Chapter One INTRODUCTION
The thesis is to make a pragmatic analysis of Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude bytaking typical examples of conversations from the play under the main theories ofpragmatics---Cooperative Principle (CP) and Politeness Principle (PP). The motivation ofcharacters and their relationships are clearly demonstrated by violating the maxims of CPand maintaining PP so that the plot development will be more clearly understood and thetheme better interpreted. Meanwhile, the feasibility of analyzing drama texts by usingpragmatics is intended to be justified.
1.1 Purpose and Significance of the Study
As to Strange Interlude, one point stands out as its character’s complicated thoughtand emotions, and relationships revealed by vivid depicts of conversations. It is held thatnot only the personalities of characters could be characterized by conversations, but therelationships between Nina and the five men surrounding her: father Professor Leeds,first and true lover Gordon Shaw, husband Sam Evans, second lover Ned Darrell, andwooer Charlie Marsden will be demonstrated. The true attitudes and emotions towardsthe surrounding people in each one’s inner heart could be objectively deduced with thehelp of pragmatics. Besides, its attractive, exciting plot develops with the protagonistNina’s physical and psychological changes in all her life. Pragmatics is to provide acloser insight into the author’s arrangement of the plot by analyzing the conversationalimplicature. What is more, its serious, universal and practically significant theme will bebetter interpreted with this objective and scientific linguistic analysis tool. The uniquecharacters, plot and theme in Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude provide a platform fortesting the feasibility of analyzing dram texts with pragmatics.
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1.2 Research Methodology
This thesis proposes to conduct a qualitative analysis. Some typical conversationswill be selected from Strange Interlude as examples. Some samples from StrangeInterlude serve as the case and the Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle arecombined as the guideline; this thesis is chiefly concerned with conversationalimplicature generated by maintaining Politeness Principle at the cost of floutingCooperative Principle. Based on this method, two research questions are proposed asfollows:(1) How does the violation of Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle helpreaders understand the characters’ personality and relationship in Strange Interlude?(2) How does the violation of Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle providea way for readers to deduce the development of drama plot in Strange Interlude?
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Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW
As a prolific writer, Eugene O’Neill’s plays had won him great reputation. Thepublication of Strange Interlude also caused huge social response, including manyscholars’ discussion, research and criticism. Apart from the strange plot, the language ofthis play has also become one outstanding feature. The reason why its language form isworth studying is that the dialogues, characters’ lines, differ from their internalmonologue. This chapter firstly presents some information pertaining to Eugene O’Neilland Strange Interlude, then introduces the pragmatic approach, including its origin,development, limitations. What needs more attention is its application when used in theresearch of different plays at home and abroad. Finally, readers have a review of researchon Strange Interlude from different angles.
2.1 Eugene O’Neill and Strange Interlude
Eugene O’Neill, honored as “The Father of Modern American Drama”, devoted toAmerican drama with many excellent works. His personal life experience as well as hisplays mirrors the social ideology in his time. He posts profound philosophic theoriesthrough plays, and displays different walks of life for readers; what’s more, he creativelymelts and adopts various composition approaches of play. Undoubtedly, all these featuresare realized by his language form, and all these make Eugene O’Neill a distinguishableplaywright in the history of American theater.Eugene O’Neill began his play-writing in 1914 after he enters Baker’s English 47class at Harvard to obtain a professional training. He published Thirst and other one-actplay in the year of 1914, followed by Bound East for Cardiff and Before Breakfast in1916; Fog, The Sniper, In the Zone, The Long Voyage Home and Ile in 1917; The Rope,Where the Cross is Made and The Moon of the Caribbean in 1918; and The Dreamy Kidin 1919, with the next constant writing, O’Neill has composed more than fifty plays allhis life, four of which has won him four Pulitzer Prizes, namely In 1936 O’Neill wasawarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. O’Neill’ marries three times. His last lifeconfronts pains caused by disease. On November 27 th, 1953, he died at the HotelShelton in Boston. Eugene O’Neill’s life is full of tragic and creative colors, the artisticheritage he has left to us is glowing and worthwhile our reading, studying and thinking.Strange Interlude is a long gestation play which O’Neill went through with painfulefforts. It is the first work of O’Neill’s full maturity. O’Neill pours more of hisdeveloping self than he has earlier been able to do. Although Strange Interlude makesO’Neill’s status as a prominent playwright unshakable, also has been banned on stage inBoston because of its description of adultery and abortion. However, it can not cloud theradiance of this play. With some technical devices such as stream of consciousness andsoliloquy, Eugene O’Neill successfully makes an impressionistic portrayal of characters,their inner world and conflict.
