Analysis of Text № 11

The text “The Man They Couldn’t Draft”is written by a famous American author Mike Quin who began his literary work in the newspaper (“The Western Worker”) that was published in San Francisco. The he becomes an active contributor of newspapers“Daily People’s World” and“Daily Worker”. Novels and essays that were published in these newspapers formed two books by Mike Quin:“Dangerous Thoughts”, 1940 and“More Dangerous Thoughts”, 1941.Theodore Driser gave a high estimate to Mike Quin’s creative work in the preface to the collection “More Dangerous Thoughts”.

The title of the story is not too difficult for comprehension because it is possible to understand that the man must be drafted. But on the other hand we have one more question:“Drafted for what?”It will be cleared out in the process of working at the text.

The text belongs to a belles-lettres style and to social and psychological jenres because it describes social conditions and the main character’s behaviour and personal attitude towards them. So, we can see that the action takes place at military time. The story also reveals the main character’s inner world and his real nature.

The text is a narrationwith a lot of pieces of dialogues between the main characters (the old sailor whose grandfather turned out to be involved into “those war for the purification of virtue”) and his children on one hand and between the main character’s grandfather and the general on the other one. This story contains some elements ofdescription (ways of the men’s drafting, their characters and way of living). One can find out terms, expressing it. E.g.the files of the names, complete record, a photograph; to run a bicycle repair shop, to have a wife and three small children, to play the violin and to sing; to spend the days boozing in saloons and the evening beating his wife, to support himself by stealing pennies out of the blind men’s cups; a finer man I have ever heard of; to be a contemptible character, mean, irritable, lazy, dishonest, brutal, slovenly and unpunctual.The text also hasan interior monologue and it opens the main personage’s thoughts, feelings and emotions. The author represents the events from the the point of view of the main characters. It is told in the third person. The story is rather colourful, emotional and arresting. All events are consequent and dynamic. The text ends on phylosophical note and can be left for further suggestion. There is a conflict between so-calledcontempible person and the main character sympathizes with him and wants to give him a chance. The mainthemeand the mainidea coincide with each other and disclose such problems that“even the lowest louse is entitled to fair play”and “one can’t shoot a dead man”.

The text under analysis consists of several parts.

The first part, an exposition, is an introductory part, where the main characters, the narrator, his grand father and the general are represented. They are involved into the war. Incomplication the narrator’s grandfather collides with the necessity to draft a man. He thinks how to do it better. Inclimax he decides to give the drafted man a chance to change for the best. The text also containsdenouenment. It revelas an unalterable truth thatone can’t shoot a dead man.

Depending upon the manner in which the text is represented we can speak

about the language of the story from lexical and grammtical point of view. It is emotional and abounds in a lot of informal and colloquial words (drunken stupor, to shoot him down like a dog, the lowest louse, brutal). Theser words lend peculiar tint and vividness and make it even humorous in some degree. The predominant tense is Past Simple but we can also find out another grammatical phenomena (the sequence of tenses, the modal verbs, the gerund, the infinitive, the Present Perfect Tense, the participle, the passive voice and degrees of comparison. E.g.My grandfather, a handsome young man, was drafted. They knew he would continue presently. You can’t shoot a dead man. The old sailor stopped talking and began puffing his pipe. I have no objections at all to shooting him. A finer man I never heard. I have grown him as fond of him as a brother. But in spite of all these phenomena the text doesn’t abound in a lot of complicated sentences and constructions and that’s why one can tell that it is easy for comprehension.