From a Word to an Idea. Part 1

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Министерство образования и науки Российской Федерации Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение высшего образования «Оренбургский государственный университет»

О. В. Евстафиади

FROM A WORD TO AN IDEA. PART 1

Рекомендовано ученым советом федерального государственного бюджетного образовательного учреждения высшего образования «Оренбургский государственный университет» в качестве учебного пособия для студентов, обучающихся по программам высшего образования по направлению подготовки 45.03.01 Филология

Оренбург 2016 1

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УДК 811.111(075.8) ББК 81.432.1я73 Е26

Рецензент – кандидат филологических наук, доцент кафедры немецкой филологии и методики преподавания немецкого языка О. П. Симутова

Евстафиади, О. В. Е26 From a word to an idea. Part 1: учебное пособие⁄ О. В. Евстафиади; Оренбургский гос. ун-т. – Оренбург : ОГУ, 2016. – 109 с. ISBN 978-5-7410-1582-7

В учебном пособии представлены отрывки из неадаптированных произведений английских и американских авторов 19-20 веков, задания и упражнения, направленные на развитие навыков аналитического чтения. Учебное пособие предназначено для студентов, обучающихся по программам высшего образования по направлению подготовки 45.03.01 Филология, профиль «Зарубежная филология».

УДК 811.111(075.8) ББК 81.432.1я73

© Евстафиади О. В., 2016 © ОГУ, 2016

ISBN 978-5-7410-1582-7

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Содержание Введение……………………………………………………………………… 1 Unit 1. Literary text as an object of interpretation…………………………… 1.1 Text units and text categories………………………………………………. 1.1.1 An Outline………………………………………………… 1.1.2 Practical tasks………………………………………………………… 1.2 Literary text as a poetic structure………………………………………… 1.2.1 An Outline………………………………………………………………. 1.2.2 Practical tasks…………………………………………………………… 2 Unit 2. Macro-components of a poetic structure……………………………... 2.1 An Outline ………………..………………………………………………. 2.2 Practical tasks…………………………………………………………….. 3 Unit 3. The author’s image …………………………………………….…….. 3.1 Types of narration ………………………………………………..………… 3.1.1 An Outline……………………………………………………..……….. 3.1.2 Practical tasks………………………………………………………....... 3.2 Plot and structural composition ………………………………………….. 3.2.1 An Outline ……………………………………………………………… 3.2.2 Practical tasks…………………………………………………………… 3.3 Narrative-compositional forms …………………………………………... 3.3.1 An Outline………………………………………………………..……... 3.3.2 Practical tasks………………………………………………………....... 3.4 Text categories: modality, the categories of the comic and the tragic…… 3.4.1 An Outline………………………………………………………..……... 3.4.2 Practical tasks…………………………………………………………… 4 Unit 4. Word-imagery. Expressiveness of vocabulary……………..………. 4.1 An Outline………………………………………………………………… 4.2 Practical tasks…………………………………………………………….. Список использованных источников…………...………………………….. Приложение А ………………………………………………………..……... Приложение Б ………………………………………………………..………

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Введение Учебное пособие «From a word to an idea: практикум по интерпретации текста, part 1» предназначено для обеспечения контактной и самостоятельной работы студентов-бакалавров 3 курса в 5 и 6 семестрах очной формы обучения по направлению 45.03.01 Филология, профилю «Зарубежная филология». Целью пособия является систематизация и обобщение теоретического и практического материала по темам «Цель и предмет интерпретации текста. Единицы

текста,

художественного

категории текста»,

Выразительность словаря»

и

типология»,

«Образ

автора»

«Образная

и

«Образ

природа словесный.

в соответствии с разделами 1-4 рабочей

программы дисциплины «Практикум по интерпретации текста». Настоящее литературного

пособие текста

взаимодействующих

как

знакомит

бакалавров

сложного

структурного

элементов,

служащих

с

особенностями

единства

раскрытию

его

системы идейно-

тематического содержания; формирует базовые знания литературоведческого анализа художественного текста, а также умение находить в тексте средства художественной выразительности, развивает навыки прочтения, понимания и комментирования художественных текстов на английском языке (ОПК-3 ФГОС ВО по направлению подготовки 45.03.01 «Филология»). Учебное пособие состоит из четырех разделов «Literary text as an object of interpretation», «Macro-components of a poetic structure», «The author’s image» и «Word-imagery. Expressiveness of vocabulary». Каждый раздел содержит краткий обзор теоретического материала, упражнения, направленные на его закрепление, а также отрывки из неадаптированных произведений английских и американских авторов 19-20 веков, снабженные заданиями и вопросами, которые подготавливают студентов к написанию развернутого комплексного анализа художественного текста.

В приложении в конце пособия дана

примерная схема анализа текста и речевые клише. 4

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Необходимость

разработки

учебного

пособия

обусловлена

потребностью развить навыки изучающего чтения и умения осуществлять всесторонний анализ литературного текста, раскрывая социальную значимость произведения и особенности его стиля.

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1 Unit 1. Literary text as an object of interpretation 1.1 Text units and text categories 1.1.1 An Outline

It is a well-known fact that the reader's appreciation of the book depends upon his personal experience. A literary work that represents the epoch and social / cultural settings familiar to the reader will be more profoundly perceived by him than that of an entirely alien setting. The reader's appreciation of the literary work depends upon his age and education, as well as upon his intellectual and emotional impressionability, the innate ability to share in the attitude of others. The gift of appreciation develops when one gains experience in reading. But he who has, besides, some knowledge of the verbal art laws will more subtly perceive the poetic content than one who lacks such knowledge.

1.

What is text?

Here are three definitions of text given by foreign scholars. There is one definition given by Russian linguist I. R. Galperin. Read them and try to understand what text is, what it consists of and what its characteristic features are. 

