Lolita Bilianska
(Kamyanets-Podilsky Ivan Ohiienko National University)
Scientific Supervisor: M.V. Matkovska, Senior Lecturer
SPEAKERS’ COMMUNICATIVE INTENSIONS IN “THE GREAT GATSBY” BY F.SCOTT FITZGERALD
“The Great Gatsby” is a book that fully reveals Fitzgerald’s talent, which is defined as a “double vision”, meaning his ability to simultaneously keep in mind two directly opposite ideas that come into conflict with each other, thus creating a dramatic plot movement and character development.
In “The Great Gatsby” everything is based on the duality of the main character, the ambiguity of his motives. The plot itself is ambiguous, seemingly similar to the plots of the “mystery novel” Jay Gatsby, the title character, is a young millionaire living in West Egg with a mysterious and somewhat notorious past. No one quite knows how he made his fortune; some believe he is a bootlegger. Rumors circulate of him “as if he once killed a man”, or “during the war was a German spy”, romantic intrigue, detective investigation, the mystery of death), but contains a serious, philosophical meaning. The dual motives of the supporting characters (Jordan Baker, guests at the Gatsby receptions), as they all seek to unravel the mystery that enveloped the hero long before he appears in the story of Nick Carraway. The narrative level includes extradiegetic, diegetic, hypodiegetic and hypohypodiegetic level.
Nick is a diegetic narrator when he becomes part of the events he tells about. But he becomes a hypodiegetic narrator when Tom tells him about some of the events Wilson told him about the car accident that killed Myrtle, and in particular the news that the car involved in the tragic accident belonged to Gatsby. At the fourth level of the story hypohypodiegetic narrator receives information from a character who has already received information from another character. This is the case when Jordan Baker told Nick about Tom’s relationship with Myrtle and Daisy. Here is an example:
“You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.”
“I don’t.”
“Why – she said hesitantly, “Tom’s got some woman in New York”.
“Got some woman?” I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded” [2, p. 18–20]. So, she received this information either from other characters or from other common sources, such as gossip or rumors.
Gatsby is the narrator of some events. For example, he tells the main narrator about his love story with Daisy. In such a story, Gatsby becomes a homodiegetic narrator because he tells his own story (an event in which he participated). Daisy also becomes a hypodiegetic narrator when she tells the main narrator Nick about her previous life and relationship with Gatsby.
It seems that the characters sometimes did not feel the desire, pleasure or strength to communicate with each other. The short dialogue in the first chapter between Tom and Nick is one of many that perfectly illustrates a conversation that takes place out of habit and not out of interest:
“What you doing, Nick?’
‘I’m a bond man.’
‘Who with?’ I told him.
‘Never heard of them,’ he remarked decisively. This annoyed me. ‘You will,’ I answered shortly” [2, p. 24–25].
The conversation seems so uninteresting that even the reader does not know who Nick is working with. Instead, other dialogues begin promisingly, giving the impression that the characters know what they are talking about. Instantly this facade collapses, and the reader realizes that this is not the case. Tom also in his question to Nick uses ellipsis. The auxiliary ‘are’ is omitted and can be understood out of context. “Get some chairs, why don’t you, so somebody can sit down” [2, p. 28].
In this extract Myrtle talks to her husband, Wilson. Her utterance meaning shows that their guests need to set down so he should bring some chairs, but in fact the force of the utterance is that she wants her husband to be away from them so that she can talk freely to her lover. Among various types and kinds of the speaker’s intentions, most research is and has been dedicated to the notion of the speaker’s communicative intention. The nature of this phenomenon, its typology, and means of realisation in speech are the object of studies of many native and foreign linguists, philosophers, psychologists, experts in other fields. The narrative level includes extradiegetic, diegetic, hypodiegetic [1; 3; 4; 5].
As narrators, Jordan, Daisy, and Gatsby are secondary to Nick in this story; they all pass on their stories to the main narrator, Nick Carraway. In other words, their stories are narrative – inside the story in a traditional story.
Correspondingly, most of the dialogues in the novel are of materialistic concern. The characters talk about clothes, cars, money and gossip about other people and their lives. The party in Tom’s apartment in New York in chapter two consists of elaborate lies, “artificial laughter” and high-class pretensions that create superficial connections through shallow and disdainful conversations, such as Myrtle’s scornful discussion of her husband’s lack of wealth and class.
Thus, after conducting several analyzes of the dialogues in the novel, we can say that the author quite vividly and in colors conveys the experiences of the characters through their speech. Separate author’s remarks concerning certain phrases of the main characters also enable the reader to feel the situation more deeply.
REFERENCES
- Grice H.P. Studies in the Way of Words. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2001. 406 p.
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. London: Penguin, 1992. 160 p.
- Jacob P. Meaning, Intentionality and Communication. Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning. De Gruyter Mouton, 2011. № 2. P. 11–25.
- Pratchett T. Reaper Man. London: Transworld Publishers Ltd, 2012. 352 p
- Searle J.R. Collective Intentions and Actions. Intentions in Communication. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1990. P. 401–415.