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Utilization of Key Images toward Enhancing Text

Informativeness

Mariana Sargsyan
Yerevan State University

A
s is generally acknowledged one of the basic goals of any text is to convey infor-

mation. Every text, including that of the verbal art, contains a certain amount of

information, the overall amount of which  makes the latter an informatively saturated unit

of speech.  From the pragmatic perspective most valuable is considered to be the infor-

mation which is fresh and imparts the reader new knowledge on a certain problem.

Informativeness of the text is measured by the volume of the new content found in the

main theme of the text, author’s strategy, imagery, etc. (Valgina 2003).

A vast number of research material allows us to define the property of informative-

ness as an “unstable” index of text quality. It can rise and fall depending on the quality

and the volume of the new information on the one hand, and depending on the reader’s

interpretive skills on the other. Of course, as far as verbal text is concerned, all the units

of the text to this or that extent contribute to increasing the informative function of the

text. This peculiarity is conditioned by the complex nature of the literary sign and the

nature of intricate correlations underlying the content and the form of expression. If we

regard the problem of text informativeness with respect to interpretative processes, the

aforementioned statement becomes more grounded. Hence, from the point of modern

research in Contemporary Philological Hermeneutics and Text Stylistics a complete

understanding of a text can be reached when the latter is considered as one complete unit,

and the text ideology is considered in close interaction with the structure, composition

and units from all the levels of the text (phonetic, semantic, synthetic,  stylistic).

Nevertheless, adequate interpretation of a piece of literature becomes even more com-

plicated when we come to deal with ideologically and aesthetically overloaded images,

which due to the skillful intention of the writer, perform the function of kernel informa-

tive units of the text, implicitly concentrating the writer’s ideological and aesthetic strat-

egy. In fact every unit of the text may undergo various modifications imposed by the

writer’s intention, thus extending its informative potential. 

In the present paper the basic unit of consideration is the image-symbol (the literary

symbol), which, according to our assumption, can be regarded as a key informative unit

of the literary text.

The image-symbol is usually described as an image which implicitly concentrates

rather generalized notions of the objective reality. In traditional literature the  symbol is
defined as an image or sign which is endowed with the potential of concentrating vari-

ous aspects of the objective reality, functioning as a model for re-transforming and re-

modeling that very reality (Losev 1976). Literary symbols, unlike the traditional ones,

are produced as a result of the writer’s individual manner of conceptualizing the reality,

metaphysical interpretations of life and philosophical outlook. In the context of the liter-

ary text the image-symbol gets organically intermingled with all the units, contributes to

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complementing the ideological and aesthetic content of the text. From the functional-

communicative perspective, the image-symbol is an essential element of the text via which

communication is established between the writer and the reader, serving as a powerful tool

for bridging the communication gaps (Gasparyan, Sargsyan 2011:135). In contrast to

other units of the text, symbolic images are endowed with emotive-expressive-evaluative

properties. This aspect conditions the wide spectrum of associations that generate in the

reader’s imagination. The associations enhance the understanding of the global purport

of the text, reveal the writer’s vision of reality, making the reader empathize with him.

Symbols are actually introduced into the text as a tool to generate not only interest or

enjoyment, but create highly generalized meanings, entailing feelings, moods, empathies.

The latter in their turn create a special aesthetic impact on the reader, making him an

active participant of the writer’s message. Finally, symbolic images are actually those

units of the text in which the author’s message is condensed and through the interpreta-

tion of which adequate understanding of the text can be reached. 

All the above stated arguments come to show that the image-symbol, due to the

writer’s intention, comprises a huge amount of valuable information, the interpretation of

which will help the reader evaluate the text from the perspective of its qualitative proper-

ties, in this particular case, the property of informativeness.
As far as the interpretation of the image-symbol is concerned it is worth mentioning

that symbolic images do not easily yield to interpretation; here it can even be stated that

in terms of the number of interpretations symbolic images are polysemantic. The reader,

the level of his background, literary and cultural knowledge, the level of education and his

individual approach to the reality account for the number of interpretations. Moreover,

symbolic images may bring forth even opposite feelings and emotions not consistent with

the author’s message. Hence, only the reader of average background knowledge shared

with that of the writer will succeed in getting a full insight into the text ideology and per-

ceive the propositional meaning of the images and consequently that of the text. This will

unfailingly lead to deriving the most valuable information primarily encoded into the text

as part of the writer’s strategic intention (Gaspayan, Sargsyan 2011:135).

