I have chosen the story "A Shameful Affair" by Kate Chopin.

The story is rather interesting,  fool of expressive means and stylistic devices. 

 

I like this novel very much. It is rich in different EM and SD, which help to cover the main idea. I consider “A Shameful Affair” to be one of those novels or short stories which are worth reading. Though it ends in strange way, the author persuades the reader to invent the continuation, the plot is absolutely understandable. As for its instructiveness I can say that this novel necessary for young generation. 

As for the stylistic syntax there are numerous cases of the usage of syntactic constructions which posses stylistic properties:

Emphatic constructions:

“She, Mildred Orme, who ought really…”

“Snubbed by a farmhand! a tramp, perhaps.”

“…clever young women of twenty, who are handsome”.

Detachment:

He vas a goot boy vat you can trust, dat Hans."

Rhetoric constructions:

“Are there only sight and sound to tell such things?”

 “Publish her own confusion? No!”

“What could she do? Turn and run, as a little child might? Spring into the wheat, as some frightened four-footed creature would?”

Polysyndeton:

His shoulders were broad and square and his limbs strong and clean.

Asyndeton:

It was summer time; she was idle; she was piqued, and that was the beginning of the shameful affair.

Repetition:

"If you have a father, or brother, or any one, in short, to whom you may say such things "

“Then, why ever it happened, or however it happened.”

Parallel constructions:

“He was young, and brown, of course, as the sun had made him. He had nice blue eyes. His fair hair was dishevelled. His shoulders were broad and square and his limbs strong and clean.”

“Last year he chose to drive an engine back and forth across the plains. This year he tills the soil with laborers.”

“The house itself was big and broad, as country houses should be. The master was big and broad, too.”

Anticlimax:

 “…his arms were holding Mildred and he kissed her lips… it was ten times or only once… him disappear with rapid strides….”

Speaking about expressive means and stylistic devices it is necessary to underline their splendid usage. They help to present the characters, to create the general atmosphere of the novel. Here you are to observe the cases of epithets:

Mildred

•         “kindly dignity”;
•       “wavy bronzebrown bang”;
•        “her face milk-white”;
•   “the inexplicable look”;

Fred

• “the clumsy farmhands”;

• “the rough attire”;

•  “unmannerly farmhand”;

• “disagreeable-looking man”

The farm and the nature

• “the undulating wheat”
• “a reflected golden light”;
• “the bending wheat”;
• “the gentle breeze”
  

Hyperbole  - “he has a heart of gold, if he is the first crank in America." (characterization of Fred); “I am the most consummate hound that walks the earth."
Simile:
·        “The house itself was big and broad, as country houses should be.”
·        “This was no such farm as one reads about in humorous fiction.”
·        “…..undulating wheat gleamed in the sun like a golden sea….”
·        “She remained like one who has drunk much wine".
Metaphor - it is a figure of speech which makes an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things or objects that are poles apart from each other but have some characteristics common between them. In other words, a resemblance of two contradictory or different objects is made based on a single or some common characteristics. The novel presents numerous examples of the usage of the metaphor:
The nature

• “the trill that it answered to the gentle breeze”;

• “to seek in this retired spot the repose”

Fred

• “he has a heart of gold”;
• “Then a sudden, quick wave came beating into his brown throat and staining it crimson”;
• “the sun had made him …brown”.

Mildred “Mildred's brown eyes filled with a reflected golden light”; “Her cheeks were ripe with color that the sun had coaxed there”; “Shame stunned her.”; “Only the birds had seen, and she could count on their discretion.” “long a hideous truth had been thrusting itself upon her “; “A feminine commiseration swept her”; “For her part, the situation began to pall”; “a hateful burden to bear alone”; “the inexplicable look stayed with her. Litotes: “A not unpicturesque figure”. Meiosis: “He spoke never a word”. Metonymy: “Monosyllables belong to a boor's equipment”; “He isn't a bit intellectual detests Ibsen and abuses Tolstoi”. Synecdoche: “Farmhands are not so very nice to look at” Periphrasis: “She feared it.” – she was afraid not of the fact that “she herself could be mad, but of a strong feeling of love, which took possession over her. Irony: “she was nothing of an anthropologist”.

