A Cognitive Stylistic Analysis of Characterization in Golding’s Lord of the Flies

Abstract

Characterization is commonly known in stylistics to be the cognitive process in the readers' minds when comprehending a fictional character in a literary work .In one approach, it is assumed that characters are the outcome of the interaction between the words in the text on the one hand and the contents of our heads on the other. This paper is an attempt to understand how characterization is achieved by applying Culpeper’s (2001) model which seems to be to present a method of analysis that is more objective and more systematic in analyzing characters. Two characters are selected for discussion; Ralph and Jack from Golding’s (1954) Lord of the Flies. The novel talks about the corruption of human beings and the capacity of evil they have. The results show that Ralph and Jack are antithetical in many aspects; Ralph represents the rational civilized boy whereas Jack represents the savage brutal boy.

Keywords

• Characterization,
• Cognitive Stylistics
• Culpeper (2001)
• Jack, Ralph