12. Целостный анализ текста (Full analysis of the text)

Приступая к целостному анализу художественного текста, сначала прочитайте его до конца, делая пометки относительно всех замеченных вами приемов и особенностей. Затем попробуйте заполнить пункты плана: что известно о писателе, что можно сказать о месте и времени действия и т.д. Несомненно, разные пункты плана будут заполнены в разной степени. При создании связного анализа необязательно учитывать их все и перечислять в предложенном порядке: можно сделать акцент на самых ярких особенностях текста.

Очень важно в ходе анализа ненавязчиво, но полно пересказать содержание рассказа. Обычно это делается в начале разбора, хотя возможны и другие варианты.

Не забывайте, что основным временем в вашем анализе должно быть Present Simple. Для рассказа о предшествующих событиях необходимо использовать Present Perfect.

The story of an hour by Kate Chopin

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will - as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.

When she abandoned herself, a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.

She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

And yet she had loved him - sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg, open the door - you will make yourself ill. What are you doing Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

But Richards was too late.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease - of joy that kills.

The story of an hour: analysis

The text is written by an American writer Kate Chopin. She is considered to be a forerunner of feminists, as many of her stories are devoted to the women of American Southern states at the end of the 19^th century, where wife’s role was confined to satisfying husband’s needs. But in fact Kate Chopin’s works are not just written declarations but pieces of delicate psychological prose.

The language of the story testifies to the fact that the author is American as we find here Americanisms (e.g. ‘yonder’).

The main character is Mrs. Mallard (only once she is called Louise). The name shows us that she is married to a certain Mr. Mallard, so wifehood is presented as her essence. “Mallard” is a kind of wild duck, and we may regard her surname as a case of antonomasia, that introduces the theme of being not tame, but wild in heart.

We know little about heroine’s age and appearance (just that ‘she was young, with a fair, calm face’). It’s clear from the beginning that she has a ‘heart trouble’. That’s why ‘great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death’. The plot seems to be very simple:

• the heroine is told her husband is dead (exposition);

• in grief she goes upstairs to stay alone and sits in an armchair sobbing and staring at the open spring window (complication);

• ‘there was something coming to her’, ‘she was striving to beat it back with her will’ (suspense);

• she feels a ‘monstrous joy’ of being ‘body and soul free’ from her husband (climax);

• she goes downstairs, finds her husband returning safe and sound and dies of heart disease (unexpected twist and denouement).

In fact, this story is not a narrative one, it is based on the inner conflict, that is contradiction between Mrs. Mallard’s real life (some details about it: her hands are weak, powerless, ‘slender’; she thinks ‘with a shudder that life might be long’) and her would-be life, free and independent (there her hands are full of ‘will’; ‘she breathed a quick prayer that life might be long’). Here we can notice that contrast is one of the basic devices in the text. The contrast is also noticeable on the level of setting. Heroine’s being upstairs where she finds her dream about freedom contrasts with her being downstairs where she first hears about death and then dies herself.

The temporal component of the setting is also of great importance. We shouldn’t forget about setting in its historical and geographical meaning, otherwise the problems touched upon and the message are unclear for the contemporary reader. We deal with the last decades of the 19^th century. For a woman who ‘loved him – sometimes; often she had not’, divorce was doubtful, possibility earning money without husband and decently– almost impossible. So, widowhood was the only way to be free without any troubles. On the other hand, we should remember, that we are speaking about a text written not in our secular epoch, not in modern America. More than 100 years ego the notion of sin was very vivid. Being happy at someone’s death is a sin, and the author can’t approve of it. She raises a lot of issues in the text, involving the reader into co-thinking over the situation. Some of the problems touched upon are:

‘Can we be absolutely free?’ ‘Is freedom more important than responsibility?’ ‘Are we responsible for our thoughts?’

The answer to the latter question is ‘yes’. The heroine is punished for her ‘monstrous joy’, and the message is that we are always punished for our bad thoughts and dreams.

