In both extracts hyphens are used, in one more than the other, to create pauses and after thoughts. ‘Melanie felt a drop or two of moisture on her face – rain, maybe,’ and ‘I was going to accept it – but I durst not – I have nothing’ are both examples, one from each extract that both show how the hyphen makes the reader take a short pause before carrying one with reading and show how the words after the hyphen are after thoughts to what they had previously said. This method of showing how the protagonist thinks is also used in Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier when the narrator is describing what she is doing - ‘We smile, we choose our lunch, we speak of this and that, but - I say to myself-I am not she who left him five minutes ago.’ The repetition within the quotation also gives the impression that she is taking everything one step at a time as if she thinks it might overwhelm her. Though the hyphens are mostly used to show after thoughts by creating pauses, in Extract B they are also used seemingly in place of other punctuation such as commas, full-stops and speech marks. ‘-If I do, said I, I shall perish-‘ is an example of when the hyphens replace speech marks and ‘I had given her – She said’ is an example of when it replaces a full stop. The reader knows that it replaces a full stop because the word after it ‘She’ begins with a capital letter.
The length of the sentences also gives a crucial element to the way that the writing is understood. Both extracts have their mix of long and short sentences and while extract A has more of a mix, extract B consists almost entirely of long sentences broken up by speech, hyphens, commas and semi-colons. Short sentences such as ‘she could not move or speak. She waited in an agony of apprehension’ create a tension in the atmosphere surrounding an event that should be happy; this is also shown in Rebecca with the quotation of ‘They were not afraid’ which also shows someone not being afraid as a thing which creates tension for the protagonist when it should be a good thing. The longer sentences are also used in a way to show negativity, in extract A, whereas in extract B they are used so that they can involve as much description as possible. In extract A a long sentence such as ‘she choked and struggled, beating her fists against him, convulsed with horror at this sensual and intimate connection, this rude encroachment on her physical privacy, this humiliation’ makes the time in which something negative, to the protagonist, is happening, seem longer. It gives the moment a sense of time and shows that Melanie did not manage to just suddenly break it off but that it took time just like the length of the sentence takes time to read. This links in with a sentence from Jane Eyre - ‘Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel …and it is narrow-minded … to say that they ought to confine themselves … to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.’ The amount of ellipses added in to make sure that the quotation is not too long shows how long the actual sentence is, for there is no full-stop between the words ‘women are supposed’ and ‘embroidering bags’. This links because the sentence explains how women are treated and are expected to behave whether they feel they should be that way or not – the whole sentence is negative and the lengthiness of it gives it a very angry feeling as if someone is ranting to someone else.
Whereas The Miller’s Tale links with extract B with a lengthy sentence because they use them in a different way – to include as much detail as possible instead of constantly splitting it up into smaller sentences. ‘The foot of the bed was within a yard … and how it happened I can give no account … but so it did happen, we both sat down.’ This sentence could easily have been spilt into three different ones possibly making it easier to read; but all the description was kept within one sentence making it very detailed such as a line from The Miller’s Tale, ‘Who rubbeth now, who froteth now his lippes/ With dust, with sond, with straw, with clooth, with/ chippes,/ But Absolon, that seith ful ofte, ‘Allas!’
The last device that both extracts use is rhetorical questions and both are used within the narration though they may not always be in the narration in other texts. ‘What was the need?’ and ‘or how his spirit stands answerable to the father of spirits, but for his conduct under them?’ are both questions spoken in the narration by the protagonists in the extracts. These link with both Rebecca and The Miller’s Tale though as they also use rhetorical questions; ‘Will you look into my eyes and tell me that you love me now?’ and ‘what have I do?’ however, are both spoken rhetorical questions. All four of these rhetorical questions also show how they are usually used when the speaker is in a negative situation for example Maxim de Winter has just confessed to his new wife that he killed Rebecca and Absolon has just kissed Alyson’s bottom.
The two extracts, though written two centuries apart, have many structural similarities that add to the way the reader reads and interprets the writing but though they have similarities within these they also have differences to show each author’s unique style of writing.
