and the wisdom of the world recognises its strength when it urges a girl to marry the man who wants her with the assurance that love will follow. It is an emotion made up of the satisfaction of security, pride of property, the pleasure of being desired, the gratification of a household, and it is only by an amiable vanity that women ascribe to it spiritual value. It is an emotion which is defenceless against passion.”



“I shall beat you,' he said, looking at her.”

          “How else should I know you loved me,' she answered.”

“They say a woman always remembers her first lover with affection; but perhaps she does not always remember him.”



“The last words he said to me when I bade him good-night were:

         Tell Amy it's no good coming after me. Anyhow, I shall change my hotel, so she wouldn't be able to find me.'

         My own impression is that she's well rid of you,' I said.

         My dear fellow, I only hope you'll be able to make her see it. But women are very unintelligent.”

           “I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others; there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure--if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence.”



           “Unconsciously, perhaps, we treasure the power we have over people by their regard for our opinion of them, and we hate those upon whom we have no such influence.”