Lingnan University Digital Commons @ Lingnan University Theses & Dissertations Department of English 2007 A stylistic approach to the God of Small Things written by Arundhati Roy Wing Yi, Monica CHAN Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.ln.edu.hk/eng_etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Chan, W. Y. M. (2007). A stylistic approach to the God of Small Things written by Arundhati Roy (Master's thesis, Lingnan University, Hong Kong). Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.14793/eng_etd.2 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at Digital Commons @ Lingnan University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Lingnan University. Terms of Use The copyright of this thesis is owned by its author. Any reproduction, adaptation, distribution or dissemination of this thesis without express authorization is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved. A STYLISTIC APPROACH TO THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS WRITTEN BY ARUNDHATI ROY CHAN WING YI MONICA MPHIL LINGNAN UNIVERSITY 2007 A STYLISTIC APPROACH TO THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS WRITTEN BY ARUNDHATI ROY by CHAN Wing Yi Monica A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in English Lingnan University 2007 ABSTRACT A Stylistic Approach to The God of Small Things written by Arundhati Roy by CHAN Wing Yi Monica Master of Philosophy This thesis presents a creative-analytical hybrid production in relation to the stylistic distinctiveness in The God of Small Things, the debut novel of Arundhati Roy. Roy’s text drew the world’s gaze after winning the Booker Prize in 1997. Many studies have been written on diverse aspects of the book, and much has been said regarding the writer’s style. However, those studies rarely focus on the minutiae of Roy’s writing and this thesis provides a greater degree of detailed analysis. The objective is to achieve a deeper understanding of the relationship between style and literary aesthetics in The God of Small Things by studying the stylistic patterns behind Roy’s resonating poetic prose. The stylistic study is carried out adopting two approaches: the corpus-based approach (Part A) and the empirical-creative approach (Part B). The first section provides a stylistic analysis concentrating on the most significant stylistic features of the novel. The study is based on the list of style markers rendered by Leech and Short, Style in Fiction (1981) and elaborated according to the following key aspects that were extracted from the repertoire using my intuitive observation of the novel. These chosen style markers taken together represent key aspects of Roy’s style: (1) Lexis—Roy’s very frequent and particular utilization of adjectives; (2) Grammar—the high concentration of minor sentences and the listing of noun phrases in the text; (3) Figures of Speech— repetition and neologism. The second section presents a self-written pastiche which aims at imitating Roy’s style in literary prose and adapting its approach to a Chinese context. The creative process serves as an experiment on taking pastiche writing as an “experiential” approach to stylistics. In addition, since the resemblance of the pastiche to Roy’s style should not be the only value of the piece, some key themes in the original text are also reproduced. The analysis in Part A illustrates patterns of Roy’s stylistic choices. On the use of adjectives, Roy tends to arrange adjectival elements in sequence, construct a fixed “like” sentence structure, and adopt combining word forms and affective adjectives. On minor sentences, Roy chooses to separate adverbial phrases, sentence fragments starting with “like”, “as though”, and clauses beginning with “that”, “which”, “and”, “but”, “or”. As for repetitions, there is repeated use of set phrases, sentence patterns and recurrent appearance of certain lines and images. Lastly, on neologisms, Roy’s patterns of creating new words include hyphenation, direct merging, and prefix/suffix building. The pastiche is entitled Hong Kong Locust Stand I. By juxtaposing with the original, it is found that many stylistic features in The God of Small Things, are present in the pastiche, though with variation. While stylistic elements cannot totally be independent from the theme, the atmosphere, character and plot of the pastiche also demonstrate qualities representing those in Roy’s novel. The pastiche presents an innovative and respectful way to come to terms with Roy’s style through selective imitation and creative adaptation. In conclusion, it is hoped that this study opens the way for further hybrid studies of style that incorporate both analytical and creative approaches. DECLARATION I declare that this is an original work based primarily on my own research, and I warrant that all citations of previous research, published or unpublished, have been duly acknowledged. _______________________ ( CHAN Wing Yi Monica ) Date CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL OF THESIS A STYLISTIC APPROACH TO THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS WRITTEN BY ARUNDHATI ROY by CHAN Wing Yi Monica Master of Philosophy Panel of Examiners: _________________________ (Chairman) Prof. Richard Freadman _________________________ (External Member) Ms Xu Xi (S. Komala) _________________________ (Internal Member) Prof. Barry Asker _________________________ (Internal Member) Dr. Michael Ingham Supervisor: Prof. Barry Asker Approved for the Senate: ______________________________________________ Prof. Mee-kau NYAW Chairman, Research and Postgraduate Studies Committee ______________________________________________ Date TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Tables…………………………………………………………………. iii Chapter Part A 1. Introduction……………………………………………………. 