Style in fiction: A Stylistic Analysis of Historical Novel A Season for Martyrs ByBina Shah

Abstract

Abstract: Stylistics is a modern critical approach that analyses and evaluates a piece of work with the tools, techniques and methods used in linguistics. The present study is a stylistics analysis of The Season for Martyrs (2014), a novel written by Bina Shah, a renowned Pakistani contemporary writer who has made a significant contribution in modern Pakistani English Literature. The selected novel shifts between past and present, depicting history, culture and politics in Sindh through a variety of characters. The main theme of the novel is love for motherland. Those who love their motherland and its people and are ready to sacrifice their lives are martyrs. The stylistics analysis has been carried out with the application of Leech and Short model (2007). It consists of four extensive categories i.e. Lexical categories, Grammatical Categories, Figures of Speech and Cohesion and Context. The study reveals that the apt usage of vocabulary along with figures of speech, local and foreign words and narrative style used by the novelist performs a key function in contributing towards the plot of the fiction. Shah has triumphantly dealt with the nationalistic tone through her extraordinary grip over the selection of vocabulary and patterns which otherwise could have been a challenging task to cope with.