Основы интерпретации художественного текста (на материале английского языка). Учебно-методическое пособие
.pdfdescribes each detail of the statue of the Happy Prince with such delight and admiration that it is not difficult for the reader to feel his attitude to the character:
―…he was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt‖, ―…he was very much admired indeed…he is as beautiful as a weathercock‖
In this description Wilde uses simile to show his beauty: ―he looks just like an angel‖. The introductory part introduces us with a little Swallow and his lady-love – ―the most beautiful Reed‖. The author uses the superlative degree to show us, readers, the strong feeling of the
Swallow towards the Reed. The most significant in this part is the description of the Swallow‘s and Reed‘s meeting:
―He had met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her… So he flew round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples‖.
Wilde uses such epithets to show the beauty of the nature and the Reed (in this fairy-tale the Reed is a living creature):
―I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind‖.
There is a beautiful metaphor in this sentence ―she is always flirting with the wind‖ with the help of which the author shows us the main feature of the Reed – she is light-minded.
To the complications we can refer the next part of the text, where the Swallow was trying to seek a shelter for the night and chose finally the Statue:
―I have a golden bedroom‖, using these words the author again emphasizes the beauty and greatness of The Happy Prince. Through the following actions of characters we can understand their inner world: the Happy Prince gave everything he had to their poor people and the Swallow helped the Prince in it until it‘s death.
To my mind, there are two climaxes in this story. The first one we observe when ―a large drop of water fell on Swallow‖. Here a reader can guess that it was The Prince‘s tear. But why is he crying? He is so beautiful and rich. No one could imagine that The Happy Prince isn‘t happy.
The second climax we can observe when The Prince asks the Swallow to pluck out his eyes, so he would becomes blind.
There are plenty of stylistic devices in this story, and I want to give some examples of their usage. For instance, the author uses a repetition ―I will stay with you always‖ to show the Swallow‘s devotion to the Prince.
Also in the extract: ―He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and catch gold fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their hands; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palmtree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies‖ we can observe a case of using parallel constructions, which helps the author to show all the interesting things Swallow could have seen if he wouldn‘t have stayed with The Prince. Also we can meet a case of anaphora here:
―Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the poor, and the children's faces grew rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street‖. The writer uses it in order to show us that The Prince sacrifices all his gold and beauty to his poor people, without any regrets.
―Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets looked as if they were made of silver, they were so bright and glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers hung down from the eaves of the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the little boys wore scarlet caps and skated on the ice‖. In this little extract we can observe a case of anadiplosis, metaphor, and simile. With the help of these stylistic devices the author shows us, on the one hand, the beauty of the nature, and, on the other hand the hardness of the weather which is fatal to the little bird.
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Also in his story the author uses alliteration ―There is no Mystery so great as Misery‖, where the repetition of the sound [m] is used in order to express all the sorrow and bitterness of reality.
While reading the story we can also notice that the writer uses asyndeton ―the poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave the Prince, he loved him too well‖, the omission of ‗because‘ makes this phrase independent and it draws the readers‘ attention to its significance.
―I am going to the House of Death‖, in this sentence we observe a case of euphemism, with the help of which the author shows us, on the one hand, the tragedy and bitterness towards the Swallow, and, on the another hand, a worthy death, a death of benefactor.
In this story we can see also a hyperbole ―dreadfully hard frost‖, which gives us an impression of the difficulties which felt the little Swallow while helping The Prince in doing Good.
―…how shabby the Happy Prince looks‖, ―…he is little better than a beggar!‖, ―…as he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful‖, all these sentences express an antithesis to the beginning of the story and to the image of Prince. The writer uses it to show us, readers, how the
Happy Prince has turned into a ―shabby beggar‖ because of his kindness and self-sacrifice.
In the end of the story the author uses irony: ―We must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die here‖ to emphasize the meanness and foolishness of the Government‘s representative .
