Specificity of the language means of rendering the images of characters-leaders in the parable-novel “Lord of the flies” by William Golding

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of specificity of language means of implementing the images of heroes-leaders in the framework of a work of art. The paper considers the types of leadership of M. Weber (traditional leadership, rational-legal leadership and charismatic leadership) and M.G. Berne (transformers and dealers), as well as lexemes that explicitly convey the appearance of the heroes-leaders, which implicitly reflects both the writer’s attitude to the characters and the nature of the characters themselves. The research material is the language units that is taken from the parable-novel by William Golding “Lord of the flies” and the meanings of which convey the characteristic features of the appearance of such characters as Ralph and Jack. The paper describes the color scheme (masks, clothing) from the perspective of the color psychology. It also describes non-verbal communication of children with an emphasis on the social psychology of non-verbal communication and adolescent psychology. Using a complex of emotional and evaluative vocabulary (positive and negative) when describing the appearance of Ralph and Jack indicates that the writer is trying to show his attitude to the heroes of the parable-novel “Lord of the flies”, through which the characteristic external features of political leaders (democratic and despotic) are expressed. William Golding uses the principle of duality (two principles that are either irreducible or opposite to each other) when describing Ralph and Jack. Describing Ralph, the writer uses lexemes only with a positive connotation, while when the author recreates the image of Jack, he uses only words with a negative assessment. Thus, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that the writer feels sympathy for the democratic regime, which is expressed in the image of Ralph and antipathy to totalitarianism, which is expressed in the image of Jack. In the course of this study, the authors also come to the conclusion that in the image of Jack Meridew there are typical features of another despotic leader Adolf Hitler. This conclusion can be reached due to the external description of the hero and the word forms used by him (designation of an animal with a feminine pronoun, imperatives, etc.).

Keywords

• verbal and non-verbal language
• message
• nonverbal behavior
• imperative
• sign language
• verbal and non-verbal means of communication