Language means of creating the image of “superfluous man” in William Saroyan’s short story “The Mouse”

Gasparyan Gayane R.

Doctor of Philology, Professor,

Rector of Yerevan Brusov State Linguistic University

E-mail: gasparyan.gayane@yandex.ru   

The article aims at the analysis of language means which create the image of “superfluous man” in William Saroyan’s short story “The Mouse”. The “superfluous man” is among the prior images in William Saroyan’s short fiction. Lonely and poor people considered by the author as the greatest weakness of American society are very much in need for love and sympathy. The language means that are used by the author to describe the situation where a lonely, poor man cannot find his personal position perform double function simultaneously: the function of factual information, describing the characters in certain situation, and the function of conceptual information, revealing the authors approach towards the situation itself. Both types of information contain a great deal of author’s subjective evaluative modality, as the language means which create the American society characterizing context bear a large portion of modal meaning that further develop the concepts of duality, fate and providence.

Keywords: “superfluous man”, factual information, conceptual information, subjective evaluative modality, modal meaning, concept.

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