Personification – is the presentation of unanimated objects, phenomena or ideas as if they were human beings. It makes the narration more emphatic: ‘…the words going slowly to my head’.
Epithet is a descriptive word or phrase that has become a fixed formula. It has various shades of meaning when applied to real or fictitious people, divinities, objects and biological nomenclature. It also means a derogatory word or phrase used to insult someone. In the given fragment of the text we can find three groups of epithets. There are simple epithets which just characterize the objects and subjects: ‘white frock’; ‘shady hat’; ‘long scissors’; ‘old lady’; ‘long candles’; ‘great cool rooms’; ‘the tangerine was very sour’; ‘I had a sharp, bitter taste’. We can see a number of estimated epithets which give an evaluation of the subjects and objects: ‘she’s simply charming’; ‘for being so good’; ‘you look so lovely’; ‘how happy you have made him’. And there are only two examples of the expressive and figurative epithet: ‘poor darling’; ‘violent love’.
Antonomasia is a stylistic device: the substitution of any epithet or phrase for a proper name; the opposite substitution of a proper name for some generic term is also sometimes called antonomasia. The surname of the main hero of the novel is de Winter. Probably, Du Maurier wanted that such surname represented Maxim as cold, secluded, prickly person. But even heart of Mr de Winter can melt, warming with love. By the way, this surname suits his ex-wife Rebecca (somewhere in the text of the novel is told, that she was perfect by her ice beauty), and it contradicts with the essence of his unnamed new wife.
Synonymia is the use of several synonyms together to amplify or explain a given subject or term. It is a kind of repetition that adds emotional force or intellectual clarity. Synonymia often occurs in parallel fashion. The novel REBECCA contains interesting cases of synonymia using. As it’s already mentioned the main heroine is not named and she is often described by pronouns. So pronouns can be enlisted in a synonymic line of the words, which are described the narrator. From the lexis of the given fragment we can separate such synonyms: I, you, wife, Mrs, she, madam, bride. All offered synonyms are used by the author to replace a name of the narrator, to keep an intrigue, and at the same time to show, that the main heroine of the novel can remain unnamed all the time. Sometimes Daphne names the heroine on a surname de Winter, but it is not enlisted in a synonymic line, because the author makes it to show, that the girl is married now and in many ways she depends on her husband, and on the other hand - to show that from now on she will be compared with Maxim’s ex-wife.
Some stylistic devices of semasiology are used to create interesting turns of a plot. For example, during all the fragment Du Maurier forces a situation, creates an atmosphere of suspense – is a deliberate postponing of the completion of the main sort until the end of the utterance. It produces psychological effect, conveys the stays of expectation, uncertainty. The author interrupts the narration to describe naive dreams of the heroine. Such lyrical deviation forces the reader to expect impatiently, how the main turn of a plot will be finished.
Also the given part of the text demonstrate the element of irony, mockery. For example, when the romantic ideas of the heroine were rudely interrupted by the Maxim’s statement about the tangerine. This the moment is very symbolical. It is possible to say, that the life of the narrator will be not as sweet as she dreamt, but as bitter, as that tangerine.
In the analyzable part of the novel the atmosphere of suspense and some irony elements were described with a help of anticlimax – is an abrupt declension (either deliberate or unintended) on the part of a writer from the dignity of idea which he appeared to be aiming at. Anticlimax deforms the narration in the highest point by the final notion as something opposite to what was expected. In REBECCA at that moment, when the dreams absorbed the narrator, with the help of this device the idyll of romanticism was destroyed by absolutely not romantic utterance about sour fruit.
Stylistic lexicology. In the given fragment of REBECCA we can find two examples of using phraseological units: ‘You would feel then you were getting your money's worth’ (it means to get something worth the price that you paid); ‘My mind ran riot then…’ (if your imagination, emotions, thoughts etc run riot, you cannot or do not control them). The stylistic function of phraseological units is not nominating of any new phenomena, they give a concrete definition and figuratively emotional evaluation of the subjects, phenomena, actions.