The Legacy

The Legacy

The story under the title «The Legacy» was written by Virginia Woolf. The text under analysis belongs to fiction. The genre is a short story, because it has open ending.

The text belongs to aesthetic sphere of communication. It addresses a wide circle of readers a number of problems are being considered, such as the problem of adultery and the problem of suicide.

The main function of the text is emotive, because this story made readers feel emotions, feelings, attitude to each other and motives.

The type of thinking reflected in the text is figurative, because the text describes almost each of the characters, their occupation, their feelings, their relationship.

The form of the text is mixed. There is a dialogue between Gilbert and Missy Miller. There is a monologue, when the wain character reads a diary.

The abstract has 3 episodes. The introduction - the narrator talks about wife’s death and gifts from her. The Climax - the narrator reads the diary and finds out BM. The Denouement - the narrator understood why his wife died.

Paragraphs are long, sentences are long too, full of description and feelings. The author uses descriptive paragraphs to illustrate the main characters and narrative paragraphs to talk about their lives.

The member of character is Limited. We have Gilbert Clandon, the narrator, who lost his wife unexpectedly. The wife, Angella, who died after car accident and had left gifts for close people. Sissy Miller, who was an assistant and a good friend of Angella. B.M., who was a lover of Angella and a brother of Sissy, who died 1-2 weeks before Angella.

The literary trend of the text is romantic because there is husband, wife and her lover in this story.

The text is told by the author who knows much about the facts and the characters.

The general tone of the story is sentimental and ironical, because there was the description of feelings of the characters and the moments, where readers are told of Angela’s accidental death and readers can see where Angela’s relationship with B.M. is headed, but Gilbert doesn’t: it’s ironic that the man he detests and writes off turns out to be the one Angela died for.

The leading theme of the text passage is death, independence, ego, identity, gender roles, equality.

The scene is set in the main character house in London in the East end. It doesn’t change during the episode.

There are a lot of flashbacks while the narrator is reading wife’s diary. He remembers their days and experience.