With a view to demonstrating the informative function of the image-symbol within

the frames of the present paper we will strongly adhere to the consideration of literary

texts, which have already been studied by us from the perspective of the ideological and

aesthetic messages encoded therein. We firmly hold the opinion that the approach based

on the availability of background knowledge will ensure a more complete and scholarly

more grounded conclusions on the informative function of the key images.

Thus, the texts under investigation cover the Modernist era - the era of formal inno-

vations and radical changes in literary thought. Modernism had the estrangement of an

individual as its main theme. The task of the Modernist is to reveal human spirituality

with all the complexities of human nature and mind (NA 2012).

Now, let us turn to the study of the following passage adduced from T.S. Eliot’s

Hollow Man, which is the best demonstration of the Modernist mission and can justifi-
ably be regarded as the epitome of symbolic expression of the Modernist ideology:

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We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when 
We whisper together
Are quite and meaningless
As wind  in dry glass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass in our dirty cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion… (NA:2543)

Eliot depicts the whole terror of the reality through the extensive use of stylistic devices

(metonymy, metaphor, similie). The carefully chosen system of images enhances text infor-

mativeness in view of imparting Eliot’s main concern for the future of the physically alive,

but emotionally paralyzed man, whose head is stuffed with nothing but straw. The hollow
man, the result of the historic era, is stuffed with useless and meaningless ideas, his voice
is dried and his whispers are associated with the sounds of rats’ running over the broken

glass. In the adduced passage let us specially highlight the word cellar modified by the epi-
thet dirty. It would be rather naïve on our part to consider the word combination merely in
its denotative meaning. If regarded in the larger context, including the context of the his-

toric era, the dirty cellar becomes completely re-interpreted, acquiring a symbolic status.
The dirty cellar is the symbolic projection of the reality, in which people, like rats, are run-
ning for life unaware of the uselessness of the whole mess they are involved in. 

In the adduced passage the atmosphere of profound pessimism, alienation and despair

become especially tangible with the repetition of the preposition without. The atmos-
phere intensifies under the influence of the epithet paralyzed, which, symbolizing man’s
helplessness, stands for the author’s disbelief in the man’s ability to change anything.    

The whole arsenal of images, connotations imposed to the latter and the chain of asso-

ciations generating in the reader’s imagination make the passage overfilled with subjec-

tively re-interpreted information about the reality.

Pessimism and estrangement are the dominant lines of presentation not only in the

poetry of the time, but in the novel, which in Modernist era was a more widely employed

genre. 

Switching to the the ethical-symbolic projection of J. Joyce’s Clay (Dubliners) we
can follow Maria, the heroine, facing the same harshness of reality. On the symbolic level

it is a story of broken dreams and vain illusions. The informativeness of the text aug-

ments when the text is considered complexly, taking into account the close interaction

between the part and the whole, in this case, the title and main text. The symbolic value

of the story and particularly that of the title is more visibly observed in the scene where

Maria, getting involved in Hallow Eve games, is led to the table blindfold to see what she

will get. Moving her hand here and there she descends her hand on one of the saucers and

feels a “soft wet substance” with her fingers, the clay, which in Celtic mythology sym-

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bolizes death. The image of death intensifies, and consequently, informatively the text

obtains quite new qualitative property at the segmental level of the phrase “soft wet sub-

stance”, by the repetition of the sounds [s] and [t]. It would not be in vain to state once

again that linguists - psychologists claim that the repetition of this or that sound may pro-

duce a certain state of mind, associating with different emotions (Chastaing 1958). The

informativeness of the passage enhances in light of the aesthetic impact of the phrase cre-

ated due to the repetition of the underlined sounds, which provokes shuddering, accom-

panied by a feeling of something unpleasant, or even ominous.

As far as the interaction between the reader and the text is concerned, informative-

ness of text units may rise or fall depending on the reader’s average level of background

knowledge shared with that of the writer. In this respect, as far as symbols in Modernism

are concerned, one will unfailingly observe the close correlations that exist between the

symbol and the myth. Myth serves for Modernists as a sound base to derive semantical-

ly and metaphorically transformed images which concentrate a lot of valuable informa-

tion on the writer’s message and intention (Sargsyan 2007).