"Text. A stretch of language, either in speech or in writing, that is

semantically and pragmatically coherent in its real-world context. A text can range from just one word (e.g. a SLOW sign on the road) to a sequence of utterances or sentences in a speech, a letter, a novel, etc." (Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy, Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006). 

"On the one hand, TEXT may be defined as 'any sequence of sentences

having a certain coherence,' and in this weak sense of the term each folk-tale is a text. On the other hand text may be defined more rigorously as 'any unchangeable sequence of sentences which has a strong cohesion and the unchangeable character of which is related to a value system of some sort'" (Thomas G. Pavel, "Some 6

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Remarks on Narrative Grammars," in Linguistic Perspectives on Literature, ed. by M. K. L. Ching et al. Taylor & Francis, 1980). 

"As a result of a communicative act, a text may be defined as a

relatively independent and hierarchically structured linguistic unit (macrostructure) which reflects a complex state of affairs and has a specific communicative intention. The state of affairs may refer to the real world or to the world of imagination and fiction" (Rosemarie Glaser, "A Plea for Phraseo-Stylistics," in Linguistics Across Historical and Geographical Boundaries, ed. by Dieter Kastovsky and A. J. Szwedek. Walter de Gruyter, 1986). 

Текст – это произведение речетворческого процесса, обладающее

завершенностью,

объективированное

в

виде

письменного

документа

произведение, состоящее из названия (заголовка) и ряда особых единиц (сверхфразовых единств), объединенных разными типами лексической, грамматической, логической, стилистической связи, имеющее определенную целенаправленность и прагматическую установку" [2, с. 18]. According to these definitions we may conclude that text consists of a sequence of utterances (sentences) interconnected semantically, syntactically and pragmatically. 2.

Text units

The basic text unit is called a “supra-phrasal unity” (the term of L. A. Bulakhovsky) or a “complex syntactic unity” (the term of N. S. Pospelov). Supra-phrasal unity (SPU) is used to denote a larger unit than a sentence. It generally comprises a number of sentences interdependent structurally (usually by means of pronouns, connectives, tense-forms) and semantically (that means that they are united by one definite idea). Such a span of utterance is also characterized by the fact that it can be extracted from the context without losing its relative semantic independence. This cannot be said of the sentence, which, while representing a complete syntactical unit, may lack the quality of independence [8]. E.g. Rolland picked out a tiny pearl handled knife with a blade of soft silver folded into it. Sophie took it from him. When she opened the blade to show it to him, 7

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the whole thing was still no more than four inches long (Golding). This SPU consists of three sentences which are united both structurally and semantically. Let’s find the elements which reveal its structural unity. Nouns used in the first sentence are further substituted by personal pronouns or by a more general word (Rolland – him, to him; knife – it – the whole thing). The verbs in the sentences are used in one tense – past simple (picked, took, opened, was). The following sentences are united also semantically as they deal with one udea (theme) – the description of the knife. So in the first sentence we get acquainted with the object mentioned for the first time (a tiny pearl handled knife with a blade of soft silver). In the third sentence we get to know additional information about this object (about its length). SPU thus consists of several sentences which introduce a topic, develop it and make a conclusion of it. The principles to single out an SPU: 

coherence;



interdependence of the elements;



one definite idea;



the purport of the writer.

The purport is the aim that the writer sets before himself, which is to make the desired impact on the reader. So the aim of any utterance is a carefully thought-out impact [8]. “I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noon-day dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast, 8

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As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder.” (Shelley. “The Cloud”) There are three SPUs separated by full stops. Within the first SPU, which comprises four lines, there are two more or less independent units divided by a semicolon and integrated by parallel constructions (I bring fresh showers; I bear light shade). Within the second SPU – there are also four lines – there are two independent ideas – the buds awakened by the dews and the earth moving around the sun. They are bound together by the formal elements when and as forming one complex sentence and a SPU. The formal means affect their semantic integrity. The third SPU consists of four lines united by one idea – the usefulness of the cloud giving all kinds of comfort, here moisture and shade, to what is growing …showers, shade, dews, hail, rain [8]. Sometimes while singling out a SPU we notice that its boundaries coincide with a paragraph. However these notions are not similar. A paragraph is a graphical term used to name a group of sentences marked off by indentation at the beginning and a break in the line at the end. A supra-phrasal unity is a linguistic unit (structural-semantic) of a text. A paragraph is a purely literary-compositional device. A paragraph can include more than one SPU, or it may divide one SPU into parts, for example, for the introduction of utterances in a dialogue or for the introduction of separate points in enumerations. Usually the length of a paragraph varies from 8 to 12 sentences. However a paragraph may consist of one sentence. The more the paragraph is, the more difficult it is to follow the purport of the writer. So the paragraph is a compositional device aimed at facilitating the process of comprehension or inducing a certain reaction on the part of the reader. Thus the 9

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paragraph from a mere compositional device turns into a stylistic one. It discloses the writer’s manner of depicting the features of the object or phenomenon described. Paragraphing varies from style to style. The paragraph in scientific, publicist and some other styles generally has a topic sentence, i.e. a sentence that embodies the main idea of the paragraph or the chief thought of the writer. In the belles-lettres style the topic sentence may be placed in any part of the paragraph, it is governed by emotiveness and natural representation. Sometimes it is impossible to decide which sentence should be regarded as a topic one [8]. In scientific texts paragraph structure is built on logical principles: 1) an inference of general laws from particular instances (inductive), or an inference of particular instances from a general law (deductive); 2)

from cause to effect, or from effect to cause;

3)

on contrast, or comparison.