To my mind, the denouement in this story began with the words of the Swallow: ―Good-bye, dear Prince!...It is not to Egypt that I am going...I am going to the House of Death‖. Here one can feel the bitter sorrow and grief, and regret, and…
The atmosphere of the whole story is sad and cheerless: disappointment in love, conscience of guilt, death…all this make the reader think about the Good which any person should do in this world but not always does. But in the end of the story we find out the message, which the author wanted to tell us, - the Good will win the Evil in any case, so the author wants every person not to forget about the people around him and try to be good and helpful.
Vanyan Elena
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The analysis of the text
“The Lady’s Maid”
The story I‘m going to comment on is written by Katherine Mansfield (14 October 1888 –
9 January 1923). She is well-known as a prominent modernist writer of short fiction. Among her most famous stories are "The Garden Party," "The Daughters of the Late Colonel", "The
Woman at the Store" (1912), "How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped" (1912), and «Millie" (1913). I‘m going to deal with one of the most remarkable and interesting stories of the author
which is titled ―The Lady` s Maid‖. According to it we can easily guess that text is about a maid
– a personal servant to a lady. It also shows a close attachment, relationship between the lady and her maid. The author attracts our attention to it. The title seems to foreshadow the contents of the story, that‘s why it has topical (thematical) function.
The most obvious characteristic of Mansfield‘s style is its objective, impersonal quality. The author does not comment upon her personages: she makes them act, speak, think – and lets the readers judge by themselves. At times her stories are all dialogues, or all inner monologues, or just a bare outline of facts accompanied by faithfully reproduced flow of character‘s emotions and ideas. ―The Lady`s Maid‖ is also based on this unique and original method. This story is represented in a single monologue spoken by a lonely old maid. She is glad to relieve her feelings, emotions, and life reminiscence, and we do not hear the author‘s voice in the story.
The theme of the given text deals with the feeling of hopeless, loneliness the possibility of finding relief and sympathy – the main problem of thousands of people living in our world which is rather indifferent to our sufferings and sorrows. We can easily observe it through the character of the poor lady‘s maid: through her deep emotional experience, which author brilliantly depicts to us. Mansfield fully possesses the art of making a few pages go very far in enabling the reader not only to enter into the most intimate feelings of her heroine but to visualize all the stages of her life. The image of a maid is a generalized character or personification of number of people dealing with such problems. Through the whole story we hear an uninterrupted monologue of maid Ellen and nothing but silence in response-Neither words of sympathy and understanding, nor questions. Just only one lonely person‘s speech.
The author conveys his message through the system of images. Images are the result of the author‘s life, observations, his generalizations and his imagination. The images are presented through actions, speech and through analyses of motives. The main character - Ellen who is also protagonist in the story is realistic and vivid. Her speech is full of expressiveness and emotions. She gives a vivid description of everything what took place in her life. At the beginning of the story she talks us about her way of making a cup of tea for her lady: “…I always make a cup of tea last thing. She drinks it in bed after her prayers to warm her up. I put the kettle on when she kneels down and say to it, Now you needn`t be too much of a hurry to say your prayers… ‖
According to this abstract we can say that Ellen is very diligent and is perfect in carrying out her duties.
To my mind, one of the most interesting and important moments of the story is when Ellen tells us about her and Harry‘s relations. She says nothing about her love to him or any other emotions and feelings, but says that they were going to marry. It‘s impossible to say nothing about her deep emotional excitement when she tells us about the gifts he brought to her: ―…a ducky little brooch – a silver bird it was, with a chain in its beak, and on the end of the chain a heart with a dagger. Quite a thing! ” The circumstantial admiration with which the heroine dwells on all the particulars speaks about her sorrow at having given up this treasure. The epithets ―ducky” (some of vulgarism for ―darling‖) and ―quite the thing‖ (the ―right and proper thing ―) also reveal the depth of her feeling for the giver of his wonderful present.
