Appendix 1. Plan for text analysis

1. Title.

2. Basic facts about the author (if possible; preferably those that are essential or helpful for the interpretation of the text).

3. Genre of the text: FICTION: short story (humorous, psychological, philosophical, didactic, a problem story etc.; it may also be mixed), fable, parable, fairy-tale, prose poem, sketch etc. NON-FICTION: essay, newspaper article, scientific paper, informational story, memoires, diary, (auto)biography, an account of real events, advertisement etc¹.

4. Subject matter (topic).

5. Plot summary (sequence of events).

6. Composition:

1) the beginning (exposition / introduction)

2) the middle (rising action, complication; crisis, climax, turning-point; falling action)

3) the end (dénouement (outcome), solution, catastrophe, possibly an epilogue).

Composition may be analyzed in terms of conflict development (complication, crisis, confrontation etc.).

Not all texts necessarily have all structural elements. E.g., a story may have no obvious outcome. In this case it has an open structure.

7. Narrator (omniscient narrator, first-person narrator, a character with a set of personal traits who may or may not take part in the action).

8. Character portrayal (direct/indirect/mixed; static/dynamic; flat/round). Description of the characters (portrait, personal traits, development).

9. Central idea.

To support your inferences about the idea of the story you may analyze, apart from the composition and the characters, the title, the conflict, the atmosphere, motifs, general mood and tone (humorous, satiric, tragic, lyrical etc.), style (bookish, colloquial, terse, laconic, poetic etc.), figures of speech (epithet, metaphor, simile, pun, hyperbole, irony, repetitions etc.).

APPENDIX 2. SAMPLE ANALYSIS: TEXT STRUCTURE

Before you read the text look through the plan for text analysis in Appendix 1.

A very dangerous invention

by Max Adeler

(1) A step-ladder is a thing most useful to people who are moving into a new house. The servants find it extremely convenient when they have to wash the windows, to remove the dust from the door and window-frames, and to perform many other household duties; but the master of the house will need it when he hangs his pictures, when he fixes the curtains and when he is asked by his wife to hang a shelf or two in the cellar.

(2) I would, however, warn my fellow countrymen against the thing which is offered to them under the name of Patent Combination Step-ladder. I bought one in the city just before we moved, because the shop assistant showed me how, by simple operation of a set of springs, the ladder could be changed into an ironing-table, and from that into a comfortable settee for the kitchen, and finally back into a step-ladder, if the owner wished. It seemed very tempting to buy three useful things for a single price. So I bought it, but I soon discovered that it was not so useful as I had expected it to be.

(3) On the day of its arrival, the servant used the ladder to remove the globes from the chandelier in the parlour, but while she was engaged in the work the springs unexpectedly began to move, and the machine was changed into an ironing-table, while the maid-servant was thrown down on the floor and lay there with a sprained ankle among the fragments of two globes broken into pieces.

(4) After this unfortunate accident we decided to use the apparatus only as an ironing-table. Probably the thing would have remained an ironing-table, if it had been suitable for this purpose. On the following Tuesday, however, while half a dozen shirts were lying upon it ready to be ironed, someone passed by and knocked against it accidentally. It gave two or three threatening jerks, tore two shirts into rags, hurled the iron out into the yard, and after a few convulsive movements of the spring quietly took the shape of a step-ladder.

(5) Then it became evident that it could be used with a greater safety as a settee, and it was placed in the kitchen in that shape. For a few days we heard no more of it. It gave much satisfaction. But one night when the servant had company the bench was, perhaps, overloaded, for it had another and most alarming paroxysm; there was a trembling of the legs, then a tremendous jump, and one of the visitors was hurled against the range, while the machine turned several somersaults and appeared once more in the shape of an ironing-table.

(6) It has now become so sensitive that it goes through the entire drill very quickly if anyone comes near it or coughs or sneezes close at hand. We keep it in the garret, and sometimes in the middle of the night a rat will run across the floor, or a current of air will pass through the room, and we can hear it dancing over the floor and taking the shape of a ladder, a bench and a table fifteen or twenty times in quick succession.

(7) We are willing to sell the machine for a very small sum. It might be a valuable addition to the collection of some good museum. I am sure it will be more useful as a curiosity than a thing for house-work.