E.g. All forces acting on a body, including the reactive forces caused by supports, are considered external forces. These forces are classified as surface forces and body forces. A surface force is of concentrated type when it acts at a point, but it may also be distributed over a finite area. A body force acts on a volumetric element rather than on a surface and is attributable to fields such as gravity and magnetism. The force of the earth on an object at or near the surface is termed the weight of the object. Internal forces in a body can be considered as forces of interaction between the constituent material particles of the body (Mechanics of Material). In the newspaper style psychological principles (sensational effect, grasping capacity of the reader for quick reading) play an important part, breaking the main rule of paragraph building, i.e. the unity of idea. Thus brief news items are very often crammed into one sentence, it being a paragraph. Brazil says there's no risk that the Olympic Games in Rio will be cancelled despite the World Health Organisation's assessment that the spread of the Zika virus constitutes an international public health emergency. 10

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Paragraph building in the style of official documents is mainly governed by the conventional forms of documents (Charters, pacts, diplomatic documents, business letters, legal documents, etc.) Here paragraphs may embody a number of parallel clauses, which for the sake of the wholeness of the entire document are made formally subordinate, whereas in reality they are independent items [8]. E.g.: “Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good in due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations”. Paragraph structure in the belles-lettres and publicist styles is strongly affected by the purport of the author. The writer introduces details, illustrations, comparisons, contrasts; he looks at the topic from different angles [8]. E.g.: It poured with rain the day I left. But I was filled with excitement, a strange exuberant sense of taking wing. I didn't know where I was going, but I knew what I needed. I needed a new land, a new race, a new language; and, although I couldn't have put it into words then, I needed a new mystery. (Fowles) This paragraph is taken from the novel ‘”The Magus” written by John Fowles. It describes the emotional state of the main character when he was leaving the school where he had taught children for one term. The main idea of this paragraph is to intensify the emotional state – the desire of the main character to resign from the school and the monotony and boredom of a school life. 3. Text types

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Writing is done for a number of different purposes and for different audiences. These different forms of writing are often known as text types. Linguists distinguish two main text types: factual and literary texts. Factual texts inform, instruct or persuade by giving facts and information. Literary texts entertain or elicit an emotional response by using language to create mental images. There are several types of factual texts: 1)

factual description which describes a place or thing using facts (e.g.

landscape descriptions); 2)

factual recount which retells events which have already happened in

time order (e.g. historical report); 3)

information report which purpose is to classify, to describe and give

factual information about people, animals, things or phenomena (e.g. facts about whales); 4)

procedure which gives instructions on how to make or to do something

(recipes, instructions); 5)

procedural recount which purpose is to tell how something was made or

done in time order and with accuracy (e.g. documentary, retelling a science experiment); 6)

persuasive texts that give a point of view (e.g. a team’s argument for a

debate). Literary texts are divided into: 1)

literary descriptions which describe people, characters, places, events

and things in an imaginative way (e.g. a description of a character or setting within a story); 2)

literary recounts which purpose is to retell events from novels, plays,

films and personal experiences to entertain others (e.g. a humorous and creatively interpreted recount of an ordinary incident that actually took place);

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3)

personal responses which give a personal opinion on a novel, play or

film, referring to parts within the passage (e.g. Describe why you do not like this story); 4)

reviews which summarize, analyze and assess the appeal of a novel,

play or film to a broader audience (e.g. commentary on a film, play or book); 5)

narratives which are aimed at telling a story using a series of events

(e.g. fairy tales, fables, plays, science fiction).

4. Text categories Text is not a chaotic conglomeration of linguistic units but an organized system which is characterized by specific features also known as text categories: 1) structural subdivision; 2) cohesion; 3) coherence; 4) informative character; 5) integrity and completeness; 6) modality. All these categories are interrelated and interdependent. Text is a rather complicated phenomenon that hasn’t lost the interest of linguists who use various approaches to study it. Thus they single out different number of text categories1. a)

Speaking about its structural subdivision we can mention that a text can

be divided into smaller units: parts, chapters, paragraphs. On the one hand each has its own subject of discussion; on the other hand these units are interrelated as they transmit the author’s idea.

1

In this unit we will limit our discussion only to four of them. Such categories as modality

and pragmatic orientation will be discussed in unit 3.

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In many cases the interpretation of an extract from the text may differ from interpretation of the whole text, as the text itself suits as a kind of context for revealing the main idea. b)

Thus we say that coherence and cohesion are the basic differential

features (categories) of the text. Cohesion is a formal unity of structural parts of the text, coherence is a semantic unity. In most cases these categories come together as coherence is based on cohesion. Michael Halliday, an English linguist, singles out several categories of the cohesion. It may be expressed through:  reference;  substitution;  ellipsis;  conjunctions;  lexical repetition [8]. Cohesion expresses the continuity existing between parts of the text; it is expressed partly through grammar, partly through the vocabulary. E.g. “John sat down to rest at the foot of a huge beech-tree. Now he was so tired that he soon fell asleep; a leaf fell on him, and then another, and then another, and before long he was covered with leaves, yellow, golden and brown”. Reference: In the extract given above the noun “leaf” is connected with the beech-tree. The two are not clearly identical in reference, since tree and leaf are not synonyms, but the interpretation of leaf depends on beech-tree. We know that the leaf was the beech-leaf. Substitution: the proper noun “John” used in the first sentence is substituted by pronouns “he”, “him” in the second one. Ellipsis: “and then another” is supposed to be understood as “and then another leaf fell upon him”. Conjunctions: “and” unites the homogeneous members. 14

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Lexical repetition: leaf – leaves; and then another (repeated twice). Cohesion is common for all texts, “it makes a text a text”. Here is the list of the most important cohesive devices in English: A: definite reference: 1)

personal pronouns;

2)

the definite article;

3)

deictics: this, that, these, those, etc;

4)

implied deictics: same, different, other, else, such, etc;

5)

substitution: pro-forms such as one, ones, do and so;

6)

ellipsis: omission or deletion of the elements;

7)

formal repetition of words, morphemes, phrases, etc;

8)

elegant variation: use of an alternative expression;

B: linkage: 1)

coordinating conjunctions: and, or, but, both … and, neither … nor, etc;

2)

linking adverbials: for, so, yet, however, therefore, meanwhile, for

example, etc [8]. So text is a communicative unit that consists of a sequence of utterances (supra-phrasal unities) interconnected semantically, syntactically (structurally) and pragmatically. That means that it is characterized by semantic and structural completeness, by the author’s attitude and by his pragmatic intention. 5. Title of a text The title is the first sign of a literary work. It is an obligatory part of a story and it has a fixed location in it. The title can be interpreted prospectively, introspectively and retrospectively. While being interpreted prospectively the title hints at the contents of a story, what it is about. While reading a story we try to understand the meaning of the title introspectively and a prospective interpretation changes. After reading the story we come back to the title and interpret it retrospectively and we understand it much better or even change the first opinion. Any title

passes

two

stages

–

concretization

and

generalization.

