analysis 3 texts

Лингвистический анализ текстов

"The luncheon"

The extract I am going to analyse is taken from the story "The luncheon" written by William Somerset Maugham. The author of the text was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. Maugham's style is clear-cut and elegant. The attitude of the novelist to his character is more to be cynically sarcastic. He likes to play with contrasts and contradictions. His images are disclosed in sarcastic way.

The subject-matter of the text is the problem of humilation and inability to refuse from something harmful. The theme is expressed verbally: "...I was too young to have learned to say "no" to a woman".

The title of the text "The Luncheon" is rather ironical. If we consult a dictionary, we can find out that the word "luncheon" means a "light snack", but as we can see from the narration here a light snack turns to be an abundant and expensive meal.

I’d like to retell he text. The main heroes of the story are the narrator, a book writer, and a woman with whom he had lunch years ago. At the beginning he suddenly remembers the particular incident. She has invited him for a luncheon as she likes his works. He has been shocked at that time because she has chosen almost the most expensive restaurant in Paris but he has just a few coins for the rest of month. She starts to order expensive dishes one by one.

The text represents the first person narration. The author with narrator`s words introduces us a description of situation which is a flash-back to the case which happened 20 years ago and we can see that this flash back becomes an important detail "Did I remember?"

The message of the text is that people should not let fling oneself at their head. To tell the truth, narrator is very poor person so he can hardly “keep body and soul together”. This thought is expressed explicitly by following examples: "Foyot's is a restaurant at which the French senators eat", "I had eighty francs (gold francs), to last me the rest of the month", "If I cut out coffee for the next two weeks, I could manage well enough", "...the prices were a great deal higher than I had anticipated". By the way the main heroe keeps some traditional concepts and he`s educated polite person: "I was flattered, and I was too young to have learned to say "no" to a woman". Just by the time you get it that it`s not possible to be polite with everyone.

The style of the text is simple. The mood of the text is ironical. Irony is presented here in a stressed form, mainly in scene of restaurant. The atmosphere is not homogeneous. It changes from tense to sarcastic atmosphere.

This atmosphere is created through narration, description and dialogues. The dialogue between the narrator and his companion depicts inconsistency of her words with her actions. It is observed through parallel construction: “I never eat anything for luncheon”. – “I never eat more than one thing.”, ” I never eat more than one thing unless caviar”. Obviously it makes the narrator nervous.

The author uses:

1) epithets “little luncheon” and “modest luncheon” (a contradiction with the luxury restaurant Foyot's) - it is used to achieve the ironical effect;

2) hyperbole: “she gave me the impression of having more teeth, white and large and even, than were necessary for any practical purpose" - auther employs this lexical device to stress the hostility of a main heroe;

3) parenthesis "(Few men, I may add, learn this until they are too old...)", (gold francs), -by correspondence- are used for explaining of author's ironical and critical attitude;

4) antithesis "I never eat anything for luncheon", “I never eat more than one thing.”, ” I never eat more than one thing unless caviar” - narrator shows contradictions between woman's behaviour and speech: e.g she repeats "I never eat anything for luncheon", but she eats everything she can.

To summarize the analysis I can say that Maugham in this text gave us a brilliant model of the famous English humour. The language of this sample is simple but elegant and refined. The moral of the story can be briefly descripted by following statement: to say to somebody when you have troubles is normally; delineate your personal boundaries is ok too.

"The Model Millionaire"

"The Model Millionaire" is a short story by the Irish author Oscar Wilde. It first appeared in print in the newspaper The World in June 1887. It was published again in 1891 as part of the anthology Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories.

The story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator and after reading the story the reader realises that Wilde may be exploring the theme of appearance.

The main themes of the short story “The Model Millionaire” by Oscar Wilde are:

1) Wealth;

2) Morality and Beauty;

3) Class consciousness.

I'd like to retell the text. “The Model Millionaire” by Oscar Wilde tells the story of Hughie Erskine. He is a poor young man, who has failed to build a career although he had tried working on the stock market and as a merchant. Hughie is in love with Laura, the daughter of a Colonel. However, the father is against an engagement until Hughie makes 10,000 pounds. One day, Hughie visits his friend Alan Trevor, a painter. At the end of the extract, Alan consolated him with words about power of beauty.

