Question-in- the- Narrative

Break-in-the-Narrative (Aposiopesis)

Aposiopesis is a device which dictionaries define as "A stop­ping short for rhetorical effect."

In the written variety, a break in the narrative is always a stylistic device used for some stylistic effect. In writing the context suggests the adequate intonation, that is the only key to decoding the aposiopesis.

"If you continue your intemperate way of living, in six months' time..."

"You just come home or I'll..." the implication is a threat, without a context the implication can only be vague. But when one knows that the words were said by an angry father to his son over the telephone the im­plication becomes apparent.

Aposiopesis is a stylistic syntactical device conveys to the reader a very strong upsurge of emotions. The idea is that the speaker cannot proceed his feelings depriving him of the ability to express himself in terms of language.

Break-in-the-narrative has a strong degree of predictability, which is ensured by the structure of the sentence. As a stylistic device it is used in complex sentences, particular in conditional sentences, the if-clause being given in full and the second part only implied.

Aposiopesis may be noted in different syntactical structures.

Break-in-the-narrative is a device which offers a number of variants in deciphering the implication and is highly predictable. What is implied sometimes outweighs what is expressed. In other stylistic devices the degree of implication is not so high as in break-in-the narrative. A sudden break in the narrative will inevitably focus the attention on what is left unsaid. The interrelation between what is given and what is new becomes more significant, inasmuch as the given is what is said and the new—what is left unsaid. There is a phrase in colloquial English which has become very familiar:

"Good intentions but—"

The implication here is that nothing has come of what it was planned to accomplish.

Aposiopesis is a stylistic device in which the role of the intonation implied cannot be over-estimated. It is the intonation only that will decode the communicative significance of the utterance.

Questions are asked by one person and expected to be answered by another. This is main, and the most characteristic property of the question, it exists as a syntactical unit of language to bear this partic­ular function in communication. Questions belong to the spoken language and presuppose the presence of an interlocutor, that is they are encountered in dialogue. The questioner is presumed not to know the answer.

Question-in-the-narrative changes the real nature of a question and turns it into a stylistic device. A question in the narrative is asked and answered by one and the same person, usually the author.

It becomes akin to a parenthetical statement with strong emotional implications.

1) "For what is left the poet here?

For Greeks a blush — for Greece a tear."

2) "And starting, she awoke, and what to view?

Oh, Powers of Heaven. What dark eye meets she there? 'Tis—'tis her father's—fix'd upon the pair."

The questions asked do not contain statements. But being answered by one who knows the answer, they assume a semi-exclamatory nature, as in 'what to view?'

Sometimes question-in-the-narrative gives the impression of an inti­mate talk between the writer and the reader.

"Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise"? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years."

Question-in-the-narrative may also remain unanswered.

"How long must it go on? How long must we suffer? Where is the end? What is the end?

"The specific nature of interrogative sentences, which are transitional stages from what we know to what we do not yet know, is reflected in the interconnection between the question and the answer. The interrogative sentence is connected with the answer-sentence far more closely than the inference is con­nected with two interrelated pronouncements, because each of the two pronouncements has its own significance; whereas the significance of the interrogative sentence is only in the process of seeking the answer." (P. S. Popov)

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