Concretization means that the title stands for something definite in a story. E.g. 15

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Aitmatov’s white ship (белый пароход) stands for a definite dream of one boy, but after reading the novel we understand that it reveals a general dream of something beautiful and something that might have been. Thus the title becomes not concrete but general. 6. The object and the aim of interpretation Literature is a medium for transmitting aesthetic information. To be operative, it must, like any other kind of communication, involve not only the addresser (the author) but also the addressee (the reader). Indeed, a literary work is always written for an audience, whether the author admits it or not. When an author sets out to write, he is urged on by a desire to impart his vision of the world, his attitude towards it, to someone, i.e. tо an addressee (a reader). His attitude may be quite obviously expressed, or, on the contrary, be presented in a seemingly impersonal way. An author may have, each time, a particular kind of reader in mind. But he will always write for a reader whom he expects to share his attitude, imbibe it and adopt it as his own. A truly talented work of imaginative literature always affects the reader, reaches his intellect and emotions, in a way moulding both. In this lies the social import of the literary work, its educational value. The more talented the work, the greater is its appeal and, as a result, the greater is its social and educational value and significance. Thus, the literary text (work) is an act of communication of the author with the reader. But the existence of the relationship: the author — the literary work — the reader should not automatically give grounds for an assumption that what the author has conveyed in the work passes on to the reader naturally and easily. In other words, the reading of the work does not necessarily result in the reader's direct perception of what the author has conveyed. The complexity of the literary work, since it is an involved interrelation of the objective and the subjective, the real and the imagined, the direct and the implied, makes the perception of it a creative effort. He, who penetrates into the subtleties of the literary work, is sharing the author's aesthetic world. He becomes a sort of a cocreator, a fact, which alone makes reading an aesthetic pleasure. While, on the other 16

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hand, one who does not see the involved nature of the literary work tends to oversimplify it. It is oversimplification when one sees only the surface (plot) level of the book, the literary characters and conflicts as life individuals engaged in life conflicts. It is needless to point out that in the latter case the reader has not profited by the book as he might have done [4]. The main aim of the reader is to reconstruct (to decode) a maximum of the author’s ideas and thoughts. This process can be shown by the following scheme: a literary work

the author’s reality, reconstructed by the reader

the author’s reality

An ideal result is that they should be identical. In fact, it’s difficult to make them purely identical, because a literary work on its way to the reader encounters quite a number of hindrances of all sorts—social, historical, temporal, cultural and so on. Many of these differences between the author and his reader are inevitable. Readers and authors may be separated by historical epochs, social conventions, religious and political views, cultural and national traditions. Moreover, even if the author and the reader belong to the same society no reader can completely identify himself with the author emotionally, intellectually or aesthetically. Apart from these objective and personal factors we cannot disregard the complexity of certain works of art. Many of them are quite sophisticated in form and content. Some are full of implications that create more than one semantic plane and may contain understatements, semantic accretion, or open-ended composition that makes the reader doubt about the outcome. Others require of the reader a wide educational thesaurus and knowledge of history, philosophy, mythology or religion [4]. The readers will differ not only from the author but also from each other. They have a different life experience, educational background, cultural level and tastes. 17

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All these factors often make decoding difficult. The message encoded and sent may differ from the message received after decoding. So the result may be a failure on either side. The reader may complain that he couldn't understand what the author wanted to say, while the author may resent being misinterpreted. From the reader's point of view the important thing is not what the author wanted to say but what he managed to convey in the text of his work. So interpretation is an analysis of aesthetic, semantic and emotional sides of the text through reconstruction of the author’s vision of the world.

1.1.2 Practical tasks

Task 1. Read the following texts and say what functional style they represent. Find characteristic features of each functional style in the texts. Some Notes on Poetry Taking English Poetry in the common sense of the word as a peculiar form of the language, we find that it differ from prose mainly in having a regular succession of accented syllables. In short it possesses metre as its chief characteristic feature. Every line is divided into so many feet composed of short and long syllables arranged according to certain laws of prosody. With a regular foot-fall the voice steps or matches along the line, keeping time like the soldier on drill, or the musician among his bars. In many languages syllables have a quantity, which makes them intrinsically long or short; but in English poetry that syllable alone is long on which an accent falls. Poets, therefore, in the use of that license which they have, or take sometimes shift an accent to suit their measure. The inversion of the order of words, within certain limits, is necessary consequence of throwing language into a metrical form. Poetry, then, differs from prose, in the first place in having metre; and as a consequence of this, in adopting an unusual arrangement of words and

