Семенко І.В.

Буковинський державний медичний університет, Україна

The place and role of idiomatic units in S. Maugham's novel "Theatre"

 

To well known English writer Somerset Maugham belong many stories, dramatic and comic plays and a number of novels many of which became world masterpieces.

Maugham's works are noted by deep penetration into people's fates, in his best plays and novels he raised to serious talks about life. Being deeply interested in different kinds of arts he was especially fond of theatre to which he wrote a number of plays staged in England, Germany and France. One of the best novels dedicated to arts is the novel "Theatre" that was screened in Russia.

This novel is distinguished due to its rich vocabulary and various stylistic devices as well as a great number of idiomatic units the results of the analysis of which are presented in this article.

The vocabulary of idiomatic units:

1.      Colloquial lexis which is used:

·        by Julia's maid Evie who used to blurt out (базікати) rather unexpectedly and liked to pop in and out (швендяти туди сюди);

·        in the speech of young people: Julia's son Roger and his friends saying about a nice girl "she is a sport", and about nice boys ''he is a brick'';

·        Julia uses colloquial words and slang when she is in a gloomy mood, displeased or annoyed:

a)     then she was as blue as a devil;

b) she didn't care a straw on gossips.

2.     Love phraseology:

·        to fall in love;

·        to be absolutely sick with love;

·        to take an enormous fancy to smb.;

·        to be head over ears in love;

·        to fall out of love.

The above mentioned emotions concern the main personage of the novel, Julia Lambert who in ten years of marriage with Michael fell out of love.

3.     Zoozemy in phraseology:

·        Julia was as clever as a bag of monkeys – the monkey is considered to be quick – witted; Julia had so much wit that it might be enough for many monkeys.

·        Julia had a lot of elephants in her mouth – she was very overcharged with smth.: the elephant can do very difficult work carrying heavy things at a long distance, and if a weak person, in particular, a woman works as much as many elephants, it certainly speaks for itself;

·        Julia worked as hard as a horse to become a perfect actress;

·        Other idiomatic units give examples with components cow, cat, kitten, mouse, pea-cock and crow.

4.     Temporal vocabulary:

The most interesting are the cases where the shortest time is revealed:

·        before one can make a wink;

·        in a blink, in a flash;

·        in half a minute;

·        in a fraction of a second;

·        in no time.

5.     Syntactic functions of idiomatic units:

a) Predicative function:

·        to have one's back on (smb., smth.) – not to care, to ignore;

·        to run across smb. (smth.) – to meet smb., suddenly, to find smth. by chance.

b)    Attributive function:

·        as quick as silver;

·        as old as mountains, hills;

·        as sweet as honey;

·        as busy as a bee;

·        as melancholy as a cat;

·        as merry as a cricket. (Four last concern Julia)

c)     Adverbial function:

·        neither here nor there;

·        in the nick of time – punctually. (Julia who knew the secret of timing always appeared in the nick of time);

·        to be in a hole – to have great problems: (Before Tom got acquainted with Julia he was in a hole being head over ears in debt);

Also there are interesting examples of impersonal phraseological sentences:

·        one's got to know (remember) one's roots – слід знати, пам'ятати своє коріння;

·        one should know where one stands – one should remember;

·        it's no use crying over spilt milk – втративши голову, за волоссям не плачуть.

6. Etymology:

A number of idiomatic units represent interesting etymology:

·        to be at loose end – to be not sure, to be ill at ease : as for example in this case when the end of the rope is weak, badly fixed;

·        One's got to know the ropes – one should be sure.

These synonymic idiomatic expressions might appear either among rock- climbers or in the circus among acrobats, equilibrists, where the strength of the ropes is very important.

Other etymological examples are:

·        to turn smth. to good account– to make use of banks to increase accounts;

·        to turn smb. bag and baggage – to get rid of smb.: to turn smb. out together with one's bags, luggage;

·        to beat about the bush: this idiomatic expression might appear at hunting: wild geese used to sleep hiding in the bushes and early in the morning hunters used to beat the bushes with sticks going round the bushes in order to get geese out, but all the attempts were useless when there were no geese there and thus the time was lost. At present if one does not say at once about something important and begins with going round about one looses not only his time but his collocutor also looses his time.