On the other hand, a writer is not a moralist. A good story can’t be only a kind of warning. It shows us all the complicity and contradictoriness of human nature. In some sense the reader admires it. A lot of stylistic devices are employed to demonstrate the gradation of Mrs. Mallard’s state. Inversion demonstrates her tumult (‘Into this she sank’). Metaphors show all the attractiveness of the new spring life (‘patches of the blue sky’, ‘delicious breath of rain’, ‘drinking elixir of life’ etc). Many repetitions of different types (‘there would be no…, there would be no…’ (anaphora), ‘free! body and soul free!’ (anadiplosis) etc.) depict the intensity of her new state. Collocations ‘monstrous joy’ and ‘joy that kills’ are close to oxymoron. Words correlate in a wrong way showing that the heroine’s feelings correlate to reality in a wrong way too. Two pages of the text are full of twists in feelings, meanings and mood (we can see it changing from dramatic and optimistic to ironical). What makes the situation so peculiar is the briefness of all these alterations. It is ‘a moment of illumination’, ‘a story of an hour’.

Little Miss Big Shot by Agnes Staudy

Millie Brent set down her coffee cup. ”1 just don't know how much longer I can put up with it, Irene. I try to be patient, but—"

"Just don’t let it get you down," Irene interrupted. "I went through it with my kids too, and believe me sometimes it wasn't easy. You just watch. Any day now the phase will pass. Here, let me pour you another cup."

The inviting aroma of freshly-brewed coffee enveloped the cozy sun-lit kitchen. Irene slid her chunky frame onto the chair opposite Millie again.

"Thanks," Millie said in a low voice, offering her a grateful smile. She ran her hand across her short- cropped brown bangs in a tired manner. "The things that child can dream up—honestly!' The other day, she came tearing into the house and told me that her dollhouse was on fire. You know that little house that Jack built for her in the yard? Naturally, I dropped everything and ran out there—nothing!" Then, slapping the table with her hand, she said, "Only yesterday, she came into my sewing room and said that there was a man in the basement! It scared the wits out of me, of course. I grabbed one of Jack's golf clubs and ran downstairs." She heaved a deep sigh. "Just another figment of her imagination—another tale."

"I see what you mean," Irene said sympathetically. "Did you spank her?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I was so—Sue Ann?" Millie turned in her chair and watched as her four-year-old opened the door and hurriedly came to her side. "Mommie!" Sue Ann's brown eyes were huge, and her blue- bowed pigtails bobbed up and down as she spoke. "Mommie, there was a man in our house!"

"A man!" Millie gasped, her backbone stiffening, as her hand shot to her mouth. "What was he doing there?" she asked nervously, grasping Sue Ann's shoulders. "Tell me."

The little girl held her doll very tight. "He was going in an' out of all the rooms," she said slowly, putting emphasis on every word.

"Oh, God. Irene—" Millie's eyes were pleading.

“Millie-Millie," Irene said softly, raising one hand. "It's probably just another story, remember? Relax."

Millie's shoulders sank slowly as she let herself go limp. "Sue Ann, are you making up another story?"

"Oh, no, Mommie," she said seriously, shaking her head vigorously from side to side. Her voice was calmer now, but none the less convincing.

Millie heaved a deep sigh. "Honey. This man you saw at our house just now, was he as real as the man you thought you saw in the basement yesterday?"

The little girl's brows wrinkled. With a confused and uncertain expression on her face, she said finally, "Yes—only realler."

"See what I mean," Irene said, raising and lowering her chunky shoulders. "Nothing to get excited

about."

Wanting to pursue the subject further, Millie asked, "Just what did this man do, Sue Ann?" Some of her daughter's tales had been so imaginative, that often she wondered how such a young child could conjure up an event so precise and descriptive.

Wa—1," she said, gazing fondly down at her doll. "Princess an' I were playin' on the sofa in the Iivin'

room."

"Go on."

"An' I turned aroun' an' there he was!" she smiled then, as if the man had popped out like a jack-in- the-box. "He ast me where we keep the money, so I showed him where Daddy keeps that box in the closet." She cocked her head to one side and made a funny face.

"And," her mother urged, lightly. "He ast me if we had any more money an' I said only my piggie bank an' he said never min'."

"Really," Millie said, smiling up at Irene, who winked back.

