重庆潼南实验中学校 陈德翠
Abstract: In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated adj) is a describing word, the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified. The use of adjectives find fantastic expressions in Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Long Walk to Forever which is embodied in his famous collection of short stories: Welcome to the Monkey House. By analyzing the specific usage of adjectives in this short story, this paper is trying to prove the imperative role those adjectives play and the indelible function they serve in this wonderful literary work.
Key words: adjectives; modifying effect; Long Walk to Forever
1.Adjectives for modifying the main characters
The author used lots of adjectives to express Newt and Catherine’s inner world and their delicate relationship. Starting with ‘playful’ and ‘ comfortable’ in paragraph 2, an easy atmosphere was built in the beginning. In paragraph 5, ‘ shy’, ‘absently’, ‘secret’, ‘briefly’, ‘beautiful’, ‘distant’, ‘sinister’, ‘desperate’ were used to illustrate Newt’s personality, and these words gave a general image of Newt in reader’s mind.
In paragraph 15 to 17, ‘rosy’ showed six times, and it was all used to illustrate Catherine, the beautiful bride to be. In Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (4th ed.), two explanations of this word were given: seeming to offer hope of success or happiness; pink. Obviously, ‘rosy’ in this situation adapted to the first meaning. By using this simple but meaningful adjectives, Catherine’s joy for being a bride to be was presented thoroughly. Moreover, the repetition of this word not only stressed the happiness of Catherine for being some’s wife a week later, but also revealed some yearning expectations between Newt and Catherine.
From paragraph 32 to 59, ‘crazy’ showed up four times when Catherine heard that Newt was absent without leave from army, and this whole thing was absolutely unacceptable for Catherine not only because of Newt’s A.W.O.L, but also the sudden confession of Newt’s love for her. At the meantime, in those passages, the adverb ‘really’ showed up three time to qualify ‘crazy’ and the scene of Catherine’s knowing Newt’s A.W.O.L and his love. Together with ‘absolutely’ in paragraph 49, ‘really’ has push Newt’s crazy into a climax and also the first climax of the whole story.
In the following paragraph, Catherine used ‘foolish’ to blame Newt’s A.W.O.L from army and ‘offensive’ to respond Newt’s doubt for her love to her fiancé. Those two adjectives illustrated Catherine’s tangled heart thoroughly, and readers could feel this depressive atmosphere between Catherine’s love to Newt and her annoyance for failing to deal with this relationship.
2.Adjectives for modifying the natural scenery
Compared to those adjectives for describing Newt and Catherine, adjectives for illustrating the natural scenery are rather limited, and mostly are used to romance the air when the hero and heroine went out to take a walk. Although the whole story lay more stress on the depict of the main characters and their behaviors as well as inner world, proper portrayal to the natural scenery still like the icing on the cake.
From the very beginning of the story, the author used ‘lovely’ to describe the bell tower that belonged to a school for the blind. ‘lovely’ in this situation had a function of pun for it not only showed the real beauty of this bell tower, but also indicated the fine aspect of love in spite of its blindness sometimes.
Those adjectives scattered in different parts in the passage, and mostly showed up when Catherine and Newt walk to a new place. Their path could be depicted as follows: first, they were taking a walk in a wood with a brown-leaf floor, and then they were in a large orchard, and then they sat down on the close-cropped grass under an apple tree. During their walk, ‘brown-leaf’, ‘large’ and ‘close-cropped’ were all taken as adjectives, and those word gave readers an impression of long perspective of lawns, shadows and trees. As complementary terms, those adjectives depicted a harmony and romantic scene for the lovebirds, just like they were going to walk along forever through this path, and this had also echoed to the title: long walk to forever.
3.Conclusion
Adjectives as essential elements in forming a context are imperative for literary expressions and successful communication in ordinary discourse. By modifying nouns and noun phrases, adjectives can achieve a special effect for literary works. In Kurt Vonnegut’s short story long walk to forever, lots of adjectives are used to describe the hero and heroine’s appearance and also their inner world in order to interpret their delicate relationship in all respect. Furthermore, some adjectives were used to depict the cozy and beautiful natural scenery on the way of the young man and his beloved girl’s significant walk. Although simple and plain adjectives were used in this short story, somehow it realized a superb effect, and made the whole story in a natural and smooth style, and most importantly, those appropriate adjectives portrayed the characteristics of both the hero and heroine, hence qualified the quintessence of love to perfection, no more, and no less.
References
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