The Kugelmass Episode

1. the text under analysis is a short story “the kugelmass episode” by Woody Allen and it belongs to fiction.

2.the text belongs to authentic sphere of communication. It addresses a wide circle of readers because it talks about the modern humans' pursuit of satisfaction.

3.the main function of the text is humorous. The story's humor comes not only from its bizarre situation but from its broadly drawn characters, parody of the entertainment industry, spoof of the male midlife crisis, ironic look at literature and its study.

4.The type of thinking reflected in the text is figurative, because the text describes almost each of the characters, their occupation, their feelings, their appearance and so on.

5.“the Kugelmass episode” almost entirely consists of dialogues it helps to reveal characters and to show the level of intelligence of the characters and their behavior. It helps to build characters image.

6.the text has 3 episodes: introduction, climax, Denouement.

the introduction is when we first meet mr Kugelmass when he’s on the appointment with his analyst dr. Mandel. He is bored with his life, and he needs to have an affair.

Climax is when Kugelmass finds himself running between Daphne and Emma, paying Emma's enormous hotel bills, and having to put up with his lover's despondence, and the stress begins to wear him out. He learns too that a colleague who is jealous of him, Fivish Kopkind, has spotted Kugelmass in the book and has threatened to reveal his secret to Daphne. He wants to commit suicide or run away.

And the Denouement is when Kugelmass accidentally gets into a remedial Spanish textbook. The story ends with Kugelmass running for his life "over a barren, rocky terrain" as the "large and hairy" irregular verb tener ("to have") races after him on its spindly legs.

7.The paragraphs are short because its mainly dialogues which show a lot of feelings of the characters and help us understand them.

8.the number of characters is limited.

the major characters are:

Kugelmass

A humanities professor at the City College of New York, Kugelmass is bored with his humdrum life and is transported to the pages of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, where he has an affair with the title character. Kugelmass is described as aging and "bald and hairy as a bear," and he thinks, mistakenly, that he has "soul." He is distrustful, pessimistic city man who races around town trying to get what he wants; he is forever in pursuit of something better.

Emma Bovarythe title character of Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary, into whose world Kugelmass gets transported by The Great Persky and haves an affair with.

The Great Persky is the magician who transports Kugelmass into Emma Bovary's world using a badly lacquered, cheap-looking Chinese cabinet. The minor characters are: Daphne is Kugelmass's

current, and second, wife. Kugelmass considers her an "oaf" and a "troglodyte" who had promise (and money) but has now grown fat. She is demanding and spends her time doing mundane tasks— looking for bathroom accessories, for example.

Charles Bovary - Emma Bovary's husband Charles is a doctor whom Kugelmass calls a "lacklustre little paramedic" who is "ready to go to sleep by ten"

Fivish Kopkind The professor is Kugelmass's colleague, a professor of comparative literature at the City College of New York. Kugelmass says Kopkind, who has always been jealous of him, has identified him as the sporadically appearing character in Madame Bovary and has threatened to tell everything to Kugelmass's wife.

Dr. Mandel is Kugelmass's analyst.

Rodolphe is Emma Bovary's lover in the novel Madame Bovary. Kugelmass wants to get into the novel before Emma meets Rodolphe because he can't compete with him

9.the literary trend of the text is fantastic, because it’s unreal that a real person can get into a novel.

10.the author presence in the text is not committed and we see it through the eye of the main character Kugelmass and through the eye of other characters as well

11.General tone of the story is humorous.

It’s funny how that middle aged fat hairy men who’s having a midlife crisis is looking for romance and affairs and thinks it’ll solve all his problems.

12.The leading theme of the story is modern humans' pursuit of satisfaction. Kugelmass is dissatisfied and undergoing a midlife crisis, but rather than seek meaning, he looks for romance and glamour to relieve the boredom in his life.

13.The word "tener" that means "to have" is a symbol of everything Kugelmass had but didn't appreciate.

The word "episode" in the title suggests a short period within a longer sequence of events. The episode symbolizes the dangers of pursuit after your wishes without thinking all the reasons.

14.The scene is set in all over the place. But it’s mostly “The plaza Hotel” and the “Persky’s house”, the Madame Bovary novel

15.no flashbacks

16.the main idea of the text passage is examining the futility of the quest for personal happiness.

17.For me this story was interesting and instructive. In this story, I found the moral that you don't have to be greedy, and you also need to be careful in your desires