Ellen unconsciously remembers details of her behavior on that occasion and we can feel the intensity of her suffering: ―I ran out into the road just as I was, in my apron and my horseshoes, and there I stayed in the middle of the road …staring.” She does not understand how much she has missed! Her story of a life is wasted of a selfish woman is told in the most cheerful and
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unassuming manner which only sharpens the readers pity for her. Ellen can‘t govern her fait which is painfully sad.
But on the other hand we see that Ellen calls her situation as calling for laughter
(―People must have laughed if they saw me‖). She doesn‘t feel herself as a heroine of the tragedy and the sadness of her fate is realized by the reader more painfully.
Another very interesting episode is when the heroine recollects a piece of childish foolishness – she speaks of her great longing for a ride on a donkey. Ellen remembers all the details of the donkey‘s appearance, including all the details such as colour, and ribbons. She uses such tender epithets as: little, gentle, soft, neat, sad, lovely, and silver-grey (―silver grey - metaphor‖). Through them the author wanted to show the strength of Ellen‘s wish. She calls this story funny, but we see that she was unhappy and was suffering: (―I do want to go on a donkey! I do want a donkeyride!”). Author uses ―do‖ in order to emphasize the emotions and the strong longing.
In this abstract we also can observe that the author uses in the sentence:‖ But all the rest of the day it was donkeys – donkeys on the brain with me.” the anadiplosis in order to convey the emotional excitement of the heroine.
Speaking about other expressive means in the text we could hardly avoid noticing the big number of similes (“soft - like hair”, “as white as a woman”) and comparisons (―just like a child‖, “I was just like the little monkey”). They are always giving some emotive meanings to a new understanding of the subject. Using them the author helps the readers to imagine the development of the plot, feeling deeply all the heroine‘s emotions and moods.
The presence of anaphora in the text (“she was never dangerous; she was the sweetest old lady”, “I’ve lost it; I’ve lost it”) and such repetitions as (“…Only the last year, madam. Only after she’s got a little – well feeble as you might say», «Find it for me, Ellen. Find it for me”). They are used by the author in order to show the state of mind of the speakers when they are under the stress of strong emotion.
The detachment which can be observable in the sentence (―When I opened the doorbelieve me or not, madamthat man was gone”) also shows us Ellen‘s emotional state. The interpolated “believe me or not‖ is logically all wrong: why should it be hard to believe that a man who has just had the door slammed in his face should have gone away? But to Ellen, who has crushed the strongest impulses of her own heart to slam that door, it seems incredible that the man, whom she loves so much, could have taken her words at their ―face-value‖ and left her. She believes against the common-sense that he can‘t have gone and expected her interlocutor to be as amazed as she has been on finding he has gone. There is a long tale of her halfconscious longings and hopes in that short “believe me or not‖.
The author‘s intension, the main underlying thought of this novel is that Ellen strictly believes in her mistress‘s inborn superiority, and in her own destination to serve and humour her to her dying day. Ellen is quite certain that the balance of ―my lady‘s‖ comfort against her own life‘s happiness is a very fair one. She sees everything in the wrong light – in ―false perspective‖.
The message of the story has a psychological meaning and involves the readers into a deep thinking. The author puts a question: Is it worth to sacrifice your happiness and private life in order to devote your life to serve someone? I think everyone would say that it‘s not worthy, and Ellen is erred in her faith. She is naive and silly. The reader can feel pity for her but, maybe, she sees her assignment and destiny in it?
The end of the story is also deeply significant to the maid‘s sad tale seems less important to the lady, than her own comfort. Ellen is really lonely in her life. She gets the lady‘s ingratitude in return of her self – sacrifice. But it is her life and she has lost her chance to make it better.
In this story the words are used in their direct meaning. Such words as a ―she‘s too good‖, ―the sweetest lady‖, ―poor grandfather‖ reflect the feelings of the heroine, her attitude to the people she describes.
