Speaking Without Saying: The Power of the Word How in Rhetorical Questions in Émile Zola’s Germinal, Albert Camus’s La Peste, and Choderlos de Laclos’s Les Liaisons dangereuses

Abstract

This study is based on a linguistic, stylistic and pragmatic analysis of rhetorical questions, adopting a descriptive, analytical, and comparative approach. The analytical corpus is established through purposive sampling, whereby only occurrences found in interrogative sentences introduced by the interrogative adverb how are retained. Furthermore, only those interrogative structures whose primary function is not to elicit an answer, but rather to convey emotion, indignation, irony, or reflection, are included in the corpus for analysis. In French literature, the word how functions as both a linguistic and symbolic device whose meaning far exceeds its grammatical role as an interrogative marker. In Emile Zola’s Germinal, in Albert Camus’ La Peste, and in Choderlos de Laclos’s Les Liaisons dangereuses, it becomes the core of a discursive strategy in which questioning replaces assertion to provoke reflection, emotion, or persuasion. In Germinal, how expresses the silent revolt of characters confronted with social injustice and working-class misery. The interrogative form, often tinged with bitterness or indignation, serves as an implicit protest: to ask the question is already to denounce. Through its intonational and affective force, how transforms rhetorical questioning into an act of moral resistance, giving voice to a collective outcry against oppression. Conversely, in Laclos’s epistolary world, the word how becomes an instrument of manipulation and power. Beneath an appearance of innocence, it conceals a strategy of seduction or psychological control: the question feigns surprise in order to persuade or destabilize the interlocutor. This ambivalence grants how a performative dimension, allowing it to act upon the recipient while maintaining the guise of inquiry. Far from being mere interrogative statements intended to elicit an answer, these questions function as a rhetorical devise that invites readers to reflect on the human condition, suffering, solidarity, and the absurdity of existence. Thus, in the three works, the rhetorical how epitomizes the ability of language to “speak without saying”. It creates a tension between what is said and what is implied, revealing the expressive power of interrogation as a vehicle for social critique and symbolic authority.