Stylistic Features of Oscar Wilde’s Wrightings

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Such an imposition generally results when the creator of the metaphor finds in the two corresponding objects certain features, which to his eye have something in common.

I completely agree with these definitions. I also think that metaphors reveal the attitude of the writer to the object, action or concept and express his views. They may also reflect the literary school which he belongs and the epoch in which he lives.

As an illustration of Wilde’s skill in using every nuance of the language to serve some special stylistic purpose, we must mention his use of metaphors.

e.g. “We live in an age of ideals.”(p.293)

“She has all the fragrance and freedom of a

flower.”(p.175)

“The God of this century is wealth.”(p.206)

“But to suffer for one’s own faults,-ah!-there is the

sting of life.”(p.36).

Oscar Wilde was a man of art; and even these wonderful metaphors prove it. As we can see, his metaphors give a certain charm and musical perception through the plain language combinations.

A metaphor can exist only within a context. A separate word isolated from the context has its general meaning. Metaphor plays an important role in the development of language. Words acquire new meanings by transference.

e.g. “Lord Illingworth: That silly Puritan girl making a scene merely

because I wanted to kiss her. What harm is there in a kiss?

Mrs.Arbuthnot: A kiss may ruin a human life. I know that too

well.”(p.163).

The metaphorical effect of this sentence is based on the personal feelings of Mrs.Arbuthnot. Her sad experience of life sounds in this phrase. When she was young, she had a great love. But her passion had left her and “her life was ruined.” That is why this metaphor has a true effective power when it is pronounced by Mrs.Arbuthnot.

e.g. “I am a ship without a rudder in a night without a star.”(p.242)

The speaker of this phrase Sir Robert Chiltern gets lost, he does not know what to do in such situation. He says that he is a “ship without a rudder”, i.e. he does not know where he must go and what to do for better future.

Oscar Wilde is always concerned with society. His fine metaphors play an important role in portraying his heroes, their feelings and thoughts.

e.g. “I had a wild hope that I might disarm destiny.”(p.209)

“I keep science for life.”(p.281)

“Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they are better.”(p.85)

“The fire cannot purify her. The waters cannot quench her anguish.”(p.150)

“Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.”(p.283)

Thus, we can see the unlimited power of the artist in showing his imagination. The emotional colouring is made by an ample use of bright metaphors. Metaphor takes one of the most honourable places in Wilde’s art. The main purpose of the author is to affect the reader emotionally through the images. The charm of O.Wilde’s plays is due to the mixture of poetic metaphors and real images. The author does not convince the reader to make the resulting points, but he makes him indirectly judge the heroes and clear the situation.

Metaphors, like all stylistic devices, can be classified according to their degree of unexpectedness. Thus, metaphors which are absolutely unexpected, that is are quite unpredictable, are called genuine metaphors. Here we can see some of them:

e.g. “She is a work of art”.(p.175)

“She has all the fragrance and freedom of a

flower. There is ripple after ripple of sunlight in

her hair. She has the fascinating tyranny of

youth, and the astonishing courage of

innocence”.(p.175)

“Divorces are made in Heaven”. (p. 283)

In genuine metaphors the image is always present and the transference of meaning is actually felt. These metaphors have a radiating force. The whole sentence becomes metaphoric. The metaphors, which are commonly used in speech and therefore are sometimes even fixed in dictionaries as expressive means of language, are trite metaphors.

e.g. “My farther really died of a broken heart”. (p.85)

“Love is easily killed! Oh! How easily love is killed”.

(p.86)

“The moment is entirely in your own hands”. (p.344)

Wilde’s metaphors develop the reader’s imagination. At the same time the author reflects his own point of view.

e.g. “Youth is the Lord of Life”. (p.135)

In these four plays Wilde preaches that youth is the so called “gift of nature”. It is very interesting to note, that almost all his main heroes are young people. And youth is their leading star in life. Oscar Wilde resorts to the use of his metaphors for more expressiveness and beauty of language. Their meanings are playing and understandable for any reader, of any age and any interests. They are the birds of Wilde’s thoughts, sometimes sensitive and sometimes bitter, sometimes joyful and sometimes sad, but they are always wonderful. They have an excellent quality to reflect different objects, actions and, of course, people in a new meaning. They produce a dynamic character of the plot and show that Wilde is a man of genius.

SIMILE

Simile is the next stylistic device used by Wilde in his plays. Simile is a likeness of one thing to another.

According to Prof. Sosnovskaya V.B., Simile is the most rudimentary form of trope. It can be defined as a device based upon an analogy between two things, which are discovered to possess some features in common otherwise being entirely dissimilar.

According to Prof. Galperin I.R. the intensification of someone feature of the concept in question is realised in a device called Simile. Ordinary comparison and Simile must not be confused. They represent two diverse processes. Comparison means weighing two objects belonging to one class of things with the purpose of establishing the degree of their sameness or difference. To use a simile is to characterise one object by bringing it into contact with another object belonging to an entirely different class of things. Comparison takes into consideration all the properties of the two objects, stressing the one that is compared. Simile includes all the properties of the two objects except one which is made common to them.

e.g. “All women become like their mothers.” (p.300)

is ordinary comparison. The words “women” and “mothers” belong to the same class of objects – human beings – so this is not a Simile but ordinary comparison.

But in the sentence:

“But she is really like a Tanagra statuette, and would be rather annoyed if she were told so”. (p.175),

we have a simile. “She” and “statuette” belong to heterogeneous classes of objects and Wilde has found that the beauty of Mabel Chiltern may be compared with the beauty of the ancient Tanagra statuette. Of the two concepts brought together in the Simile – one characterised (Mabel Chiltern), and the other characterising (Statuette) – the feature intensified will be more inherent in the latter than in the former. Moreover, the object characterised, is seen in quite a new and unexpected light, because the author as it were, imposes this feature on it. Thus, Simile is an imaginative comparison of two unlike objects belonging to two different classes.

Similes forcibly set one object against another regardless of the fact that they may be completely alien to each other. And without our being aware of it the Simile gives rise to a new understanding of the object characterising as well as of the object characterised.

The properties of an object may be viewed from different angles, for example, its state, actions, manners, etc. Accordingly, Similes may be based on adjective-attributes, adverbs-modifiers, verb-predicates, etc.

e.g. “Dear Agatha and I are so much interested in

Australia. Agatha has found it on the map. What a

curious shape it is! Just like a large packing case.”

(p.42)

“She looks rather like an orchid and makes great

demands on one’s curiosity.” (p.176)

“Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a