Analytical reading of fiction. Учебное пособие для студентов старших курсов факультетов иностранных языков

c)Analyse the stylistic devices used to create this image; group them in accordance with the impression they produce. Does the impression change throughout the extract? Support your opinion with the necessary stylistic devices.

d)Has the author succeeded in creating an image of something alive while describing the woods? What means did he use for the purpose?

e)What effect is produced by gradation in the last line of the ex-

tract?

Trisha had never felt as much like a town girl as she did while that miserable, terrifying day was winding down toward dark. The woods came in clenches, it seemed to her. For a while she would walk through great old strands of pine, and there the forest seemed almost all right, like the woods in a Disney cartoon. Then one of those clenches would come and she would find herself struggling through snarly clumps of scrubby trees and thick bushes (all too many of the latter the kind with thorns), fighting past interlaced branches that clawed for her arms and eyes. Their only purpose seemed to be obstruction, and as mere tiredness slipped toward exhaustion, Trisha began to impute them with actual intelligence, a sly and hurtful awareness of the outsider in the ragged blue poncho. It began to seem to her that their desire to scratch her - to perhaps even get lucky and poke out one of her eyes - was actually secondary; what the bushes really wanted was to shut her away from the brook, her path to other people, her ticket out.

From Vertical Run by Joseph R. Garber

1.What effect do the opening sentences of the fragment produce on the reader? What expressive means serve this purpose?

2.What mood is the main character in? What syntactic means make the character's thoughts emotional?

3.What do you think was the character's problem?

4.What simile reveals the character's attitude to his pursuers?

5.What stylistic device prevails in the second paragraph of the fragment? What device helps to feel the character's bitter irony?

Madness. Sheer lunacy. As unnecessary as it was unspeakable. All they had to do was explain it to him. He would have understood. He would not have been happy, but he would not have run. If they had told him what Ransome was telling him now, he would have cooperated.

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They could have offered to take him somewhere to a clean room, sterile, isolated from the outside world. Or they could have put him on a deserted island, or some other safe place. All they would have had to do was let him die with a little dignity. He wouldn't have resisted. How could he have resisted? Knowing the truth, he would have surrendered.

But instead, they decided to treat him like a rabid animal. We're licensed operatives, Mr. Elliot, highly trained professionals, and we know what's best.

Besides, we don't trust anyone enough to tell you the truth. We don't trust anyone enough to tell them that. We'll lie to you, and we'll lie to your friends, and we'll lie to the people who pay us. That's our way. Mr. Elliot, and if you aren't used to it by now, you never will be. So kindly be a good little citizen, and don't give us any trouble while we clear up our problem in the traditional way.

From The Blue Note by Charlotte Bingham

1.Read the extract below and say what it is about. What was it that made the characters happy? What stylistic device introduces the characters' realization of their remaining alive?

2.What figures of speech used in the first paragraph represent hardships which the characters had to overcome in the wartime?

3.What does the author mean by 'the Yellow Peril" and "the Red Peril"? Name the trope used here.

4.What stylistic device links the two paragraphs? Is its usage advantageous? Give your reasons.

5.What expressive means make the second paragraph sound even more optimistic?

6.Analyze the cases of parallel constructions and insertion in the second paragraph and explain their purpose.

7.Comment on the use of italics in the extract.

8.What kind of repetitions does the author use in the extract? How do they render his message? What is the message?

Afterwards they said there was never to be a time quite like it again. It was not just the exuberance, and not just the fun of it either; it was the sudden realization that they were actually alive. That despite the war, doodlebugs, rationing, dreary clothes and even drearier food, despite the A-bomb and the H-bomb, despite Korea and Malaya, despite Russia and the Berlin Wall, despite the terrible treat of Communism and

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Marxism, the Yellow Peril and the Red Peril, despite almost everything they knew or had been told about the doom of days gone past, and the doom of days yet to come, despite all that – they were still living, and on the earth.

And what was more, and what was better, they were young, and some of them were not just young, but beautiful. Not that it mattered, beautiful or not beautiful, pretty or not pretty, handsome or not handsome; it did not matter a single, solitary little damn not once they came to and realized that after all that – all those dead people, all those fathers that had not come back, uncles who had never returned, mothers whom they had never known – they were actually alive.