One has to keep in mind that the language of a firstperson narrative requires careful attention because it is a means of representing the world through the eyes of that character. It
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reflects Ellen‘s outlook, her psychology. That is why this story concerns deep psychological thinking.
The story sounds a little depressing to my mind. It is sentimental and, at first sight, seems plain, but it includes a deep and serious problem of person‘s loneliness on the one hand and selfishness on the other hand.
Alkhazova A. V.
The analysis of some genres of poetry
Among various literary genres I decided to speak about such genre as poetry.
Everyday we hear at list a couple of songs on a radio, TV and even at streets. Primary we do not pay attention to deep sense of its words and do not try to decode the information the author wants us to comprehend and realize.
At the first sight it seems that song is nothing but the rhyme, metre and rhythm but it is not correct. The rhyme is just the visual top of its form.
The combination of certain sounds can make a great psychological and emotional impression. And even separate sounds may awake certain ideas, feelings and images.
Analyzing lyric poetry using as a textual part of songs we can find definite usage of expressive means and stylistic devices according to the genre of music. Let‘s research such music genres as ballad, nu-metal, alternative and gothic rock, pop and find out main features and peculiarities of lyrics typical for each style.
Ballad style
Ballad style is a genre where the author can use the language which is rich in epithets and metaphors and have no opportunity to use colloquial words
I live my life in chains Got my hands in chains
And I can't stick with the cards That I got with a deal
And you can easily gamble your life away
Second after second and day by day You play the game or you walk away It's a new turn on a blue day
I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art But that's not the shape of my heart
On the syntactical level we can find many cases of using parallel structure, antithesis, gradation, rhetoric questions.
Alternative rock
At the following episode the author creates the atmosphere of sorrow and grief by using noise constrictive consonants. Moreover such alliteration make us feel gusts of the wind and frequency of that sound helps us to imagine sounds of raindrops falling on the window glass:
Step out the door and it feels like rain
That's the sound that's the sound on your window pane Take to the streets but you can't ignore
That's the sound that's the sound you're waiting for
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Alliteration here is generally regarded as a musical accompaniment of the author‘s idea, supporting it with melancholy emotional atmosphere which each listener feels.
Further the author uses repetition and we understand that he expresses force of his emotions in that way and want us to feel his tension:
You feel that your will starts crashing down whenever your will starts crashing down whenever your will starts crashing down that‘s when you find me.
Thus the listener‘s attention is held and his interest kept up. This device is effective in more than one way. It helps the listener to find the only logical conclusion in each line and the end of a line is especially emphatic so we can say that psychological effect is aimed.
Yeah God love your soul and your aching bones Take a breath, take a step, maybe down below Everyone's the same my fingers to my toes
We just can't get a ride but we're on the road Lost till you're found
Swim till you drown Know that we all fall down
Love till you hate Jump till you break
Know that we all fall down
We all fall down, all fall down, all fall down
Pop
Observing this style we can notice often use of elements of colloquial speech on the lexical level:
I wanna kiss you
But if I do then I might miss you babe
The emotional element can be strongly enforced by emphatic intonation, which is indispensable component of emotional utterance. The most frequently used means for this style are question forms with an exclamatory meaning expressing amazement, indignation, excitement, enjoyment and short forms of modal verbs:
Guess he wants to play, Wants to play A love game A love game
Hold me and love me
Just want touch you for a minute
Baby three seconds is enough for my heart to quit Let's play a love game,
Play a love game
Do you want love or you want fame? Are you in the game?
Dans le love game?
The story of us it always starts the same With a boy and a girl and a game!
As we can see in this episode alliteration in this case can be based on using voiced sonorant consonants m, n, ɳ, and open, long vowels and diphthong ei which helps to increase the feelings of joy, happy, love, etc.
