Stylistic Convergence in Contemporary Flash Fiction Stories as a Quantitative Type of Foregrounding

Flash fiction is a genre of short stories, which has become increasingly popular in the USA and other countries. Flash fiction stories are characterized by brevity and contain 500-1000 words. By now three collections of stories of 1992, 2006, and 2015 have been published, among the authors are such famous writers as John Updike, Grace Paley, Don Shea. These stories are distinguished by expressiveness, emotional character, imagery and the realization of foregrounding. The theory of foregrounding is one of the foundations of stylistics. The theory owes much to the Russian formalists and the Prague School of Linguistics. Linguistic aspects of foregrounding are formulated by M.Short, G.Leech, I.V.Arnold. In recent years, foregrounding and its realization have been investigated in the works of such researchers as J.Douthwaite (2000), O.V.Yemets (2019), and others. However, there are only few works on foregrounding in the flash fiction stories. 

The aim of this paper is to determine the main types and functions of stylistic convergence, which is the manifestation of quantitative aspect of foregrounding in flash fiction stories. 

Foregrounding is the principle of a literary text organization, which focuses the reader’s attention on the pragmatically important elements of the message (Arnold 2004). G. Leech singles out qualitative and quantitative aspects of foregrounding (Leech, Short 2007). The quantitative aspect can be realized by the stylistic convergence. In flash fiction stories, it occupies mostly one or two paragraphs. Nevertheless, it gives the texts emotional character and expressiveness. 

In the story “Justice – a Beginning” G.Paley describes the appearance of the mother of a man who has just been sentenced: She leaned on the witness bar, her face like a dying flower in its late-season, lank leafage of yellow hair, turning one way then the other in the breeze and blast of justice. Like a sunflower maybe in mid-autumn, having given up on the sun, Faith thought (Flash Fiction Forward 2006). Due to the metaphoric similes and alliteration of the sound [l] the stylistic convergence emphasizes the feelings of pity to the woman. 

Another type of stylistic convergence is realized in the story “Oliver’s Evolution” by J.Updike describing how a weak boy becomes a strong man: You should see him now, with their two children, a fair little girl and a dark-haired boy. Oliver has grown broad, and holds the two of them at once. They are birds in a nest. He is a tree, a sheltering boulder. He is a protector of the weak (Flash Fiction Forward 2006). This convergence includes extended metaphors and parallel structures, which foreground the idea of spiritual strength. 

All in all I analyzed 30 flash fiction stories, stylistic convergence is present mainly in such strong position as the end of the text. It makes these fragments more foregrounded, produces a strong emotional and aesthetic effect. Stylistic convergences are used to describe the beauty of nature (R.Carney), express such emotions as pleasure and feeling of love (L.Wilson) and the idea of cultural tolerance (D.Galef) and tolerant attitude towards people in tragic situations (D.Eggers).