But first – they had to grow up.

From Blackout by Campbell Armstrong

1.Why do you think the fragment opens with the description of the main character's wristwatch? What mood is set in by the opening paragraph?

2.Analyse the images of the wristwatch and the wind. How are they introduced in the fragment? What is their role?

3.Specify cases of metonymy, metaphor, and simile; say what purpose they serve.

4.Pick out the case of allusion and speak on its function. What effect does it create in the fragment?

5.Comment on the role of syntactic devices used in the fragment.

6.What kind of girl is portrayed by the author? Is her image positive or negative? Give your reasons.

7.What idea is emphasized by the framing, beginning with: "...meant nothing" and ending by "it didn't matter which any more."

He glanced at his wristwatch, but the face was cracked and the hands bent and the luminous dots meant nothing. And a wind came up and gathered the rain together and blew it directly into his eyes. Where was she – this girl he barely knew? He remembered her waif-like face and the detachment in her eyes and her long legs under the short blue velvet skirt, the white shoes with the thick clunky heels. He remembered how she'd drunk vodka like there was a new Prohibition Law about to be enacted. Sometimes she'd tried to make a fluting sound by pressing her lips against the neck of the bottle and blowing.

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He'd seen the shape of her mouth by the light of the instrument panel and been distracted by it. Or enchanted. It didn't matter which any more.

From Dance While You Can by Susan Lewis

Read the extract bellow and answer the following questions:

1.How is the extract opened? What does the advantage of the first sentence lie in?

2.What did the newcomer look like? What stylistic devices make the man's description vivid? Give your commentary for every case.

3.Which sentences prove that the narrator had a very rich imagination? Whom did the narrator associate the newcomer with? How is the association achieved?

4.Enlarge upon the role of similes in the given extract.

5.What compositional device rounds up the second paragraph? Specify the synonyms which intensify the effect.

6.Why did the narrator try to sound humorous in the third paragraph of the extract?

7.How are further events likely to develop? Support your view-

point.

8.Is bigamy a crime? What's your attitude to it?

Rachel and I turned to find a tall blond man standing on the pavement outside, shuffling uncomfortably from one foot to the other as if he were more than ready to move on. The collar of a purplish check shirt appeared above the neck of his fur-lined leather jacket, and his jeans, which had seen better days, were stuffed inside the legs of what looked like size fourteen cowboy boots. All he needed to complete his appearance was a corck-dangled hat and a can of lager.

"I think I'll be on my way," Rachel said. She leaned over and kissed me on the check. And she ran off down the steps. The man smiled pleasantly as she passed him, and doffed the invisible hat. I followed her down the steps and asked what he might want with Lizzie. He hooked his thumbs through his jeans loops, as if trying to give himself a confidence he was clearly far from feeling, and leaned against the pillar of the porch. I listened in stupefied silence as this stranger, who had appeared out of the darkness on a cold and windy March night, told me

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who he was, and why he was looking for my sister-in-law. I was dumbfounded. I was astonished. In the end I asked him to wait, and went inside to fetch Henry, Lizzie's husband.

I let him take a good look at the man standing at the door before I made the introduction. "Henry Clive, meet John Roseman. Or should I put it another way. Henry, meet Lizzie's husband."

From Rage of Angels by Sidney Sheldon

1.Read the extract below and state whether it is narration, description or exposition. Is it the first-person, the third-person or anonymous?

2.Consider how Mary Beth Warner is portrayed by the author:

a)Is she presented in a negative or positive light?

b)What means of characterization does the author resort to for the purpose?

c)What stylistic devices does he select to achieve the effect?

d)Group the epithets used in the extract and say what purpose they serve.

e)How does the setting contribute to the description of Mary Beth Warner?

f)What is the role of the last sentence of the extract?

The following morning, Jennifer drove out the Saw Mill River Parkway, headed upstate. It was a crisp, clear morning, a lovely day for a drive. Jennifer turned on the car radio and tried to forget her nervousness about the meeting facing her.