Nu-Metal
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For making atmosphere of aggressive feelings, rapid actions, emotional heat authors use abundance of sounds r, t, d, m, n on the phonetical level and enumeration, suspense and gradation on the syntactical level:
I will disappear
I told you once and I'll say it again I want my message read clear
I'll show you the way, the way I'm going I was almost there
Just a moment away from becoming unclear Ever get the feeling you're gone
I'll show you the way, the way I'm going So I run, and hide and tear myself up I'll start again with a brand new name And eyes that see into infinity
I will disappear
This style, as we can see doesn‘t abound in lexical expressive means and stylistic devices because there is no need to draw a romantic or fiction atmosphere.
Gothic rock
In the lyrics of this style we always can find syntactical expressive means and stylistic devices such as inner speech and the rhetorical questions. Mainly it can be represented as a pray: My God my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
My wounds cry for the grave My soul cries for deliverance Will I be denied?
Christ tourniquet my suicide
The main means of gothic style on the lexical level are interjections and exclamatory words and the epithets (phrase epithets mainly) and of course we can‘t deal here without personification.
On phono-graphical lever an author who creates in this genre often use the alliteration based on using such sounds as: [i, i:, u, u:, e, əu, ə, ε, εu] and constrictive consonants such as [s, z, f, v, h].
The author in this case always describes himself and the listener always feels everything through the author‘s eyes.
So as we see each genre can be represented by author‘s using of the certain set of expressive means and stylistic devices on its different levels for making necessary psychological and emotional effect on the audience. Foregrounding is the main mean of author‘s creating and expressing his inner world and often the author‘s message is not presented directly. That‘s why authors convey their thoughts through the different genres with their ability to make different impression on the recipient.
Selina Korol
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The analysis of the text “The Gift of the Magi”
O. Henry is a pseudonym of William Sydney Porter American short-story writer whose tales romanticized the commonplace — in particular the life of ordinary people in New York City. His stories expressed the effect of coincidence on character through humour, grim or ironic, and often had surprise endings, a device that became identified with his name and cost him critical favour when its vogue had passed.
Henry's first collection, ―Cabbages And Kings‖ appeared in 1904. The second, ―The Four Million‖, was published two years later and included his well-known stories ―The Gift of the Magi‖ and ―The Furnished Room‖. ―The Trimmed Lamp‖ (1907) included ―The Last Leaf‖. Henry's best known work is anthologized ―The Ransom of Red Chief‖, included in the collection ―Whirligigs‖ (1910). ―The Heart of the West‖ (1907) presented tales of the Texas range. O.
Henry published 10 collections and over 600 short stories during his lifetime.
"The Gift of the Magi" is one of O. Henry's most famous stories, and displays all of the major O. Henry traits in abundance, including poor, working-class characters, realistic detail, and a twist ending. A major reason given for its enduring appeal is its affirmation of unselfish love. Such love, the story and its title suggest, is like the gifts given by the wise men, called magi, who brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the newborn Jesus.
James Dillingham Young and his wife Delia are a young couple who are very much in love with each other, but can barely afford their one-room apartment due to their very bad economic situation. For Christmas, Delia decides to buy Jim a chain which costs 21 dollars for his prized pocket watch given to him by his father. To get enough money, she has her long and beautiful hair cut off and sold to make a wig. Meanwhile, Jim decides to sell his watch to buy Delia a beautiful set of combs made out of tortoiseshell and jewels for her lovely, knee-length brown hair. Although each is disappointed to find the gift they chose rendered useless, each is pleased with the gift they received, because it represents their love for one another.
The author focuses on the universal themes of love, generosity, wealth, and poverty in the story. Poverty is the main theme in the story. However, Porter uses comparisons of those wealthier than the young family to emphasize pathetic description of their poverty.
Any story that concentrates on gift-giving as its major plot-line must deal with the concept of generosity. Nevertheless, the author is interested in something deeper than superficial generosity of giving a gift. He is interested in generosity born out of a love so deep that it transcends reason or wisdom. Love, such as we see between Jim and Delia.
