A Stylistic Analysis of Lexicon in Ray Bradbury s The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury s The Martian Chronicles is a futuristic, science fiction novel that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans. The novel is analogous to the United States’ colonial and immigrant history and presents a projection of the past on to the future in a highly symbolic manner. Bradbury’s use of language is mostly picturesque and sensory, setting a specific ambiance for each chapter. A text-oriented, linguistic understanding can help in reaching a more accurate interpretation of the novel. The present paper applies a qualitative and quantitative analysis of stylistic elements that construct meaning in the text and evoke the novel’s themes, using the analytic model developed by Leech and Short (2007). The study’s focus is on the lexical category—general lexicon, nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs—of chapters that are stylistically representative of Bradbury’s descriptive and metaphorically-rich style.