Manipulating the Reader: Literary Stylistics Analysis of James Joyces A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man

Abstract

This study unveils some strategies deployed by James Joyce to manipulate the reader when they experience textual patterns to decipher meaning from the text. Investigating Joyces A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, this study delves into how the reader is pragmatically positioned and cognitively (mis)directed as Joyce guides their attention and influences their judgment. Thus, the text is a tool in the hand of the reader which evokes certain responses in readers and makes them invest time and struggle in understanding the text. Joyces use of speech categories and their speech acts or their summaries are crucial determining factors for the scales and corresponding modes of discourse presentation (Semino and Short 2004,p.19). The study concludes by providing the significant and functional role of the interplay between two highly complex discourse phenomena: speech acts and discourse presentation.