To my mind, the message author wants to bring us is that the most valuable concept in our life is sincere, pure love for the sake of which people can sacrifice the dearest.
The story is a 3rd person narration which is broken by philosophical digressions based on biblical allusions. It is written in a touching mood, the sentimental warmth almost shines through the story.
The story has it‘s composition. The exposition with the introductory part acquaints the reader with the characters and their way of life. A great number of simple and complex metaphors such as: ―cheeks burned with the imputation of parsimony‖; ―life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating‖ (the phrase also acquires a desired phonetic effect due to alliteration); ―not beggar description, but it had that word on the look-out for the mendicancy squad‖; ―the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred‖ show us that the young family is rather poor. This statement is baked up by the repetition through all text that Delia could save only
―one dollar and eighty-seven cents‖ to buy a present for her Jim. We get a better understanding of their poverty when we witness Delia‘s embarrassment. She must haggle for every household purchase to save sixty cents worth of pennies and she is ashamed of the necessity and the poverty it indicates.
Delia`s dreams about the present are also spiced with some stylistic devices: repetition — ―a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard‖ involves the reader into the dull spirit of the
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character; grammatical metaphor — ―many a happy hour‖ as well has an evaluative connotation; gradation — ―something nice, something fine and rare and sterling‖ and metaphor — ―being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim‖ denote what a unique present her husband deserves.
The exposition gradually turns into the first complication that reveals the reader 2 main possessions of the young family ―which they both took a mighty pride‖. Here we can observe two Biblical allusions, both made in connection with Jim and Delia's prize possessions. Delia's hair is said to be so gorgeous that it would inspire envy in the Queen of Sheba. Jim's watch would have been the envy of King Solomon and would have made him ―pluck at his beard‖.
Both the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon are famous figures from the Old Testament. The magnificence of Delia‘s hair is supported by some stylistic devices: simile — ―a cascade of brown waters‖, metonymy — ―hair almost made a garment for her‖. Here comes the second complication — Delia makes up her mind to sell her hair. ―On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat‖ — inversion together with repetition provide the perception of Delia‘s actions as a chain of mechanical movements. The author uses periphrasis ―brown cascade‖ to show at the last time all the beauty of the hair. In my opinion, there is an opposition of old brown clothes to the splendid brown cascade which becomes impregnated with concrete meaning.
Recounting about the other possession the originator resorts to capital letters furthermore compares the watch with it‘s owner: ―It was like him. Quietness and value — the description applied to both‖ — that is evident personification representing the worth that the watch offers to Jim.
We are coming closer to the culminating part of the story while Delia ―is repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love‖. This metaphor is baked up by the ensuing gradation
— ―a tremendous task, a mammoth task‖, both of which produce a certain sense of a victim made for the purpose to buy the present. Author‘s narration changes to represented inner speech.
The vocabulary becomes more colloquial and more emotional. The writer uses such stylistic devices as antonomasia — ―I look like a Coney Island chorus girl‖; rhetorical question — ―What could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?‖ to heighten the inner excitement of the girl.
The climax begins when Jim comes home. The simile — ―as a setter at the scent of quail‖ and the gradation — ―It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for‖ arouse in the mind of the reader the actions of Jim‘s morale and indicates the importance of this passage thus making it the logical and emotional centre of the discourse. After several attempts to make Jim understand that she cut off her hair, Delia desperately cries out to her husband — ―maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,‖ she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?" The first utterance, which is known in linguistics as back gradation, shows the bitterness and hopelessness. Her hair could not be returned back like a thing. But she continues with a sudden calmness that is proved by the alliteration of the silent tranquil [s].
Lyrical digression helps the reader to distract from the couple and think of the other question that in any case leads to the allusion.
The denouement of the story comes when Delia gives Jim her present and he says that he has sold his watch.
