Analysis

I have chosen this extract from "Indian Summer of a Forsyte" for the analysis, because it has both philosophical atmosphere and a huge emotional load with a bit of drama and irony in it. The extract takes place shortly after Irene leaves Old Jolyon's house. She bursts into crying while playing the piano, and Old Jolyon soothes her. He also notes that she does not have enough money after Bosinney's death and even ironically blames Bosinney for it. He decides to insert her name into his Will, and in the given extract he thinks whether he should do it or not and why. He finally does.

In this extract, Old Jolyon's thoughts are alternated with the description of nature. We see that "a wind had got up", which symbolizes the storm in Old Jolyon's soul which "got up" in the extract. He is torn apart by two feelings - the admiration of beauty and the sense of property. Earlier he himself says that nowadays, when he is old, beauty is more important for him, and indeed, after the fight with his nature he changes his Will despite the fact that Irene is neither his flesh and blood, nor by any means his property. It is beauty that wins over the sense of property as Irene and Bosinney's love wins over the Forsyte before.

There are many allusions in the extract — to Faust, Socrates, Cleopatra. Faust is opposed to the latter two, because he bartered his soul for several years of youth, which, Old Jolyon realizes, was not possible. Youth is not allowed to buy; you can only enjoy it and beauty from afar. On the other hand, he thinks that Socrates and Cleopatra, two bronze figures on his chimney-piece, which (who?) he thinks will live forever. Because, obviously, they are bronze figures — that is why the author introduces them with a bit of irony, with zeugma, when placing in the one row with a greyhound playing with her puppy. But also they did something in their life, something big that they are famous for. Socrates was a very wise man, he helped other to open their eyes on some phenomenon, and Cleopatra preferred death to the capturing by Rome soldiers. Old Jolyon wants to make something equally important, from his point of view, that is to leave a part of his fortune to a person who is not Forsyte.

Now he has to decide how much money he is going to leave her. This question is repeated throughout the whole second paragraph, which adds dramatic effect to the text. This paragraph represents his fight with a Forsyte thing in himself, and this question divides the parts when one of the sides is winning over the other. At first he is sure, that he is going to include her in the Will, but then he thinks it is a thing "done in dotage", then he reconsiders it, remembering that she visited him for no reward, and, moreover, he has enough money for his Forsyte relatives and for her.

In the third paragraph the fight is gone, he already thinks about the sum. Here he involuntary compares himself to Faust - and, startled by the thought, he changes the Will.

In the last paragraph Old Jolyon returns to the window. He takes a deep breath and looks outside. The wind has probably disappeared and there shone many stars in the sky. It means that the sky is clear of the clouds, while at the beginning there was only one star. Old Jolyon, on his turn, found peace in his soul, the heavy clouds of his doubts vanished.

By comparing Old Jolyon's soul and the weather outside, Galsworthy adds a huge emotional load in the text. The repetition of 'How much?' is here for the same purposes. Many epithets and the diverse structure of narration — short simple ellipsed sentences and long complex and compound ones, exclamations— all show the turmoil in his thoughts.

There is difficult not to notice the specks of irony. Along with the abovementioned zeugma, there is also personification of the painting that Old Jolyon was standing in front of at the beginning ‘Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset’. It did not answer to his question, so he decided to ask the window.

In this extract the author lets us know how important beauty is. It can even subjugate the sense of property.