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phrases... We must have, in addition to the metrical form, the use of uncommon words and turns of expressions, to lift the language above the level of written prose. Dependent STUDENTS who want a bigger say in the running of universities will be reinforced in their view by the latest effort of the vice-chancellor of Liverpool University and some other academics. Today this allegedly wise and learned individual issue, under the patronage of the Right-Wing Institute оf Economic Affairs is a statement of the "urgency of establishing an independent university". By "independent" they mean one which is dependent on finance from rich private individuals and Big Business, instead of from the Government. It is a monstrous misuse of the English language to claim that such a university would be independent. IT would depend entirely on the good will of the rich, and would find its finances cut off immediately if it displeased them. Universities already have to rely too much on Big Business sources of finance, including from US and other firms engaged in war preparations. Whatever criticisms there may be about the Government's part in their finance at any rate there is some possibility of democratic control over the public money allocated to the universities. There would be none if it all came as a result of board-room decisions. The Surface Tension of Polymeric Systems The surface tension of polymer melts can be strongly influenced by the potential surface activity of the chain ends. While the density of a polymer depends on its molecular weight, the primary effect on surface tension is not through density variation but rather due to preferential adsorption or depletion of the ends at the surface. Koberstein and co-workers have demonstrated this effect with endfunctionalized polydimethylsiloxane. Their pendant drop studies of low-molecularweight polymers having amine-, hydroxyl- or methyl-terminal groups show surface tensions decreasing, independent of, or increasing with molecular weight due to the higher, intermediate, or lower surface energies, respectively, of the end groups. The 19

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end groups also alter the interfacial tension between immiscible polymer blends in a similar way. The addition of block copolymers to immiscible polymer blends is analogous to adding a surface active agent to immiscible liquids. The interfacial tension is reduced by the adsorption of the block copolymer at the interface until it is saturated. Finally, similar effects can be seen in miscible polymer blends where the surface tension correlates with the enrichment of the lower-energy component at the surface as monitored by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

Task 2. Read the extracts from the texts and say what text type they belong to.

Extract 1. 1.

Preheat the oven to 175 °C. In a medium bowl, whisk together the

flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. 2.

Beat together in a mixer the butter and sugars. Beat in the eggs one at a

time. Mix in the vanilla and mashed bananas. 3.

Mix in half of the flour mixture, then the sour cream, then the other half

of the flour mixture. 4.

Spread batter evenly in a greased 10x15 baking pan. Bake at 175 °C for

20 minutes, or until nicely browned and the surface bounces back when you press it with your finger. Cool completely before frosting. 5.

To make the frosting, mix all of the ingredients together with an electric

mixer. If too stiff to spread, add a teaspoon or two of water. Spread the frosting evenly over the cake and slice to serve. Extract 2. Everyone knows, however, that when a person (even today in our modern period) observes the City of Jerusalem from the same Mount of Olives from which Titus viewed the ruined City of Jerusalem, we see in front of us a gigantic walled 20

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enclosure that is most grand and majestic made of huge and wondrous stones (all neatly placed one on top of one another in its lower courses) which surround very nicely the whole area of the Dome of the Rock (the region now called the Haram esh-Sharif). In fact, it can be stated most dogmatically that Titus the Roman General would have seen the same walls that you and I are able to observe today. The truth is, however, when Titus viewed the ruin of the Temple and the City of Jerusalem, he EXCLUDED those walls surrounding the area of the Dome of the Rock because THOSE WALLS DID NOT surround the Temple Mount. The Temple and its walls had been destroyed completely and thoroughly just as Christ said they would be. The walls that Titus saw (and that we observe today) WERE NOT the walls around the Temple. They were the walls that surrounded the Roman military fortress called by Herod the "Antonia."

Extract 3. Scotland’s diverse landscapes consist of dramatic mountains and glens, forests and moorlands and a highly indented coastline fragmented into a diverse range of islands that enrich our northern and western shores. There are also rolling lowlands, fertile straths, broad estuaries and settlements. In some areas, human activity and development has created a land use pattern, which is largely related to the underlying natural wealth of coal, building materials and a gentler topography. Nationally, a number of influences on the character of landscape can be determined. These factors have combined to make a lasting physical and architectural mark on the landscape. Extract 4. London brooded under a grey sky. There had been rain in the night, and the trees were still dripping. Presently, however, there appeared in the laden haze a watery patch of blue: and through this crevice in the clouds the sun, diffidently at first but with gradually increasing confidence, peeped down on the fashionable and exclusive turf of Grosvenor Square. Stealing across the square, its rays reached the massive stone walls of Drexdale House, until recently the London residence of the 21

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earl of that name; then, passing through the window of the breakfast-room, played lightly on the partially bald head of Mr. Bingley Crocker, late of New York in the United States of America, as he bent over his morning paper. Mrs. Bingley Crocker, busy across the table reading her mail, the rays did not touch. Had they done so, she would have rung for Bayliss, the butler, to come and lower the shade for she endured liberties neither from Man nor from Nature. Extract 5. In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest. "Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?" "I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same." "Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; "We have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger - while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopper knew: It is best to prepare for days of need. Task 3. Read the following extract taken from “Three Men in a Boat” by Jerome K. Jerome and single out supra-phrasal unities. Prove that the sentences which each supra-phrasal unity comprises are semantically and structurally interdependent. We pulled out the maps, and discussed plans. We arranged to start on the following Saturday from Kingston. Harris and I would go down in the morning, and take the boat up to Chertsey, and George, who would not be able to get away from the City till the afternoon (George goes to sleep at a bank from ten to four each day, except Saturdays, when they wake him up and put him outside at two), would meet us there. 22

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Should we "camp out" or sleep at inns? George and I were for camping out. We said it would be so wild and free, so patriarchal like. Slowly the golden memory of the dead sun fades from the hearts of the cold, sad clouds. Silent, like sorrowing children, the birds have ceased their song, and only the moorhen's plaintive cry and the harsh croak of the corncrake stirs the awed hush around the couch of waters, where the dying day breathes out her last.