The Warner house was a magnificently preserved house of Dutch origin, overlooking the river at Croton-on-Hudson, set on a large estate of rolling green acres. Jennifer drove up the driveway to the imposing front entrance. She rang the bell and a moment later the door was opened by an attractive woman in her middle thirties. The last thing Jennifer had expected was this shy southern woman, who took her hand, gave her a warm smile and said, "I'm Mary Beth. Adam didn't do you justice. Please come in."

Adam's wife was wearing a beige wool skirt that was softly full, and a silk blouse opened just enough to reveal a mature but still lovely breast. Her beige-blond hair was worn long and slightly curling about

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her face, and was flattering to her blue eyes. The pearls around her neck could never be mistaken as cultured. There was an air of old-world dignity about Mary Beth Warner.

The interior of the house was lovely, with wide, spacious rooms filled with antiques and beautiful paintings.

A butler served tea in the drawing room from a Georgian silver tea service.

2.3. Checking your progress

The fragments in this section have no helping questions, which mean that it is time for you to use your own analytical thinking and skills. Still to give you further guidance, we offer a scheme of extract analysis; besides, the most important elements in these fragments are printed in italics.

Scheme of Extract Analysis

1.Give general information about the extract. Say what or who is described/portrayed, where, when or under what circumstances.

2.See if the extract/fragment can be divided into logical parts. Say what is presented in each item.

3.State how many characters are involved in the narration. Come out with as much information about them as you can, making the best of the hints and clues of the extract.

4.Say whether the extract is a description/narration/exposition.

5.Analyse the opening sentence of the extract. Say whether it's advantageous (disadvantageous) to start the description (narration, exposition) that way.

6.Exemplify he details, which create the general mood of the ex-

tract.

7.Specify the described situation and say what expressive means plunge the reader into the atmosphere in question or help him to vividly visualize the character(s).

8.Group the tropes and figures of speech used by the author in accordance with the image(s) (the mood) they create or the situation(s) (the environment, the characters' inner state, etc.) they describe.

9.Speak on the symbolic function of images or symbolic implications evoked by certain words/ phrases/etc.

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10.Say whether the extract is (characters are) presented statically or dynamically.

11.Note rhythmical sentences and dwell upon the effect they

produce.

12.Speak on the role of syntax in creating certain effects.

13.Dwell upon the peculiarities of the extract:

a)Say what method of character drawing is used in the extract (direct or indirect) and support your opinion with some evidence from the extract;

b)Account for the personal touch of the author, if any;

c)Note the style and language peculiarities, if they are striking;

d)Express you own vision of the problem(s) raised, or analyze the character(s) behaviour in thought-provoking or didactic fragments.

From Whispers by Dean Koontz

She wanted to lean back and drink lots of icy Dom Perignon and let happiness consume her, but she could not totally relax. She was always sharply aware of that spectral darkness at the edge of things, that crouching nightmare waiting to spring and devour her. Earl and Emma, her parents, had jammed her into a tiny box of fear, had slammed the heavy lid and locked it; and since then she had looked out at the world from the dark confines of that box. Earl and Emma had instilled in her a quiet but ever-present and unshakable paranoia that stained everything good, everything that should be right and bright and joyful.

From Needful Things by Stephen King

Norris sat behind an old IBM electric typewriter, working on a report with the agonized, breathless concentration only Norris could bring to paperwork. He would stare fixedly at the machine, then abruptly lean forward like a man who has been punched in the belly, and hit the keys in a rattling burst. He remained in his hunched position long enough to read what he had written, then groaned softly. There was a click-rap! click-rap! click-rap! Sound of Norris using the IBM's CorrecTape to back over some error (he used one CorrecTape per week, on

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the average), and then Norris would straighten up. There would be a pregnant pause, and then the cycle would repeat itself. After an hour or so of this, Norris would drop the finished report into Sheila's IN basket. Once or twice a week these reports were even intelligible.

From Rising Sun by Jeffrey Archer

There, by the windows, 1 saw the familiar figure of Willy Wilhelm, known to everyone as Weasel Wilhelm. Willy's narrow, ferretlike face was at this moment composed into a mask of smiling attentiveness as he joked with a blond girl sitting before a terminal.