1 2. The Style of Arundhati Roy: A Literature Review ...................... 9 3. An Evaluation/ Description of Arundhati Roy’s Writing Style… 21 3.1 Literary Stylistics ………………………………………. 22 3.2 Approach ……………………………………………….. 26 3.3 List of Style Markers …………………………………... 28 3.4 Description/ Evaluation of Style Markers ……………... 28 3.4.1 Lexis…………………………………………….. 29 3.4.2 Grammar………………………………………… 44 3.4.3 Figures of Speech……………………………….. 68 3.4.4 Summary………………………………………… 97 Part B 4. A Pastiche based on Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. 99 5. A Self-Reflection on Hong Kong Locus Stand I written after The God of Small Things………………………………………………… 156 Appendixes 1: Complete List of Examples on Lexis (High Frequency of Adjectives)………................................................................................ 167 2: Complete List of Examples on Grammar (High Frequency of Minor Sentences)……………………………………………………………. 205 3: Complete List of Examples on Figures of Speech (Repetitive Sentence Patterns)……………………………………………………………… 263 4: Complete List of Examples on Figures of Speech (Neologisms)…... 272 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………… 285 TABLES Table Page 3.1 Number of adjectives in the first 1000 words of the listed texts. 31 3.2 The syntactic form composed of “like” in Examples 130, 136 & 140…………………………………………………………….... 36 3.3 Distribution and appearance of selected “fixed” phrases in The God of Small Things…………………………………………………….. 71 3.4 Number of line repetitions in The God of Small Things ……….. 84 3.5 Frequency of image re-creations in The God of Small Thing ….. 85 Acknowledgements My enormous gratitude to Prof. Barry Asker for being my constant source of inspiration. Thank you for not tolerating my intolerable drafts but returning them with your finger pointing (plus your cruel editing). I am honestly grateful for the generous and heartfelt support from the Department of English and the University, that I humbly received in heaps. Lastly, many thanks to the real-life counterparts to the characters in my pastiche, for being so sincere and genuine; and at the same time, playing such enthusiastic roles in my ruthless fantasy. CHAPTER 1 Introduction Arundhati Roy was born in 1961 in the southeastern state of Kerala in India. Her only novel, The God of Small Things, was completed in May 1996, launched in April 1997 in Delhi, and won the Booker Prize in London in October 1997. Roy is the first Indian woman writer to win Britain’s most prestigious literary award and this public acclaim assured her status as a new novelist of striking ability, especially at the level of her innovative style. Not long after the astonishing achievement of her first book, Roy was dubbed the “Literary Queen” by Barbara Wickens in Maclean’s (64), and since that time she has been a figure of huge media interest both in her native India and worldwide. For a number of reasons, some of them literary and others more to do with her political activism, Roy’s reputation remains very controversial, attracting extremes of praise and condemnation. Yet despite the varied responses that critics have shown towards her, it is true that her first and only novel has been and remains exceptionally popular. As a reader I am not alone in finding her book a very powerful representation of themes that, though tied to the particular place of India, have a resonance for those of us who live elsewhere and face different issues and cultural histories. The first time I read Roy’s novel, I was struck powerfully by the shimmering quality of her prose style and Roy remains for me a woman novelist I admire and wish (in my own way) to resemble. As is well known, the plot of The God of Small Things is set in Ayemenem, a small town in the state of Kerala on the southwest coast of India in 1969. The protagonists are a pair of fraternal twins, Esthappen and Rahel. The whole book orbits the critical day when the twins accidentally drowned their half-British cousin Sophie Mol and their divorced mother Ammu had a love affair with the house carpenter, Velutha. The series of events crushed the Ipe family while Rahel and Estha’s carefree childhood started to fall apart. This domestic drama is set, however, against the political and social background in India in the recent past, especially the caste system and the prohibition against inter-caste relationships, among other themes that will emerge in this thesis.