Dickens's Hyperbolic Style Revisited: Verbs That Describe Sounds Made by Animals Used to Report the Words of Male Villains

Abstract

This article analyzes Charles Dickens’s use of those speech verbs that, in addition to reporting discourse, are also included to describe sounds made by animals. The analysis demonstrates that the animal component is a dimension of variation in Dickens’s use of speech verbs. As will be shown, these verbs are systematically used to report the interventions of male villains. The arguments show the direct relationship between villainy and the use of speech verbs that refer to animal sounds and will reveal a stylistic device that has, to date, gone unnoticed in critical appreciations of Dickens’s techniques of characterization, one of the fictional skills for which he is best known.

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