LINGUISTIC STYLISTIC PECULIARITIES OF THE PLAY “BETRAYAL” BY HAROLD PINTER

Abstract

The article deals with detailed linguistic stylistic analysis of one of Harold Pinter’s “memory plays” Betrayal. The object of our investigation is the text of the play and the subject is its linguistic stylistic peculiarities. This literary work stands out from the rest of the plays due to its autobiographical element – the prototypes of main characters of Betrayal are Pinter himself, his lover Joan Bakewell and her husband. The central motif, as the title suggests, is betrayal which incorporates two types of this phenomenon – a betrayal of a spouse and a betrayal of a friend. We have studied the motif of betrayal realized both in author’s remark and characters’ dialogue at all language levels. It is noticeable that incomplete, elliptical sentences together with aposiopesis prevail – their purpose is to reflect emotional tension presented in characters’ utterances. Among other dominant figures of speech are repetition of different type (alliteration, morphological and lexical repetition, anaphora, epiphora and parallel construction), semantic associative group of words denoting human relationship and marriage, words denoting emotions (mostly adjectives), numerous intensifiers, words with strong emotional connotations and verbal irony. Also, author’s remarks “pause” and “silence”, performing various functions, are conspicuous.