Stylistics routledge English Language Introductions

Activity
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Activity
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of speech and thought presentation and another, such that every one of the modes
realised in the passage can be assigned a position on the vertical axis. Speech 
modes are plotted above the NRA line on the vertical axis; thought modes below. 
I have marked up, with dots in the relevant places, the four modes in evidence up
to line 16. Using dots to chart subsequent modes, complete the figure. Then, once
you are satisfied that all the modes have been plotted on the figure, join up (with 
a single line moving from left to right) all the modes. Each of the transitions in 
the passage will now be represented by a through-line connecting each node on the
axis. You should end up with a wavy line which intersects with the straight line in
the middle.
Stylistic analysis and critical (re)evaluation
The implications of this figure will be the main issue developed in this part of the
workshop programme. First of all, you should reevaluate the five literary-critical
comments provided earlier in the light of your analysis of the text and in the light
of the visual representation of the narrative texture provided by the figure. Are any
of the critical comments, in your opinion, a true reflection of Hemingway’s prose
style? Do any of the critics come close to giving a genuine insight into the language
of this text? Is it true, as most of the critics seem to suggest, that the style of the
passage is ‘simple’? And, importantly, have you been tempted, since doing your
analysis, to modify your initial rankings in any way?
The figure, with its double axis showing narrative development, suggests perhaps
a degree of subtlety in narrative organisation that had not hitherto been identified
by the critics. The group of students who produced the initial ranking offered some
illuminating feedback on the basis of their analysis of speech and thought. For the
most part, their analysis only served to consolidate the impression that the critical
statements offered little in the way of concrete information about Hemingway’s use
of language in the passage. Having said that, there was one particular statement that
caught the attention of the group when it was set against the figure. This was state-
ment C, which had been resolutely and unequivocally consigned to the bottom of
the original ranking list.
The points of intersection between the layout of the figure and critic C’s remarks
are interesting. The critic suggests that narrative technique is foregrounded at the
expense of psychological interpretation, and to the extent that the style of the novella
echoes the very physicality of what it sets out to depict. This culminates in the refer-
ence to the style ‘flowing on the rhythms of the sea it describes’. Although scoffed
at initially, this remark, when placed in the context of the completed figure, no longer
reads like the critical excess it first seemed. Indeed, it prompts a hypothesis that is
both tendentious and fanciful but is nonetheless worth mooting as a point for debate.
Consider the following argument. Our figure essentially captures a dual movement
in the passage: the linear progression of the text as narrative on one level, and the
movement created by oscillations between speech and thought modes on another.
There is a curious analogy between this dual movement at the level of narrative struc-
ture and the implied movements of the old man and his boat. On the one hand, the
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