Most organizations had a person like the Weasel: somebody who is more ambitious than scrupulous, somebody who finds a way to make himself useful to the powers that be, while being roundly hated by everyone else. That was the case with Weasel Wilhelm.

Like most dishonest people, the Weasel believed the worst about everybody. He could always be counted on to portray events in their most unflattering light, insisting that anything less was a cover-up. He had a nose for human weakness and a taste for melodrama. He cared nothing for the truth of any situation, and he considered a balanced appraisal weak. As far as the Weasel was concerned, the underlying truth was always strong stuff. And that was what he dealt with.

The other reporters at the Times despised him.

From Sinners by Jackie Collins

He stood and watched the car thread its way slowly back among the traffic. Foolish little girls. Was that really the only reason they went out with him? Did they honestly believe that he could be used to get them into the movies? How many times he had heard it now? How many different ways. The direct approach: “Do you think you could get me a screen test?” the oblique hint: “I’ve always wanted to act.” The actress’s approach: “My agent says I’m perfect for the girl’s part in your next film.”

Suddenly she was afraid of some dark potential she couldn’t define: afraid of losing control of herself, blacking out, and later coming to her senses, thereupon discovering she had done something terrible… something unspeakable. […]

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Martie opened the curbside door, helped Susan into the red Saturn, and then went around and got in the driver’s seat.

Rain drummed on the roof, a cold and hollow sound that brought hoofbeats to mind, as though the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death – were approaching at full gallop along the nearby beach.

2.4. Revision

This section gives you a chance to illustrate your acquired skills of extract analysis without any help. Here you are to come out with your own interpretation the way you see it.

From Bleak House by Charles Dickens

It is the long vacation in the regions of Chancery Lane. The good ships Law and Equity, those teak-built, copper-bottomed, iron-fastened, brazen-faced, and not by any means fast-sailing Clippers, are laid up in ordinary. The Flying Dutchman, with a crew of ghostly clients imploring all whom they may encounter to peruse their papers, has drifted, for the time being. Heaven knows where. The Courts are all shut up, the public offices lie in a hot sleep, Westminster Hall itself is a shady solitude where nightingales might sing, and a tenderer class of suitors than is usually found there, walk., offices at anchor, idle clerks lounging on lop-sided stools that will not recover their perpendicular until the current of Term sets in, lie high and dry upon the ooze of the long vacation. Outer doors of chambers are shut up by the score, messages and parcels are to be left at the Porter's Lodge by the bushel. A crop of grass would grow in the chinks of the stone pavement outside Lincoln's Inn Hall, but that the ticket-porters, who have nothing to do beyond sitting in the shade there, with their white aprons over their heads to keep the flies off, grub it up and eat it thoughtfully.

From The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence

They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves,

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there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave.

He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers.

And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together.

From Wild Flowers by Erskine Caldwell

The mockingbird that had perched on the roof top all night, filling the clear cool air with its music, had flown away when the sun rose. There was silence as deep and mysterious as the flat sandy country that extended mile after mile in every direction. Yesterday’s shadows on the white sand began to reassemble under the trees and around the fence posts, spreading on the ground the lacy foliage of the branches and the fuzzy slabs of the wooden fence.

The sun rose in leaps and bounds, jerking itself upward as though it were in a great hurry to rise above the tops of the pines so it could shine down upon the flat country from there to the Gulf.

Inside the house the bedroom was light and warm. Nellie had been awake ever since the mockingbird had left. She lay on her side with one arm under her head. Her other arm was around the head beside her on the pillow. Her eyelids fluttered. Then for a minute at a time they didn’t move at all. After that they fluttered again, seven or eight or nine times in quick succession. She waited as patiently as she could for Vern to wake up.

From The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

You may see her now, as she walks down the favourite turning, and enters the Deeps by a narrow path through a group of Scotch firs – her tall figure and old lavender-gown visible through an hereditary black-silk shawl of some wide-meshed net-like material; and now she is

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