A Rhetorical Study Of Rebecca From The Perspective Of Aristotle’s Rhetoric

Daphne du Maurier,(1970-1989), was the distinguished suspensive romantic female writer in England in the20century. She won the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in1977. Her masterpiece, Rebecca, is her most representative novel and becomes one of the most best-sellings when it was first published in Britain and America."Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." This novel sets off suspense for readers at the beginning. What had actually happened in Manderley? How is the relationship with Rebecca?Adopted the first person writing techniques, this novel gives readers the image of Rebecca by what "I" saw, heard and experienced. At the beginning of this novel, the author had already told the death of Rebecca. But she haunted "me" at anytime, in any place just like a dark shadow. These all arouse the increasing curiosity of readers as they read. What’s more, the author employed Gothic writing method."I", a simple and pure girl, was put in strange Manderley, which created mysterious, nervous and ghostly atmosphere. On the one hand, the author provided "me" as backdrop. On the other hand, the illusory shadow of Rebecca helped "me" grow from an innocent girl into a mature and confident woman, and finally lived happily with Maxim.From the beginning to the end, rhetoric, as one of the most essential language amplifiers, is frequently used in this novel. Not only does it enhance the aesthetic perception, but also it evokes sympathetic response between readers and author. For one thing, the novel is clouded with greatly appalling suspense, for another, it is flooded with strong romantic color. Just the distinctive writing method makes Rebecca play an essential position in literature world.Taking Rebecca as research material, the author classifies the figures of speech into three kinds:semantic rhetoric, phonetic rhetoric and syntactic rhetoric. By analyzing six semantic figures of speech, two phonetic figures of speech and one syntactical figures of speech, the author attempts to explore the persuasive effects and language charm in this novel.There are six chapters in this thesis.Chapter one is the introductory part. It gives a brief introductory to the writer, main content of the novel, purpose and significance along with the overall structure of this thesis. Rebecca is the masterpiece of Daphne Du Maurier (1970-1989). The novel was first published in1938and became an English and American bestseller soon. However, little attention is paid to Du Maurier and her Rebecca. The thesis is to study the rhetorical features that is frequently used in the novel in order to enrich and deepen the research.Chapter two is the literature review, which mainly makes a basic introduction about classical rhetoric, middle-age rhetoric, Renaissance rhetoric, neo-classical rhetoric and contemporary rhetoric.Chapter three is the theoretical framework of this thesis. The most essential part of Aristotle’s rhetoric is persuasion which includes three appeals, that is, ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos refers to making audiences believe what speakers said. Pathos is to arouse sympathy between speakers and audiences. Logos means convincing people by reason. According to Aristotle, in order to logically persuade audiences, it is of big necessity to use figures of speech to improve language effects. The theory has a certain guiding effect on the research.Chapter four will mainly introduce the research methodology adopted in the thesis, including research questions, research design and data collection.Chapter five is the main body of the thesis. The author studies the frequently used figures of speech from the perspective of Aristotle’s rhetorical theory. The rhetorical devices are divided into three categories:semantic rhetoric, such as simile, metaphor, personification, hendiadys, transferred epithet, syllepsis and so on, phonetic devices, such as alliteration and onomatopoeia, syntactical devices, such as parallelism. Then the persuasive effect will be analyzed through the research of rhetorical devices. The last chapter will make a conclusion.Through the research of Rebecca, the author makes the following conclusions: First, Rhetoric written by Aristotle is one of the most effective ways to study the novel. Second, as one of the language modifications, rhetoric can endow language with aesthetic sensibility, making language more attractive and colorful. Third, the utilization of rhetoric devices can make the aim of persuasion easier and finally the emotional sympathy can be actualized.This thesis endeavors to analyze and research the rhetoric in Rebecca from the perspective of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, hoping to provide some aids for further studies.