1.2 Literary text as a poetic structure 1.2.1 An Outline

1. Verbal and supraverbal layers of a literary text When one reads a literary text he gradually moves from the first word of it on to the last. The words form phrases, phrases form sentences, sentences – paragraphs, paragraphs making up larger paragraphs: chapters, sections, and parts. All these conprise the verbal layer of a literary text. At the same time while reading a text of imaginative literature one cannot but see another layer emerging out of these verbal sequences. One sees that word sequences represent a series of events, conflicts and circumstances in which characters of the literary work happen to find themselves [11]. One sees that all these word-sequences make a composition, a plot, a genre, and a style, that they all go to create an image of reality and that through this image the author conveys his message, his vision of the world. Plot, theme, composition, genre, style, images and the like make the supraverbal (poetic) layer which is revealed in verbal sequences. The supra-verbal and the verbal layers of the text are thus inseparable from each other [11]. Thus, the text of a literary work is not a mere linguistic entity, it is something more involved. The involved nature of the literary text makes it entirely individual (unique), makes it essentially unsubstitutable for any other word sequences. When 23

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we substitute some part of a literary text, i.e. some given word sequence for a synonymous one, we simultaneously change the content, for the content of the literary work is indivisible from its text. A linguistic text, on the contrary, allows of substitution; one verbal sequence may have a sense similar to that of another verbal sequence, consequently, one verbal sequence may stand for another [11]. E.g. «The mass-produced middle-class boys I had to teach were bad enough» when viewed just as a linguistic entity it allows of a number of substitutions, such as: "the boys from middle-class I had to teach were all alike", or "there was no any personality among the boys I had to teach", etc. When this sentence is a part of a literary text its meaning cannot be completely rendered in so many other synonymous words. Something of the meaning will be left unconveyed. And this something is the implication the sentence acquires from the whole of the supraverbal layer. To understand what “the mass-produced middle-class boys” mean in the sentence given above as part of a literary text we have to know the whole poetic context, in this case the poetic context of the novel "The Magus" by J. Fowles from which the sentence is taken. The cohesion of the two layers, i.e. of the strictly verbal and the supraverbal constitutes what is known as the poetic structure of a literary text which conveys the author's message. The components of the poetic structure compose a hierarchy, an organization of interdependent layers: macro- and micro-images. The basic unit of the poetic structure is the word. Words build up microimages and micro-images (e.g. tropes) build up macro-images: images of characters, images of nature, thing images. At the top of the poetic structure there is macroimage – an image of life depicted by the author. The concept of unity and interdependence of elements in the poetic structure may be illustrated by the following example. The metaphor “I could not spend my life crossing such a Sahara” when taken by itself is nothing other than just a wordimage. But within a literary text (in this case — "The Magus") it is a unit which along with others in the system of similes (and the latter in its turn as a unit in the system of all tropes and figures of speech used in the novel) goes to depict the 24

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image of school where the main character worked after graduating from the university. The image of school in its turn, as one of the character-images together with all the other ones in the novel, goes to convey the author's message. 2. Principles of poetic structure cohesion Each literary work is a unique instance of imaginative representation of reality. Imaginative representation, however, has its own principles (known as aesthetic principles) which cohere all elements of the literary text and render it possible for the latter to constitute a world complete in itself. These principles are common to all literal works [11]. Principle of incomplete representation. Wholeness in art is different from wholeness in actual reality. The author in re-creating an object or phenomenon of reality selects out of infinity of features pertaining to the object only those which are the most characteristic ones. In other words, a literary image represents features that are the most characteristic of an object, or which at least, seem such to the author [11]. For instance, in the description of a farm house (Anderson “Loneliness”) the following features are singled out: «The farm-house was painted brown and the blinds to all of the windows facing the road were kept closed. In the road before the house a flock of chickens, accompanied by two guinea hens, lay in the deep dust». The farm-house had many other peculiarities, no doubt. But those selected very well convey the image of the place. Moreover, they indirectly suggest the image of its owner, a lonely and unsociable mother of the main character. Thus, the author, in depicting an image, makes a selection: he picks out a part (or parts) which can stand for the whole. All images in a literary text, those of people, events, situations, landscapes and the like are incompletely represented. At least two factors seem to condition this: 1) the linguistic factor: Verbal representation of the whole image is a venture which cannot or should hardly ever be endeavoured. This would take up innumerable pages of writing in 25

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which the image itself would invariably be dissolved, for there is a considerable disproportion between linguistic means of representation and the reality which is to be represented; 2) the aesthetic factor: Literature, as we know, transmits aesthetic information. To achieve this aim literature must first of all stir up the reader's interest. One way to do this is to make the reader strain his perceptive abilities and fill in for himself those fragments of the whole which have been gapped or, as we have termed it incompletely represented, that is, represented through a part. The part selected to fulfill such a representative function must, indeed, have the power of stirring up the reader's imagination so as to make him visualize the whole. The degree of incompleteness of representation depends upon the genre of the literary work as well as upon the individual manner of the writer. The degree of incompleteness is greater in lyrical poems and smaller in epic works. But even in large works of narrative prose the degree of incompleteness is considerate. The principle of incomplete representation can be observed in the poetic detail, which is description of an external characteristic feature of a person or a phenomenon in order to recreate the whole description of a character or a situation. A poetic detail can be mixed with a synecdoche which is the transference of names based on relations between a part and a whole, because in a poetic detail we deal with its direct meaning. A vivid characteristic feature is used synecdoche and its main function is creating an image through a minimum amount of expressive means. While in a poetic detail a less visible characteristic feature is foregrounded that emphasizes an inner relation between the phenomena. While decoding a synecdoche the words which express this stylistic device do not disappear they are preserved in their direct meaning. E.g. He made his way through the perfume and conversation – He made his way through the perfumed and conversing crowd of people. In decoding a poetic detail we don’t deal with substitution but with revealing of the notion. E.g. in a story by W. Faulkner relationship in a family is depicted 26

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through a poetic detail. I stayed quiet, because Father and I both knew that Mother would want him to make me stay with her if she just thought of it in time. So Father didn't look at me. Mutual understanding between a son and a father (both knew) and mother’s unreasonable demands (just thought of it in time) are shown through insignificant details of their behaviour. Types of a poetic detail. According to the function fulfilled by a poetic detail in a text there are 4 types of it: a)

descriptive (изобразительная художественная деталь);

b)

qualifying (уточняющая художественная деталь);

c)

characterizing (характерологическая художественная деталь);

d)

implicit (имплицитная художественная деталь).

