The Dead: la retórica de la contradicción en un relato literario

Abstract

The present paper is a stylistic approach to the linguistic representation of the state of mind of Ilena, the protagonist of the short story “The Dead” by Joyce Carol Oates. Ilena is deeply attracted by paradox and carries out this principle in all the realms of her life. She not only experiments with the opposite effects of drugs, but also practices contradiction in her sexual and professional life. This complex fictional attitude is conveyed by a number of linguistic and narrative devices, which we have called the “rhetoric of contradiction”, consisting in the pervasive use of oxymoron and opposition.The story is also held together by a scientific frame related to Ilena’s drug-taking habits. This frame provides cohesion and coherence to the different episodes of the otherwise achronological narrative, and also foregrounds the macrostructure of paradox, since the drugs provoke “adverse reactions” in the protagonist, who constantly stands between life and death.