7. Stylistic devices:

·        Simile

a)    Tom was as poor as a church mouse;

b)    Julia's acting made the rest of actors look like a piece of cheese – against her background they looked but a grey mass;

c)     Being a teenager Julia's son Roger was as stubborn as an ass.

8. Synonyms:

·        { to cry with one eye and laugh with the other (Julia could do so) – to carry fire in one hand and water in other- бути двуликим;

·        {to be a horse of another colour – to be another pair of shoes – це зовсім інша справа.

·        {to be head over ears in love with- to be madly in love with – to be absolutely sick with love: these synonyms reveal Julia's great love.

The idea of indifference is shown by such synonyms:

·        never mind it;

·        to turn one's back (face) from;

·        not to care a pin (a straw). Such was Julia's and Michael's reaction on different gossips.

Synonyms to be in a hole, to be in a box reveal the idea of hardships, hard times, dig problems which are often experienced by young actors and other specialists at the beginning of their career.

·        "To cook a hare before catching him", corresponds "to count one's chickens before they are hatched"; both synonyms mean "to do useless things"; the second synonym corresponds to Ukrainian proverb "Курчат рахують восени".

·        {to make bricks without straw – to make omelet without eggs - display doomed ideas (attempts) of making something without needed material.

9. Metaphors:

·        to be hand and glove with one another – to be inseparable like Tom and Roger;

·        to be mantled together (like Michael's parent);

·        to roll in money – to swim in money- to have a lot of money (speaking about Dolly);

·        to stew in one's own juice – to do everything without any help (It was very difficult for Michael to start his to start his business without any help till Dolly sponsored him.)

10.Comparative analysis of some English and Ukrainian idiomatic units

A number of idiomatic units in English and Ukrainian languages express the same idea; have the same meaning and the same images to express them:

·        to be head over ears in love = бути по вуха закоханим;

·        to be one's own master = бути господарем самому собі;

·        there is no smoke without a fire = нема диму без вогню;

·        there is no rose without thorn = нема троянди без колючок;

·        to be frightened to death = бути переляканим до смерті.

These examples show the identity of meanings and the images expressing them in English and Ukrainian. In other words we see similarity, identity of the given above idiomatic units. But most examples with identical meanings display difference (sometimes striking) of images used to express the meanings:

·        It's no good crying over spilt milk ≠ втративши голову, над волоссям не плачуть;

·        to be born with a silver spoon in one's mouth ≠ народитися в сорочці (зі срібною ложкою у роті);

·        to get out of bed on the wrong side ≠ вставати з лівої ноги (в поганому гуморі, настрої);

·        he will never set the Thames on fire ≠ він пороху не вигадає;

·        to find a mare's nest ≠ попасти пальцем в небо;

·        to make a mountain out of molehill – робити з мухи слона;

·        to use a steam- hammer to crack nuts – користуватись паровим молотом для дрібнення горіхів;

·        since Adam was a boy – за царя Гороха, дуже давно;

·        to be hand and glove – бути не розлий вода (про друзів).

Summery

This article presents the results of analyzed idiomatic units in Somerset Maugham's novel ''Theatre''.

1.     The main kinds of idiomatic units turned to be predicative, attributive, adverbial and impersonal.

2.     Lexico-stylistic analysis showed that the most effective means in revealing the main idea of the novel are: synonyms, simile, repetitions and metaphors.

3.     The most interesting examples of etymology gave been explained by comparative analysis of English and Ukrainian idiomatic units with the same meaning (idea) revealed different degrees of similarity or difference caused by different mentality of English speaking and Ukrainian speaking people.

 

Література:

1. Maugham W.S. Theatre. – М .: Менеджер , 2002. – 304 с .

2. Англо-українсько-російський cловник усталених виразів / За ред. А.М. Медвєвєва.- К: "Українська енциклопедія" імені М.П. Бажана, 1992.- 493с.

3. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English / Edited by Sally Wehmeir. – Oxford University Press, 2000. – 956 p.

4. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English / Pearson Education Limited, 2001. – 1244 p.