A descriptive detail is used to create a visual image of a described object, as a rule it is a part of the image of nature or a character’s portrait. Both of the last become vivid because a detail makes the description individual, definite and emotionally coloured. A qualifying detail is used to create an impression of authenticity through mentioning insignificant details of a phenomenon or a fact. It can usually be found in dialogues or in an entrusted narrative. It is characteristic of Hemingway to describe a character’s trip paying attention to the smallest details for example – the names of the streets, squares, bridges or some other places which are not known to a reader. When you read it, it is impossible for you to follow this route if you have never been to Paris. But the main function is not to create an image of a slow of fast trip, but to show the emotional state of the character, to show his authenticity (his being real). A characterizing detail is used to point out prominent features of a character. This type of a poetic detail is found throughout the whole story. The author doesn’t give a full-length description of a character but uses several details incidentally as if they are known to a reader. Characterizing details can be used to give a detailed portrait of a character (in this case each detail points out a different feature of a character) or to point out his main feature by repeating it several times (in this case 27

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details are different but they have one aim). E.g. in Hemingway’s novel “50 thousand dollars” the author deliberately gives insignificant details to point out the character’s significant feature. Firstly he points out that the boxer phones his wife and the members of the telephone office notice that he used to send letters because “a letter only costs two cents”, then he gives 2 dollars to a negro-masseur for his service, though his partner is surprised by this small payment. When the boxer hears the price of a hotel (10 dollars) he is indignant and says “That's too steep”. But playing cards in a casino he is happy to win even 2 dollars and a half “Jack won two dollars and a half... was feeling pretty good”. So the author applies for reiteration of the same feature of the boxer by pointing out a number of details. And they point out his main feature – his stinginess, his being mad of saving money though he has a large sum of money in the bank. An implicit detail is used to point out an external characteristic of a phenomenon by which we can guess its inner sense. Its main function is to create implication. E.g. In the story “Prussian officer” Lawrence uses implicit details throughout the whole story, he doesn’t give his own judgement directly but lets a reader understand real reasons of the officer’s passion, his arrogant aristocracy and his inner conflict by an implicit detail which describes the relations between the officer and his soldiers which conceal his inner conflict. Principles of analogy and contrast. Analogy and contrast are known to be universal principles of cognition. It is by analogy that the essence of a phenomenon is revealed, the similar and the contractive in different phenomena discovered. In the arts and especially in literature analogy and contrast are the ways of imaginative cognition. The author contra- and juxtaposes images of real life and in that way reveals the good and the evil, the beautiful and the ugly, the just and the unjust in life. Analogy and contrast are the organizing axis of poetic structure. They permeate the whole text, all its components, both macro- and micro-: the character and the event representation, the imagery, etc [11]. Analogy and contrast underline quite a number of such elements of poetic 28

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structure as tropes and figures of speech: a)

metaphor – …laughter played around his lips (Dickens);

b)

simile – Again he looked at her, huddled like a bird that is shot and

dying (Galsworthy); c)

metonymy – Two pencils had been busy during that hour – note-

making; in the way of plans (Twain); d)

antithesis – Don't use big words. They mean so little (Wilde).

Principle of Recurrence. When we read a literary text our thought does not run in just one, onward, direction. Its movement is both progressive and recursive: from the given item it goes on to the next with a return to what has been previously stated. This peculiar movement of the thought is conditioned by the fact that the literary text represents cohesion of two layers the verbal and the supraverbal. The supraverbal layer is not coincident with the strictly verbal layer. The verbal is direct, linear, the supraverbal is essentially recursive. When we begin to read a book we do not yet perceive the complexity of the content contained in the whole of it, though the text is well understood by us. The covered portion of the text is a part of the literary work and as such it gives us but a rough approximation of the meaning of the whole work. This part, however, deepens our understanding of that portion of the text, which we proceed to read. And the newly read portion of the text adds to our perception of the whole. In this recursive or spiral-like manner we gather the content of the literary work as a whole [11]. Poetic structure of the literary text is so modeled that certain of its elements which have already occurred in the text recur again at definite intervals. These recurrent elements may be a poetic detail, an image, a phrase, a word. The recurrence of an element may have several functions, e.g. be meaningful in organizing a plot and giving it a dynamic tone. Consider, for instance, the following expository passage from E. Hemingway's “Old Man at the Bridge” and see how the recurrent phrase “old man” organizes and frames it up [11]. 29

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"An old man with steel-rimmed spectacles and very dusty clothes sat by the side of the road. There was a pontoon bridge across the river and carts, hacks, and men, women and children were crossing it. The mule-drawn carts staggered up the steep bank from the bridge with soldiers helping push against the spokes of the wheels. The trucks ground up and away heading out of it all and the peasants plodded along in the ankle deep dust. But the old man sat there without moving. He was too tired to go any farther." A recurrent element may represent the leit-motif of the literary work, expressing the author's message as, for instance, in "The Basement Room" by G. Greene. The story tells about a seven-year-old boy whose parents have gone on a fortnight's vacation leaving him in charge of the butler, Baines, and his wife, Mrs. Baines. The boy descends into the basement room, the dwelling-place of the Baines' and ... finds himself involved in their life, with its conflicts, its secrets and its bitterness. Each of them, in turn, entrusts his / her secret to the boy and expects him to keep it. The boy is entirely on the side of the butler, he hates and abhors the butler's wife. But when it happens that the butler unintentionally causes the death of his wife, the boy betrays him to the police, for he feels it unbearable to keep the secret, to have the responsibility Baines has laid upon him. The following two sets of phrases run parallel to each other at certain intervals through the whole of the story. The first set is: "Philip began to live"; "this is life", "this was life"; "it was life he was in the middle of;" "Philip extracted himself from life"; "a retreat from life". And the second set: "And suddenly he felt responsible for Baines"; "Again Philip felt responsibility"; "He would have nothing to do with their secrets, the responsibilities they had determined to lay on him"; "he surrendered responsibility once and for all." These two recurrent sets of phrases run as the leit-motif of the story: living means having responsibilities, asserts the author; when one surrender responsibilities one retreats from life [11]. It may be mentioned here in passing that it is upon the recurrent elements (phonetic, syntactic, lexical, etc.) and their peculiar distribution within the poetic structure that the rhythm of the text largely depends, for rhythm is repetition with 30

