Study of the linguistic characteristics of the tales of famous storytellers

CHAPTER 2 "STUDY OF THE LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TALES OF FAMOUS STORYTELLERS"
2.1 There are fairy tales in the composite.
We have read a literally fairy tale under the title "Prince Rabbit" by one of the most famous English authors Alan Alexander Milne. The most known book of his was "Teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh. Christopher Robin Milne's stuffed bear, originally named "Edward",[23] was renamed "Winnie-the-Pooh" after a Canadian black bear named Winnie (after Winnipeg), which was used as a military mascot in World War I, and left to London Zoo during the war. "The pooh" comes from a swan called "Pooh". E. H. Shepard illustrated the original Pooh books, using his own son's teddy, Growler ("a magnificent bear"), as the model. The rest of Christopher Robin Milne's toys, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger, were incorporated into A. A. Milne's stories,two more characters - Rabbit and Owl - were created by Milne's imagination. Christopher Robin Milne's own toys are now under glass in New York where 750,000 people visit them every year. His book The World of Pooh won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.
The story “Prince Rabbit” is narrated by the author in order to reveal different actions and plot lines simultaneously. Thus, the reader can dive into a wonderful and marvelous fairy tale like in his or her childhood. Moreover, the tone of the story is so emotional, ironical, humorous and partly sarcastic, that even an adult person will laugh at funny situations in the text. For example, when the Chancellor introduced the Rabbit to the King as a competitor for King’s successor, the King only laughed and said: “We can always have a race for a new Chancellor afterwards”.
In spite of the fact, that the genre of the writing is the fairy tale, the story is written in a philosophical, even psychological way. For example: “After all, said the King to the Queen that night, intelligence is a quality not without value to a ruler”.
The action took place in the Pavilion in the Palace of the King mainly, and partly at the place where the enchanter lived. All the adventures lasted about a month.
This is a story about the rabbit, who wanted to become a King’s successor and succeeded in it.
Milne began his story with the description of the situation in the Kingdom. The King and the Queen could not have children, so there were not any successors in that Kingdom. One day the King and his Chancellor decided to make competition between young and noble men to choose the next King. There were many competitors and among them there was one rabbit. Despite the fact, that the Rabbit followed all the rules, the King and the Chancellor tried to avoid the Rabbit’s victory. Finally, the Rabbit succeeded and became the King due to his cleverness and one enchanter, who made him a man. It occurred, that the Rabbit was a prince many years ago, but the wizard enchanted him.
The text is divided into some parts logically connected. The exposition of the story represents the discussing between the King and his Chancellor the forthcoming competition. “There must be not one test, but many tests. Let all, who will offer themselves, provided only that they are under the age of twenty and are well-born”.
The rising action of the story starts, when the Chancellor found that there was a rabbit among the competitors and, moreover, he was under all the condition to take part in the contest. “The Chancellor, feeling rather hot suddenly, read the rules. The Rabbit was certainly under twenty; he had a pedigree which showed that he was of the highest birth”. And it finishes, when the King asks two last competitors: Lord Calomel, who was enchanted into the rabbit too, and the Rabbit to stand on their two legs only.
The climax of the story is the moment, when the Rabbit stood on his back paws and the enchanter appeared at the Pavilion. He revealed the King, that the Rabbit was “the son of the late King Nicodemus, Prince Silvio”, and that the wizard himself enchanted the baby many years ago, but the Rabbit escaped. The enchanter corrected his mistake and returned the Rabbit into the man.
The denouement terminates with the announcement of the King that the Rabbit won the competition and became the next King. “Then, my dear Prince Silvio, as the winner of this most interesting series of contests, you are appointed successor to our throne”.
Alan Alexander Milne uses many stylistic devices to show us human’s craftiness of this fairy tale. In order to show the growing tension, the author makes use a few devices to keep the rhythm.
First is onomatoepia. It is is a word that phonetically imitates, resembles or suggests the source of the sound that it describes. Onomatopoeia (as an uncountable noun) refers to the property of such words. Common occurrences of onomatopoeias include animal noises such as "oink", "miaow" (or "meow"), "roar" or "chirp". Onomatopoeias are not the same across all languages; they conform to some extent to the broader linguistic system they are part of; hence the sound of a clock may be tick tock in English, dī dā in Mandarin, or katchin katchin in Japanese.
Although in the English language the term onomatopoeia means the imitation of a sound, in the Greek language the compound word onomatopoeia (ονοματοποιία) means "making or creating names". For words that imitate sounds the term Ηχομιμητικό (echomimetico or echomimetic) is used. Ηχομιμητικό (echomimetico) from Ηχώ meaning "echo or sound" and μιμητικό meaning "mimetic or imitation".
Example from the text is :
“what suggestion have you to make in this matter”
Second is anaphora. It is is a rhetorical device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses, thereby lending them emphasis. In contrast, an epistrophe (or epiphora) is repeating words at the clauses' ends. The combination of anaphora and epistrophe results in symploce.
One author well known for his use of anaphora is Charles Dickens (seen in quotation below). Some of his best-known works constantly portray their themes through use of this literary tool.
Example from the text is :
“And when it was seen that the young Lord rose from the ground… And Rabbit, dropping his sword for a moment cheered too… And there he lay”. To reflect the craftiness of the King the author uses, firstly, irony “I have long felt that a progressive country such as ours might well strike out a new line in the matter. Let us agree that in future seven sixes are ‘fifty-four’”, said the Rabbit to the King. Secondly, sarcasm “We can always have a race for a new Chancellor afterwards”.
Thus, the author reflected a cruel and cunning attitude of the King to the Rabbit. Also he underlines the whole humour of the story via the hyperbole “Rabbit bowed gracefully, Rabbit galloped back to his home, etc”.
The Rabbit is the protagonist. The Protagonist is main character is a narrative's central or primary personal figure, who comes into conflict with an opposing major character or force (called the antagonist). The audience is intended to mostly identify with the protagonist. In the theatre of Ancient Greece, three actors played every main dramatic role in a tragedy; the protagonist played the leading role while the other roles were played by the deuteragonist and the tritagonist.
The Rabbit wants to become the King’s successor, to win the competition, moreover, he is very ambitious. The King is a quite typical antagonist. He does everything to prevent the Rabbit from winning the competition. He gives him unreal tasks to do, but the Rabbit succeeds in every of them.
The author uses indirect methods of characterization through people’s actions, their words and the manner of speaking.
The key problem of the story is not to pretend to be noble, intelligent and fair. Do not pretend to give people the opportunities they do not have, if you do not want to do it or you cannot do it, You should just try to be open-minded, kind and tolerant. Try to put yourself into someone’s place.