Sue Ann had more. “He went into your dresser' an' he took your wristwatch an' put it in his pocket” she said, her face growing stem. "I tol' him he was naughty 'cause you don't like for nobody to touch your watch—even me."

Millie felt a strange uneasiness come over her; the whole thing was beginning to sound quite possible.

"He had a bad col' too, an' he was sneezin' too, an' I was real polite an' said 'God bless you' each time," she lowered her head then, "an' he didn't say 'thank you' even once to me."

Rising to her feet, Millie said, "Irene, I've got—"

"Oh, relax," Irene insisted, good-naturedly.

Millie straightened her housedress. "I know. I know—but just the same I'd better check." With her

daughter in tow, she hurried across the street and into the house.

Sue Ann led her straight to the bedroom. Millie felt a wave of cold sweat pass through her. Several drawers were open and their contents disarranged. She glanced toward the closet, and was well able to see that the strong-box was gone. Valuable papers, vacation savings—gone. It was then that Millie realized that Sue Ann was clinging to her, frightened.

"He was here like I tol' you, Mommie. He was!" The huge brown eyes were glazed with tears.

"Yes—darling, he—was here," she said nervously, dashing for the telephone. A few minutes later, a squad car pulled up and two policemen were at the door.

"You see, officers," she finished, wringing her hands nervously, "Sue Ann was telling the truth all along." She wiped away a tear that had rolled down to her chin.

The older of the two officers stooped down beside the little girl. "So, young lady, you saw the whole thing, eh?" He displayed a warm grandfather-like smile.

"Uh-huh," she quipped", fumbling with the back of her skirt.

"Can you tell me what he looked like? Now, think real hard," he urged softly.

"He was big," she said, lifting one hand high over her head. "Big as my daddy or Mr. Crump even."

"I'm afraid that won't help you any," Millie interrupted. "My husband is over six feet tall. Mr. Crump is short, about five foot four, like myself." She smiled down at her daughter reassuringly.

Sue Ann tried to be helpful. She swallowed hard, then said, "He had a blue shirt on with some words on the back."

The policeman's eyebrows lifted. "He did. Good. Can you tell me what the writing said?"

"Ah—" Sue Ann put one finger on her lower lip, and was obviously deep in thought.

"I'm sorry," Millie apologized. "She can't read."

"That's too bad," he said, pulling himself to his feet. "We've had a dozen burglaries reported from this part of town this past month, and they all point to the same man. In broad daylight too. Nervy bird", that one. Too bad," he said, shaking his head from side to side. "Well, we'll do our best to recover your property, Mrs. Brent, but don't get your hopes up too high. It sure would solve a lot of our headaches if we could get our hands on him."

As they turned to leave, Sue Ann suddenly called out. "Wait, Mr. Policeman!* She grasped hold of Millie's dress and clung to it. "I got something else," she said, trembling.

"What is it, Sue Ann?"

"Mommie—I did a very naughty thing," she sobbed. "I stol' something—but please don't spank me, Mommie. Please!"

"What did you steal, Sue Ann?" she asked curiously.

"S-something from that man," she said tearfully, rubbing her eyes with her fists.

"From the man!" both officers shouted, jerking to attention", then crowded around Sue Ann. The se­nior officer stooped down again. "Sweetheart, you give me what you took from that man, and I'll buy you the biggest ice cream cone they make. How about that!"

"—honest?" The flood of tears was gone. "I got his wallet."

"His wallet!"

Sue Ann licked her lips. "When he sneezed the first time, he pulled a hanky from his pocket in back—an' his wallet fell on the rug. He didn't know it fell out."

"Yes. Yes," said the chorus of three.

She shrugged her small shoulders, "I pushed it un'er the sofa." In the next instant, the two officers were on their knees groping underneath the sofa.

"It ain't there," Sue Ann said, simply.

"Where is it now, Sue Ann?" Millie asked firmly.

"I—hid it in my dollhouse," she said. Both officers scrambled for the door, and the valuable evidence.

Looking at the front page of the newspaper, the next day, Millie felt guilty. Somehow it just didn't seem right that she should be in that picture with Sue Ann.

