The Importance of Stylistic Devices in the Story

   I.R.Galperin conceives of stylistic device as a conscious and intentional intensification of some typical structural and/or semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a generalized status and thus becoming a generative model. Stylistic devices function in texts as marked units. They always carry some kind of additional information, either emotive or logical. 

   I think, that the author used a lot of stylistic devices for vivid descriptions of protagonist and antagonist of the story, the setting, for creating the effect of presence and description of the period of the 60s in US. 

   The first device, which I mentioned, is simile. The first use of a simile was to effectively contrast Connie’s behavior, in this instance her laughter, at home and in public: "…her laugh, which was cynical and drawling at home—“Ha, ha, very funny,”—but highpitched and nervous anywhere else, like the ringing of the charms on her bracelet." The image of a jingling charm bracelet, often associated with teenaged girls, let me imagine Connie’s laugh as youthful. This contrasts with the more masculine “cynical and drawling" laugh she employs at home. The dual laughs exemplify the split in Connie’s personality. She has developed two personas: one she uses with her family and another used to explore her sexuality and ideas of womanhood.

   The descriptions of Arnold Friend were also full of similes. The author always compared him with someone for giving vivid and bright description of him: "And his face was a familiar face, somehow: the jaw and chin and cheeks slightly darkened because he hadn’t shaved for a day or two, and the nose long and hawklike, sniffing as if she were a treat he was going to gobble up and it was all a joke". Oates compares Arnold Friend to a hawk, a bird of prey, and insinuates he would like to eat Connie, reinforcing the connection between him and a natural predator. The use of the word “sniffing” adds to the animalistic impression of Arnold Friend; it is even easy to imagine him smelling Connie as a dog might sniff at its food. Arnold Friend may represent a particularly violent and aggressive hunter, but Connie lives in a world where men regularly look to victimize women. 

   "One of his boots was at a strange angle, as if his foot wasn’t in it." It is left only to imagine what was wrong with the angle of Arnold Friend's boots. I can suggest something unnatural, that's why I'm a little bit confused because of this simile. 

   There is also one more interesting simile of Connie's house, when it was compared to the cardboard house: "This place you are now—inside your daddy’s house—is nothing but a cardboard box I can knock down any time." It sounded like a threaten, that he could easy get Connie and the house won't protect her from him. It seems that this house is made of cards and it could be blown by the wind. Moreover, the house is the symbol of a family, its tradition, so if Arnold threatens Connie in such a way, it means that he threatens to ruin her childhood world because at home she was a child, but outside - she pretended to be a woman. 

   Describing Arnold Friend, the aurhor called his appearance contradictive, not corresponding to his age, using oxymoron: "the face of a forty-year-old baby", 

   The number of metaphors are seen in Connie's desciptions, firstly, to show her as a teenager who is always daydreaming: "to a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling", secondly, to show her emotions, particularly, in the moment of fear, panic: "Connie felt a wave of dizziness rise in her at this sight and she stared at him as if waiting for something to change the shock of the moment, make it all right again. Ellie's lips kept shaping words, mumbling along with the words blasting in his ear.", “She was hollow with what had been fear but what was now just an emptiness”.