Language Focus: Clauses, and Direct and Indirect Speech – European Literary Traditions Two (Senior 6 Literature in English) | Ganzaa

European Literary Traditions Two

Lessons

Senior 6 · Literature in English

European Literary Traditions Two

5 lessons

Lesson 5 of 5

Language Focus: Clauses, and Direct and Indirect Speech

25 min

Two of the most famous openings in the English novel, a century apart, are built on the same grammar:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813), Chapter 1

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1925)

Each sentence holds a main clause and a that-clause (in Woolf's, the that is left out), and Woolf's reports someone's words indirectly. Clauses and reported speech are the grammar a literature student uses most, both to read writers closely and to write about them. Austen's sentence is also ironic: the "truth" turns out to be what mothers with unmarried daughters wish were true.

Definition

clause: a group of words that contains a subject and a finite verb. the centre cannot hold
main (independent) clause: a clause that can stand alone as a sentence.
subordinate (dependent) clause: a clause that cannot stand alone; it works as a noun, an adjective or an adverb inside a bigger sentence.
direct speech: the exact words a person said, inside quotation marks. Indirect (reported) speech: the words reported in the narrator's own sentence, usually after a reporting verb, without quotation marks.
free indirect speech: a narrative style that gives a character's thoughts or words in the third person and past tense, but without a reporting verb and keeping the character's own expressions.

Part 1: Clauses

Kind of subordinate clause	Job	Example from this unit (the clause is in bold)
Noun clause	Works as a subject, object or complement	It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Relative (adjective) clause, defining	Identifies which one; no commas	Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Relative clause, non-defining	Adds extra information; between commas	George Eliot, whose real name was Mary Ann Evans, wrote Middlemarch.
Adverbial clause of time	Says when	Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky
Adverbial clause of concession	Admits a contrast	Although the poem attacks books, it was printed in one.
Adverbial clause of reason	Says why	Achebe used Yeats's line because it described a world falling apart.

Two main clauses may be joined by a semicolon, as in Yeats's "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold". The semicolon, with no linking word, makes the second statement land like a second blow.

Why clauses matter in literary analysis

Delay. Austen's noun clause holds back its subject ("a single man …") and lands on "a wife", the comic point.
Accumulation. Dickens piles up clauses joined by "and" and "where" to imitate the endless factory day.
Precision in your essays. A relative clause lets you embed a quotation smoothly: Eliot's evening, which is "spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table", is numb rather than beautiful.

Part 2: Direct and indirect speech

Austen moves between the two forms within a few lines:

"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?"
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
"But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it."
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 1

Mrs Bennet gets direct speech: we hear every excited word. Her husband's reply is reported, flatly and briefly: "Mr. Bennet replied that he had not." The choice of form is itself characterisation. She talks; he can hardly be bothered.

The changes when you report

Direct	Indirect (after a past reporting verb)
present simple: "Netherfield is let."	past simple: she said Netherfield was let
present continuous: "I am leaving."	past continuous: he said he was leaving
present perfect: "Mrs Long has just been here."	past perfect: Mrs Long had just been there
past simple: "She told me."	past perfect: she had told her
will, can, may, must	would, could, might, had to (or must)
now, today, tomorrow, yesterday	then, that day, the next day, the day before
here, this, ago	there, that, before

Questions become statements in word order. Yes or no questions take if or whether: "Have you heard …?" becomes she asked whether he had heard …. Wh- questions keep the question word: "Who has taken it?" becomes she asked who had taken it.
Commands take an object and a to-infinitive: "Up! quit your books" becomes he told his friend to get up and leave his books.
No backshift is needed when the reporting verb is in the present (Achebe writes that …) or when the statement is still true: Yeats wrote that things fall apart is acceptable when you present it as a general truth.

Part 3: Free indirect speech, the novelist's tool

Form	Example
Direct	She thought, "I will buy the flowers myself. What a beautiful morning!"
Indirect	She thought that she would buy the flowers herself and that it was a beautiful morning.
Free indirect	She would buy the flowers herself. What a beautiful morning it was!

Free indirect speech drops the reporting verb but keeps the character's own feelings ("What a beautiful morning"). The narrator's voice and the character's mind blend, so the reader is inside the character without leaving the third person. Austen used it for irony; Woolf used it to follow the stream of thought.

Worked example: reporting Austen

Direct: "Do you not want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently.

Choose a reporting verb that keeps the tone: cried … impatiently becomes asked impatiently.
Yes or no question, so use whether, then statement word order: whether he did not want to know …
Backshift the embedded question: "who has taken it" becomes who had taken it.
Change pronouns from the speaker's point of view: you becomes he.

Result: His wife asked him impatiently whether he did not want to know who had taken it.

Tip

In essays, report critics and characters in the present tense. "Mrs Bennet asks whether her husband has heard the news" keeps the scene alive and avoids a tangle of backshifting. Use direct quotation for the exact words you want to analyse.

Warning

No question mark and no question word order in reported questions: not She asked whether had he heard? but She asked whether he had heard.
Don't use said with an indirect object without to: he said to her or he told her, never he said her.
A non-defining relative clause needs both commas; that cannot introduce it.

"Reported Speech in English", from the English teacher Lucy of English with Lucy. Watch the tense-change and time-expression sections, then check them against the table in this lesson.

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Practice

Identify the subordinate clause and its kind: (a) The poet who wrote "London" was also an engraver. (b) Although Prufrock longs to speak, he stays silent. (c) Woolf argued that life is not a series of gig lamps.
Join with a non-defining relative clause: Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart. He was born in 1930.
Report: "I am content to tell my simple story," said the narrator.
Report: "Has the bus reached Nyanza yet?" Mukamana asked the driver.
Report: "Close up those barren leaves," the speaker told his friend.
Turn into direct speech: Mr Bennet replied that he had not.
Rewrite as free indirect speech: Okonkwo thought, "I will not be weak like my father. Never!"
Explain, in two or three sentences, why Austen gives Mrs Bennet direct speech and Mr Bennet indirect speech.

Show answersHide answers

(a) "who wrote 'London'": defining relative clause. (b) "Although Prufrock longs to speak": adverbial clause of concession. (c) "that life is not a series of gig lamps": noun clause, object of "argued".
Chinua Achebe, who was born in 1930, wrote Things Fall Apart.
The narrator said that she was content to tell her simple story.
Mukamana asked the driver whether (or if) the bus had reached Nyanza yet.
The speaker told his friend to close up those barren leaves.
"No, I have not," replied Mr Bennet.
He would not be weak like his father. Never!
Direct speech lets us hear Mrs Bennet's excitement and chatter in her own words; reducing Mr Bennet's reply to one flat reported clause shows how little interest he shows. The contrast between the forms characterises the marriage.

1Part 1: Clauses

2Why clauses matter in literary analysis

3Part 2: Direct and indirect speech

The changes when you report

4Part 3: Free indirect speech, the novelist's tool

Part 1: Clauses

Why clauses matter in literary analysis

Part 2: Direct and indirect speech

Part 3: Free indirect speech, the novelist's tool