Little Miss Big Shot: analysis

We can’t tell much about Agnes Staudy, as she is not a well-known writer. It may be supposed she is American according to using Americanisms in the text (‘pocket-sized flat folding case for holding money and plastic cards’ is called wallet (Am), not purse (Br)).

The story is set in two neighboring houses. In one of them we see a mother, Millie Brent, who came to her neighbour Irene for reassurance. The matter of Millie’s worry is that her four-year-old daughter Sue Ann makes up stories about frightening situations including fire and strangers at home. Millie is very upset about the fact that her daughter is a liar and she needs some advice. During the adults’ conversation over a cup of coffee Sue Ann herself appears. She is excited and tries to convince the women that right now there is a burglar at home. The mother is sure the girl is telling stories again. But some details of Sue Ann’s monologue make her doubt. Having dashed to home Millie finds it robbed. Sue Ann is right! Moreover, the police are able to find the suspect only thanks to the girl as she has stolen the robber’s wallet.

The story is a kind of anecdote, the tone is partly thrilling (in genre the text has something in common with a detective story), but mostly it’s amusing.

Concerning the composition we may find here a long exposition, even a kind of suspense (at neighbour’s); Sue Ann’s story is the complication; the climax comes with the checking of the house and the denouement with an unexpected twist is the revelation that Sue Ann can really help in finding the criminal as she has his wallet.

The conflict of the story is laid in contradiction between mother’s attitude to daughter’s story (grounded on her previous lies) and the real events.

The system of characters includes Millie, Irene (she is Millie’s foil), Sue Ann, the criminal and the policeman with his crew. All of those characters have bright traits that prevent us from considering someone of them to be flat – ‘good-natured’ Irene who is always ready to offer coffee and reassurance; the ‘naughty’ robber with his sneezing and not answering Sue Ann’s ‘God bless you’; ‘grandfather-like’ policeman, who switches into special type of speech ‘for children’ speaking to the girl (‘I’ll buy you the biggest ice cream cone they make, How about that?’).

But the main, contradicting characters here are certainly the mother and the daughter. Millie is not very self-confident. She considers something is wrong with her girl and she is not very sure about the ways of breeding the child that she uses. She doesn’t receive from the daughter the feedback she would like to – may be because Sue Ann is a very unusual girl. She is very imaginative (in fact, Sue Ann lives in her own world) and very brave (she meets the stranger in her house without panic, she even turns out to be more cunning than he is).

The reader can imagine the main characters very vividly thanks to little details (girl’s huge brown eyes and popping pigtails) and epithets (Irene is ‘chunky’). Speech characteristics are also very important. All the characters use modern colloquial vocabulary, phrasal verbs (put up with, make up). Even the title itself is a colloquial expression: ‘big shot’ denotes someone who is important and cool (+ miss Big Shot is a case of antonomasia typical for American colloquial language). Millie’s speech is agitated, that’s why it is abundant in aposiopeses (‘The thing that child can dream up -’, ‘No, as a matter of fact I was so – ‘ etc.), ellipses and parentheses. To depict 4-year-girl’s manner of speaking the author uses a kind of transcription (ask =ast, told=tol’, well=wa-l etc.) and some childish words (hanky, piggy-bank, she calls the officer ‘Mr. Policeman’). We can really see in the text that adults and children speak different languages.

The author wants to draw our attention to the fact that grown-ups and kids are two different worlds, two different cultures. We need patience and empathy to trust, to have serious attitude to children. The story is an allusion to Aesop’s fable about a boy who used to make up stories about wolves. But the author pleads us to check every time. The message here is ’Never judge with a prejudice’.

Задания для самоконтроля

Постарайтесь, обобщив свои знания, приобретенные в ходе анализа различных текстов, сформулировать собственные рабочие определения следующих терминов на английском языке.

Lexical Stylistic Devices

simile

metaphor

personification

metonymy

antonomasia

epithet

hyperbole

euphemism

oxymoron

pun

zeugma

allusion

antithesis

Syntactical Stylistic Devices

anaphora

epiphora

framing

anadiplosis

asyndeton

polysyndeton

parallel constructions

inversion

ellipsis

aposiopesis

Other Literary Devices

alliteration

assonance

flash-back

foreshadowing

unexpected twist

leitmotif

key words

local colours