The Lack of Communication in Grace Paley’s “Mother”: A Stylistic Analysis
The Lack of Communication in Grace Paley’s “Mother”: A Stylistic Analysis

Summary/Abstract: Stylistics is a study on what effect is created on the hearer or on the reader via a specific use of language; therefore, a stylistic analysis of an everyday conversation or a literary work, such as a poem, a play, a short story and/or a novel aims at delineating the message conveyed or themes intimated. In this sense, stylistic analysis of a text illustrates what is meant by means of that specific use of language, and it makes a literary work more understandable for the reader as it discloses its implicit themes that are not stated directly in a poet’s or writer’s expressions and her/his use of language. Stream-of-consciousness technique, used mostly in 20th century works, is used in Grace Paley’s short story entitled “Mother”. The story is about the narrator’s recollections of her mother and her family conveyed through the stream-of-consciousness technique. Through a stylistic analysis, which involves an analysis of discourse situation, point of view, average sentence length, lexis, grammar, figures of speech, and speech presentation, this study aims to unveil the implications of the feelings of the mother as well as the daughter and familial distance, all of which contribute to the major theme of lack of communication in the family as represented in the story.

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