Any literary work is a suitable platform for conveying the author's inner concepts and feelings through the words available in the text. Guy de Maupassant in the story of
Horla narrates the life of a man who is grappling with a crisis of alienation under the influence of the anonymous creature called
Horla. Using the concepts and words intertwined with the
unconscious and the repeated use of the word "Horla" and the verb "failure" in the story, the author promotes an excitement in the reader to these words, which, based on the constant action and reaction of the mind and language, makes the reader more aware of intriguing indications like the shadow of alienation on a narrator's life. What can be contemplated is the relationship of these words with the concept of alienation. The relationship that can be analyzed through the psychology of language. In the language psychology, a model called the
Emotioncy Model was designed by Pishghadam et al. (2013). "
Emotioncy", a combination of the two words "
emotion" and "frequency," is based on the principle that the words in each text have varying amounts of emotion for different individuals, which are referred to as "Emotioncy" of the words. Emotioncy includes emotions that are formed as a result of using different senses and can make relative recognition of individuals under the influence of frequency factor. Considering the Emotioncy Model, the present study seeks to answer the following fundamental question: How does the author in the story of
Horla reveal the crisis of the narrator's alienation by increasing the emotioncy level of the words "Horla" and "failure" in the reader?
The concept of alienation has an inverse relationship with freedom. In the existentialism philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, human freedom has the responsibility for everything that he is seeking. The lack of this freedom causes the alienation of individuals. In the story of
Horla, the transfer of this concept (alienation) to the reader is carried out through the frequency of words Horla and failure. The narrator who considers the presence of Horla as the reason for his lack of freedom, conveys his alienation crisis to the reader by repeating the word Horla as another interpretation that his freedom prevents the freedom of the narrator and the verb failure, which is itself a kind of confession of his lack of freedom. Moreover, the author describes the presence of Horla using the senses of touch, hearing sense, and above all sense of seeing. This is while, another presence is felt with his looking in the philosophy of existentialism. Through describing his sensory experiences of Horla, the writer engages the reader's senses and raises his excitement. In this regard, the author in the story of
Horla describes the narrator's fear of Horla, as well as freedom, to create an excitement of fear in the reader (due to his having responsibility to life). To do this, by proving the presence of unknown creatures in the world and the human inability in their discovery, he denies the freedom of human, and provokes the excitement of fear in the reader. Therefore, the author shows crisis of the narrator's alienation with the emotionalization of words Horla and failure. The crisis of alienation represents the truth of the existence of the author and his feelings. Hence, the author has a high to this concept. This inner emotioncy, created at the level of his involvement, shapes his world view, and it is induced to the reader in the story of
Horla through the emotionalization of the mentioned words.
Many studies have been yet conducted in relation to the Emotioncy Model, but the use of this Model in literature has not been addressed in none of these studies. According to the findings of this study, it can be argued that the Emotioncy Model in the field of literature can be a suitable ground for the exploration of the feelings, inner emotions and worldview of the authors through the words and concepts used in literary