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2.2 Research on Strange Interlude
The Freudian psychoanalysis method such as personality structure or instinct ofsurvival and death has been used to reveal protagonist’s behavior and inner world.Margaret holds that it develops the Freudian themes and the subconscious is really theconcentration of the action. (Margaret, 1984: 667) James considers that Strange Interludeembodies the Freudian tradition of Modem Western literature due to its psychoanalyticalperspective. (James, 1982:148) Some critics hold that it is Schopenhauer's psychologyrather than Freud's psychology that dominates people's thought and action in the play.Some other critics interpret the play in the terms of feminism. Judith thinks, “Theplaywright's conception of women is rooted in a traditional equation of positions ratherthan as objects of masculine desire"(Judith, 2000: 164) Based on Bakhtin's DialogueTheory, Kurt has observed, the play's two levels of dialogue (of speech and of thoughts)strive to achieve the total emotional expression of melodrama. Brenda analyzes thesymbolism in Strange Interlude: Nina Leeds is a figuration of the United States in thetwentieth century. James considers that Strange Interlude is within the Freudian traditionof Modem Western literature due to its psychoanalytical perspective. (James, 1982: 148)
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Chapter Three THEORECTICAL FOUNDATION......11
3.1 Gricean Theory of Conversational Implicature..... 11
3.2 Politeness Principle....... 14
Chapter Four ANALYSIS OF STRANGE INTERLUDE.......... 18
4.1 Violation of the Cooperative Principle..... 18
4.1.2 Violating the Maxim of Quantity..........23
4.1.3 Violating the Maxim of Relevance........27
4.1.4 Violating the Maxim of Manner.....30
4.2 Violation of the Politeness Strategies........34
Chapter Five CONCLUSION......40
5.1 Major findings........40
5.2 Limitations.......41
Chapter Four ANALYSIS OF STRANGE INTERLUDE
That one feature of Strange Interlude stands out is the complicated relationshipbetween characters. It is acknowledged that pragmatics help study the intended meaningof addressors, which provides an angle to deduce their behavioral motive and the socialdistance among the addressors. This chapter will analyze some conversations from theperspective of CP and PP, and probe into how they work together to affect readers’appreciation of stylistic effect of the drama, including how the characterization, themeconstruction and plot development are revealed by dramatic texts.
4.1 Violation of the Cooperative Principle
People violate this maxim by employing traditional figures of speech, such as irony,metaphor, overstatement and understatement and so on. Here comes an example: “I thinkhe was married and had a lioness at home.” This is a violation of quality maxim. Insteadof directly narrating the man’s marriage life, the speaker choose “lioness” to substitutethe man’s wife. It is a metaphor. Actually, the speaker wants the hearer to understand hisimplicature: the wife dominants the husband and the man is in an obedient position in thefamily. While in Strange Interlude, understatement and overstatement are common to see.
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CONCLUSION
Drama is kind of dialogue with a multi-input form. Drama dialogue is interactionbetween fictional characters, which is mediated and controlled by playwrights. Studyingdramatic dialogue as interaction involves various frameworks of analysis, which includesturn taking, speech act theory, and conversational implicature and so on. This thesischooses cooperative principle, conversational implicature and politeness principle as thetheoretical framework to interpret Strange Interlude. Many examples from StrangeInterlude are researched from the prospective of Grice’s CP, Leech and Brown’s PP andLevinson’s PP. It demonstrates how the conversational implicature is generated, whycharacters use indirect utterances in .consideration of politeness. It involves an interactionbetween CP and PP in producing conversational implicature and reaching communicationgoal. Here come the findings of this thesis:Firstly, the violation of maxims and politeness strategies help readers have a newinsight into characterization, character relationship and plot development. EugeneO’Neill in his Strange Interlude has unfolded vivid characters for readers; each of themcan be identified by his own linguistic feature. Their exchanges have contributed a lot tocharacterization and plot development. For example, Nina’s rebellious against authorityand patriarchy. In most cases, she likes taking active voice and performing FTA nomatter when she talks with her father or Evans or Marsden or Darrell, which shows herweakness at the same time---she’s selfish and greedy for love and freedom. On thecontrary, Evans, her husband is a timid and cautious man when dealing with people. Heseldom damages the PP. We can also find his lack of masculinity, which is not doomedto win Nina’s love.
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