Checking your progress

The fragments in this section have no helping questions, which means 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 bold type.

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 extract.

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.

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:

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

2. Account for the personal touch of the author, if any;

3. Note the style and language peculiarities, if they are striking;

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

From Whispers by Dean Koontz

She wanted to lean back and drink lots of icy Dom Perignonand let happinessconsumeher, but she could not totally relax. She was always sharply aware of thatspectral darknessat the edge of things, thatcrouching nightmarewaiting tospringanddevourher. Earl and Emma, her parents, hadjammedher intoa tiny box of fear,had slammed the heavy lidandlocked it; and since then she hadlookedoutat the worldfrom the dark confines of that box. Earl and Emma had instilled in her a quiet butever-presentandunshakable paranoiathatstainedeverything good, everythingthat should be rightandbrightandjoyful.

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 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.