Mother

Mother

1.The text under analysis is a short story “Mother” by Grace Paley. It belongs to fiction. The genre is a short story because it has an open ending and finished plot.

2.The text belongs to aesthetic sphere of communication. It addresses a wide circle of readers, because a lot of people can find the reflection of their own life in the story.

3.The main functions of the text are emotive and expressive, because this story made readers feel emotions, feelings, the flow of thoughts of the characters.

4.The type of thinking reflected in the text is figurative, because the text describes the personality of the character, their thoughts and attitude to each other, life and actions.

(There is a rhetorical question “what will become of you?” which shows the mother’s concern about her daughter’s future. We can see that the mother really cares about her daughter. Another stylistic device is when the father complains about his work. He uses a repetition of the word “talk”. It occurs four times in one paragraph. As a result, he says the words “talk talk talk talk” back-to-back her but nevertheless, still doesn’t talk to her which shows his indifference.)

5.The story is told through the flashbacks of a daughter.

6.The story has 3 episodes:

The introduction – when the narrator describes the childhood, when the child was 17 y.o.

Climax— when the mother announced that she was dying. It was 1905.

The Denouement – daughter's memories of how her parents listened to music while sitting next to each other.

7.Paragraphs are short, sentences are short too. Despite the briefness, the text quite fully describes the feelings of the characters, their train of thought with the help of literature devices, such as a rhetorical question “what will become of you?” which shows the mother’s concern about her daughter’s future. We can see that the mother really cares about her daughter. Another stylistic device is when the father complains about his work. He uses a repetition of the word “talk”. It occurs four times in one paragraph. As a result, he says the words “talk talk talk talk” back-to-back her but nevertheless, still doesn’t talk to her which shows his indifference.

8.The number of characters is limited: there are the narrator, the father, and the mother.

The father: is doctor, he can speak English, have a lot of work and when he was at home he was tired, so he didn’t pay intention to his wife. He likes to listen to music, it was Bach and Mozart. It tell us about their intelligence.

The mother: mother knew she was dying. She wondered what time narrator would return when he/she is 20. Her point of view is different from daughter’s. Mother saw political unrest would lead to dissent, deaths, disaster. She left job in shop to stay at home, so she was sacrifices herself

The child/narrator: narrator was 17 y.o., who don’t care about parents. He/she always in hurry. At the end of the story, he/she understand that he/she will never see his/her mother again and regrets it. He/she regrets that he didn't spend a lot of time with his mother

9.The literary of the text is realistic, because in some family parents can face with such a problem about relationship between each other and between them and their children.

10.The author presents in the text is not committed and we see it through the eye of the narrator (child). Everything happens without author’s opinion.

11.The general tone of the story is lyrical and sentimental, there was the description of feelings of the characters and the moments, where readers understood that the child will never see his/her mother again and regrets it.

12.The leading theme of the text passage is the relationship between children and parents. In this story, mom sacrificed herself in many ways, and the child did not understand this, but after losing his mother, the child realized that mom was the most important thing in his/her life.

13.There are 2 symbols in this story: zinnias and marigolds.

14.The scene is set in Union Soviet/ USA in 1905/1906

15.There is one flashback in this story when narrator remembers memories of his mother and childhood.

16.The main idea of the text passage is that everyone should appreciate their parents, take care of them, spend time with them while they are alive. Using the example of this story, the narrator, having grown up, regretted that he had not been close to his mother before.

17.For me this story is quite instructive. The lesson I draw from this story is that we should cherish what we are possessing, especially our parents. Their love and care is endless. Like it is said the story, most don’t take much of their mothers’ advice, but later they realize how important they were.