The peculiarities of characters’ speech can present the personages in more vivid way. Mildred’s speech is full of complicate syntactic constructions ("It won't disturb you if I stand here a moment, to see what success you will have?", "But, Mrs. Kraummer, I don't want you to think I'm a baby, as you say a coward, as you mean. Ask the man if he will drive me to church tomorrow. You see, I'm not so very much afraid of him…"); there are colloquial words (“paper”, “remember”, “promise”) but still we can observe words which are not so often used in every-day communication (“disagreeable-looking”, “coward” etc.). Concerning Mrs Kraummer, she is prbaly from Germany (“"Aber," offered good Mrs. Kraummer, "Hans Platzfeldt will drive you to church, oder verever you vants. He vas a goot boy vat you can trust, dat Hans."). The young fellow Fred speaks in ordinary manner, he is a worker and perhaps not so educated as Mildred, but still he is very polite ("No, madam.").

The next character is a farmhand, young fellow Fred. He is handsome (“He was young, and brown, of course, as the sun had made him. He had nice blue eyes. His fair hair was disheveled. His shoulders were broad and square and his limbs strong and clean. A not unpicturesque figure in the rough attire that bared his throat to view and gave perfect freedom to his every motion”).  He is in some way curious (only he picked up the letter). He is kind (“he has a heart of gold, if he is the first crank in America”), bu he is not so clever for Mildred (“He doesn't read 'in books' says they are spectacles for the shortsighted to look at life through”). He is still looking for himself (“Last year he chose to drive an engine back and forth across the plains. This year he tills the soil with laborers. Next year it will be something else as insane because he likes to live more lives than one kind, and other Quixotic reasons”). We see that firstly he doesn’t pay any attention to Mildred, but then he kisses her and leaves her. All in all they meet again and ask the girl if she forgets him and forgive him. But Mildred is so odd that she breaks off ties between them and runs. He is absolutely confused.

We also here Mrs Kraummer, mistress of the house. She is kind to Mildred. Judging by her surname and the way she speaks I can guess that she is a German.

Mildred is the main character of the story. She is young, cute and smart: “clever young women of twenty”.She is a socially conventional and sexually repressed young woman who has come to the Kraummer farm to escape the sexual demands that were made on her in civilized, urban society. Despite of the fact that she is intelligent her attitude toward farmhands is arrogant: ” Farmhands are not so very nice to look at, and she was nothing of an anthropologist.”. She likes one farmhand and tried to hide it firstly: ” But once when the half dozen men came along, a paper which she had laid carelessly upon the railing was blown across their path. One of them picked it up, and when he had mounted the steps restored it to her. He was young, and brown, of course, as the sun had made him. He had nice blue eyes. His fair hair was dishevelled. His shoulders were broad and square and his limbs strong and clean. A not unpicturesque figure in the rough attire that bared his throat to view and gave perfect freedom to his every motion”.  But then she decides not to restrain her fillings and makes their meeting “occasional”: “All the other farmhands had gone forth in Sunday attire. Perhaps this one had none better than these working clothes that he wore. A feminine commiseration swept her at the thought. He spoke never a word. She wondered how many hours he could sit there, so patiently waiting for fish to come to his hook. For her part, the situation began to pall, and she wanted to change it at last.”. So here we can observe direct characterization (“She could have cried for vexation. Snubbed by a farmhand! a tramp, perhaps. She, Mildred Orme, who ought really to have been with the rest of the family at Narragansett who had come to seek in this retired spot the repose that would enable her to follow exalted lines of thought. She marveled at the problematic nature of farmhands.”) and indirect (“Yet when the clumsy farmhands all came tramping up the steps and crossed the porch in going to their meal that was served within, she never looked at them. Why should she? Farmhands are not so very nice to look at, and she was nothing of an anthropologist.”).