The story “The Model Millionaire” by Oscar Wilde respects the classical style of Oscar Wilde’s writings. It is humorous, light-hearted and sympathetic. The story starts and ends with maxims which make the message of the author very clear to the readers. The language reflects the background of the characters and the style of speaking in the Victorian age. If anything the Colonel is judging Hughie based on his financial status without taking into consideration that Laura loves Hughie. While Laura and Hughie are very much in love and long to marry it is the Colonel who is dictating what will happen. Laura doesn’t appear to have a voice. Which may be important as Wilde could be suggesting that women at the time the story was written may not necessarily have had a voice. Their futures determined by other people. Though some critics might suggest that the Colonel is being practical it is more likely as mentioned that Wilde is placing a spotlight on the rigid and unbending nature of the society that existed at the time.

Literary works are usually composed using certain stylistic devices which make them more appealing to the readership. “The Model Millionaire” makes no exception. Here are some of the most important stylistic devices employed in the text:

1) Imagery (..."he was wonderfully good-looking with his crisp brown hair, his clear-cut profile and his grey eyes") - it shows the positive attitude to the main heroe but does not except the light irony;

2) Aphorisms "Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed", "It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating" - it is bitter sarcasm and it stresses the shortcomings of the society;

3) Overstatements/Hyperboles ("...he was ready to kiss her shoe-strings");

4) Repetition of epithets and key wordsfrom semantic field of the appeareance: delightful, perfect, wonderfully good-looking, handsomest are used, from one hand, to emphasize the narrator's sympathy; from the other hand, the sceptical tone of author is to be read between the lines;

5) Pun, play on words (..."what has a butterfly to do among bulls and bears?", "But he was also an artist, and artists are rather rare")- reflects the humour;

6) Irony ("To make matter worse, he was in love").

In the text offered for analysis we can't see dialogues, author represents only few tenses of heroes speech as a flash-back. From this statement follows that structure of the extract is rather homogenious and style is narrative.

To summarize the analysis I can say that the only heroe which descripted sincerely is the artist Alan Trevor. I think the narrator emphasises the importance of being a professional than to be a good-looking or have a permanent and huge income. The impression from this text was rather sarcastic than sympathetic to the couple of heroes (Hughie and Laura), because of their inner emptiness. This sample has a spirit of irony covered by compassion.

"Gone with the Wind"

The text I'm going to interpret is is extracted from a novel "Gone with the Wind" written by Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. A historical novel, the story is a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, with the title taken from a poem written by Ernest Dowson. Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book in 1937. It was adapted into a 1939 American film. The book is often read or misread through the film. Gone with the Wind is the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.

The story is set in Clayton County, Georgia, and Atlanta during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea.

Mitchell identified the primary theme as survival. In the extract, offered to analyse, reader also can see the love drama of Scarlett.

Margaret Mitchell was imaginative in the use of color symbolism, especially the colors red and green, which surround Scarlett O'Hara.

This renderingis realised through various kinds of prose: narration, description, inner represented speech, remarks and comments. The text has got a complex narrative structure, thus the author demonstrates her flexibility of narrative technique.

The style of the text is emotional. The autor employs following linguistic devices:

1) metaphores ("... the sound of his feet dying away", "lick her wounds", "strong and armed for victory") represented Scarlett's emotional struggle;

2) anaphores ("had she ever... - she would never"; "I won't think of it now") - stresses the excitement and worry about losing of beloved; also "I won't think of it now", "I'll think of it tomorrow" are the leitmotifs of Scarlett during the whole novel;

3) similes ("She thought of Tara and it was as if a gentle cool hand were steeling over the heart", "...she wanted Mammy desperately as she had wanted her when she was a little girl") - author shows the deep sympathy to her main heroine;

4) imagery and epithets ("the avenue of dark cedars, leading to Tara, the banks of cape jessamine bushes, vivid green against the white walls, the fluttering white curtains") - here narrator stresses that Scarlett loves her patrimony so much.

The tone of the text graduates from anxious and bothering to optimistic and enthusiastic. Author makes an accent at unbending character and tenacity of Scarlett.

Summing up the analysis I would like say that this text has a spirit of optimism. The language of Margaret Mitchell is extremely rich, bright, emotional and polished. This story taught never give up, but sometimes be a little more flexible in relations between nearest and dearest.