Porter ties up the story with a homily that does full homage to our understanding of the Magi. So there are three Biblical allusions in the text with royal, very rich Biblical figures. The magi are often said to be kings, and brought Jesus three very expensive gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh), while Sheba and Solomon were both powerful monarchs renowned for their wealth and splendor. The comparison of Jim and Delia's possessions to those of Biblical figures helps bring out how precious those two items are to their owners; to Jim and Delia they're treasures, which they give away. But that's not all the images of Solomon and Sheba do. By bringing them up, and by mentioning the magi, O. Henry creates a sharp contrast between their spectacular riches and the obvious poverty and Jim and Delia. Jim and Della are as rich as Solomon, the
Queen of Sheba, and the magi, because they love each other.
Balyuk I.
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The analysis of the text
“Cat in the rain”
The story that I`m going to analyze is written by Hemingway. This is the sample of emotive prose, is a short story "Cat in the rain". It has been chosen because it is suggestive and contains a definite psychological implication. The story is interesting from the point of view of the author's approach to conveying the main idea to the mind of the reader. It is always implicit and remains unspoken. It is the reader himself who should find it behind the simple, at first sight, description of the events.
Hemingway presents only sequence of outward actions and leaves the reader to imagine more than the words themselves can convey. This is characteristic of Hemingway's manner of writing he is famous for.
The author was born in 1899 in Chicago. His family was rich and well provided. His father‘s democratic views influenced Earnest greatly, but ignorance of bourgeois society lighted up a protest in the writer. The young man early left his family‘s home. Working as a reporter in the newspaper he came in touch with cruelty of American life and decided to go in the Army. Since this time his searches began. He saw lives of different circles, people of different nationalities.
The author let us analyze a lot of characters and events. His literature was his own interests in hunting, love, fishing, military services and so on. Hemingway avoided conventional narration in his stories. He tried to make the reader understand his ideas by sketching in vivid scenes his own experience. The story "Cat in the rain" reflects the writer's approach to life in general. It is about an American couple that is spending their vacations in Italy. The writer leaves the surface comparatively bare: the meaning is plain and simple.
A close study of the story for the purpose of examining its style involves a careful observation and a detailed description of the language phenomena at various levels.
The text of the story is not homogeneous: it is interrupted with the elements of description and the characters‘ dialogues. The writer‘s strong sense of place is revealed by the use of foreignisms: ―Si, si, signora, brutto tempo‖ and so on. The very structure of the story adds to the effect of implication but the actual meaning of what is going on is not clear at the beginning of the story, as the feelings suggested by the writer are not precisely determined. The plot of the story is meant to begin before the narration itself starts. There isn't any preface to the story; the reader knows nothing about the couple‘s past. Hemingway shows his characters in a certain period of their lives - his favorite device.
The story begins with the description of the hotel where they stayed. At first sight everything seems to be ideal: a cozy room on the second floor, lovely view from the window. And only the description of the rain evokes the mood of sadness in the reader. To bring home to the reader this air of melancholy, which is felt when it is raining, the author uses such stylistic device as parallel constructions: "The rain dripped from the palm trees. The water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain ". One can notice that nouns rain, pools, sea belongs to one semantic sphere - the water. This stylistic device is employed by the author to create the atmosphere of inevitability. One cannot hide from the rain. Water is everywhere: it is on the ground, it is pouring from the heavens as though the nature weeps for something. All this pricks the reader's ears and makes him think that something will happen with this American couple. In this abstract the author also resorts to the help of stylistic device known as alliteration, namely the repetition of the sounds -r-and -l-: "Rain dripped from the palm trees, the sea broke in a long line in the rain" which brings the necessary measured rhythm into the utterance. Skillfully combining these three stylistic devices the writer obtains the needed effect: within three sentences he gives an exhaustive picture of one of the melancholic rainy evenings when time goes by so slowly. It is also the syntax that serves for this purpose.
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