As a true demonstration of the above-mentioned let us turn to studying the image of

the sun in D.H. Lawrence’s The Woman Who Rode Away. In this novel we come across
the traces of Indian (Aztec) Savagery of sacrifice, an almighty power, which constantly

demands sacrifice for vices committed on the Earth and as a sign of veneration.  Here we

follow a woman escaping mundanity in search of a new God and true meaning of life. 

… She is tired of the white man’s God… She would like to serve the
Gods of Chilchui. (p.345)

But what is most conspicuous in this novel, is that nature-man relations are undergo-

ing the phase of alienation. Unlike the prehistoric man, who was full of emotions, preju-

dice and utter fear towards nature, the modern man is guided by capitalistic values. 

We have lost our power over the sun, and we are trying to get him back.
But he’s wild with us, and shy like a horse that has got away. We have to
go through a lot. (p.330)

The living nature, its powerful energy and its activity are contrasted to the man’s life

full of conventionality and restrictions imposed by modern civilization. The sun is wild
with people. Nevertheless, this situation finds its solution. The woman who rode away is

sacrificed to the Gods of Chilchui. Lawrence reserves death and consummation for those

who lack vital connections.

The interpretation and understanding of explicitly occasional (original) but innerly

myth-based image of the sun enables the reader to overcome the gap of time and distance

between himself and the writer, contributing to establishing dialogical links not only with

the primary, but also with the secondary texts. In this respect, the informativeness of sym-

bolic images is complemented by the function of establishing inter-textual links between

various texts.

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Finally, with a view to presenting a more comprehensive picture of the informative

property of key Modernist imagery let us dwell upon one of the central images of

Woolfean imagery – the wave:
To begin with, it is essential to mention that Modernist novel experienced deep influ-

ences imposed by the reactionary theories introduced by Sigmund Freud and Henri

Bergson, who denied any possibility of rational cognition of the objective reality and

ardently claimed the dominance of intuition and sub-consciousness over the reason (NA

2012). Thus they endeavored to explore all the complexities of reality confining them-

selves to the study of biological instincts introducing the method of psychoanalysis. The

latter was quite successfully employed by Modernists, and soon gave birth to the psycho-

logical novel, in which the method of stream of consciousness was widely employed.

The latter opened new horizons for cognizing the human individuality and creating man’s

true psychological portrait. 

And as she began to go with Miss Pym from jar to jar, choosing, non-
sense, nonsense, she said to herself, more and more gently, as if this beau-
ty, this scent, this colour, and Miss Pym liking her, trusting her, were a
wave which she let flow over her and surmount that hatred, that monster,
surmount it all; and it lifted her up and up when — oh! a pistol shot in the
street outside! (Mrs. Dalloway, p.41)

The image of wave plays a key informative role in Woolfean imagery which repre-
sents the stream of consciousness in full, symbolizing various emotional states, associat-

ing with a wide spectrum of such feelings as carelessness, easiness, freedom, abstraction

from reality, etc. In the adduced passage the image of the wave intermingles with the
ideas of extreme emotional freedom surmounting all obstacles. The informative function

of this image enhances due to the quite extended structure of the simile, which aestheti-

cally succeeds in leading the reader into a certain emotional state and by the ideological

antithesis created by the sudden shot heard from outside, which brings Mrs. Dalloway

back  to reality.

Thus, the results of our study come to substantiate the assumption that the key images

may function as core informative units of a text. Informativeness is conditioned by the

potential of images to condense the most important message embedded therein as a part

of the writer’s strategic intention. In image-symbols information is multilayered and mul-

tifunctional, and is formed as a result of complex interactions inherent to content - form

and whole - part relations.  In the meanwhile we have defined text informativeness as an

“unstable” index of text quality, which may increase or decrease depending on such fac-

tors as volume and quality of the information, reader’s interpretative skills, availability

of background knowledge.

Basing our present research on already accumulated background knowledge on

Modernist Literature, we tried to reveal the functional - communicative characteristics of

the key symbolic images with a view to demonstrating the amount of valuable informa-

tion encoded therein. As can be concluded, image-symbols are actually those tools that

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boost text infromativeness and help the reader decode the writer’s strategic intention,

penetrate into the global purport of the work, share the writer’s empathies. It is also con-

cluded that due to the depth and origin of the information embedded in the key images it

is possible to establish dialogical links with secondary texts, which certifies the ability of

image-symbols to move out from one independent text into a network of textual rela-

tions, thus promoting intertextuality.

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