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Manipulating word classes
Verby styles: Our analysis of Golding
Comments about meaning and effect:
The image we get here is of a man mainly acting desperately to save
himself. However, his actions do not appear to be particularly effective.
Although, most of the time, he is 'action man', in the whole of sentences
3 and 5, and one clause of sentence 7 ('saw a jumble of broken rock')
he is not dynamic: we get his perceptions instead.
Analytical comments:
Of the 114 words in this passage, 20 are main verbs. So the proportion
of main verbs in the passage is about 17.5%, an increase of nearly 50%
on the Ellegard average for written English (around 12%). This effect
is even more marked if we temporarily 'discount' the sentences and clauses
that indicate Pincher Martin's perceptions. The action-only sentences
are predominantly very short and almost always each contains two main
verbs, forcing up the proportion of verbs in those sentences, which are,
in any case, highly dynamic. 17 of the 20 main verbs are in the past
tense with simple aspect and all 17 have Pincher Martin as their subject,
indicating that most of his actions are brief and punctual in character.
The perception parts of the extract are marked by the use of three perception
verbs ('felt', 'glimpsed', 'saw') and contain two other verbs ('running',
'slipping') which are less dynamic, continuous in aspect and have other
entities than Pincher Martin as their subject. The perception sentences
are longer than the action sentences and have a lower proportion of verbs.
Hence we can see that the action/perception distinction is being marked
in terms of grammatical patterning.
Lastly we should note that the feeling of the ineffectuality of the
man's actions is largely a result of the fact that although the action
verbs which have Pinter Martin as subject are very dynamic semantically,
most of them are grammatically intransitive (i.e. do not take an object).
So his actions do not appear to be specifically directed towards anything
else. Indeed, when transitive verbs are used, the object is always 'himself'.
Hence he does not appear to be acting effectively on his surrounding environment
in spite of his high activity rate. The point of this textural pattern
becomes clear at the end of the novel, when we realise he had drowned
soon after going overboard.
Paul Simpson (1993) discusses related effects in other parts of Pincher
Martin, in his Language and Ideology and Point of View (Routledge,
pp. 11-13).
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