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variation. A lot of stylistic means are based upon the principle of recurrence: a)

multiplication – He spoke with the flat ugly "a" and withered "r" of

Boston Irish, and Levi looked up at him and mimicked "All right, I'll give the caaads a break and staaat playing"; b)

repetition – You absorb, absorb, as if you must fill yourself up with

love, because you've got a shortage somewhere; c)

synonymic repetition – Joe was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered,

easy-going, foolish fellow.

1.2.2 Practical tasks

Task 1. Read the following extracts, find stylistic devices in them. Say what principles of poetic structure cohesion are observed in them. Dwell upon the main idea of each extract: a) That evening for the first time in his life, as he pressed through the swing door and descended the three broad steps to the pavement, old Mr. Neave felt he was too old for the spring. Spring - warm, eager, restless - was there, waiting for him in the golden light, ready in front of everybody to run up, to blow in his white beard, to drag sweetly on his arm. And he couldn't meet her, no; he couldn't square up once more and stride off, jaunty as a young man. He was tired and, although the late sun was still shining, curiously cold, with a numbed feeling all over. Quite suddenly he hadn't the energy, he hadn't the heart to stand this gaiety and bright movement any longer; it confused him. from “An Ideal Family” by Katherine Mansfield b) Followed a dark and bitter time. The poor child. The poor, poor child, how she suffered, an agony and a long crucifixion in that nursing home. It was a bitter six weeks which changed the soul of Winifred forever. As she sat by the bed of her poor, tortured little child, tortured with the agony of the knee, and the still worse 31

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agony of these diabolic, but perhaps necessary modern treatments, she felt her heart killed and going cold in her breast. Her little Joyce, her frail, brave, wonderful, little Joyce, frail and small and pale as a white flower! Ah, how had she, Winifred, dared to be so wicked, so wicked, so careless, so sensual. from “England, my England” by David H. Lawrence c) It was like a journey into space. I was standing on Mars, knee-deep in thyme, under a sky that seemed never to have known dust or cloud. I looked down at my pale London hands. Even they seemed changed, nauseatingly alien, things I should long ago have disowned. from “The Magus” by J. Fowles Task 2. Read the story “The Lady’s Maid” by Katherine Mansfield and analyze it according to the questions given below: 1. What is the story about? 2. Who is the main character and how does the author portray him (her)? 3. What are the three central episodes of the maid's story? Point out the connection between them. What light do they throw upon her life and character? Could you say that Ellen had her moments of rebellion? 4. How does the writer convey the wretchedness of the girl's childhood? Comment upon the incidents of the little wigs. 5. How does the author portray Ellen’s grandfather? Does Ellen accuse him of cruelty? Is she indignant at the punishment he inflicted upon her? In what way does the reader learn of the pain she suffered? 6. Note the significance of Ellen mentioning her uniform in the donkeyepisode and again in the scene with her former fiancé. 7. Why does Ellen repeatedly say "People must have laughed when they saw me..."? 8. Comment upon Ellen's dreams of her future happiness. What are the details that help us to understand the naiveté of these dreams?

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9. What are Mansfield's ways of characterizing "my lady"? Speak of the meaning of the "little red book", of her rejection of the eider-down and the explanation she gave. 10.

In what way is it made clear that Ellen's life was sacrificed to her lady's

selfishness? Is the reader as sure as Ellen that the mistress did not mean the maid to see her put a hand on her heart? 11.

How do you understand Ellen's parting words? Why are they pathetic?

12.

What epithets recur most frequently in the maid's story? Explain their

nature. 13.

What peculiarities of Ellen’s speech reveal her timidity?

14.

Can you see the author's own attitude to the "lady's maid"?

How is

that attitude disguised? THE LADY'S MAID Katherine Mansfield Eleven o'clock. A knock at the door. ...I hope I haven't disturbed you, madam. You weren't asleep — were you? But I've just given my lady her tea, and there was such a nice cup aver, I thought, perhaps... ...Not at all, madam. I always make a cup of tea last thing. She drinks it in bed after her prayers to warm her up. I put the kettle on when she kneels down and I say to it, "Now you needn't ' be in too much of a hurry to say your prayers." But it's always boiling before my lady is half through. You see, madam, we know such a lot of people and they've all got to be prayed for — every one. My lady keeps a list of the names in a little red book. Oh dear! whenever someone new has been to see us and my lady says afterwards, "Ellen, give me my little red book," I feel quite wild, I do. "There's another," I think, "keeping her out of her bed in all weathers." And she won't have a cushion, you know, madam; she kneels on the hard carpet. It fidgets me something dreadful to see her, knowing her as I do. I've tried to cheat her; I've spread out the eider-down. But the first time I did it — oh, she gave me such a look — holy it was, madam. "Did our Lord have an eider-down, Ellen?" she said. But — I was younger at that time — I felt inclined to say, "No, but our Lord wasn't your age, and He didn't know what it was to have your lumbago." Wicked — wasn't it? But she's too good, you know, madam. When I tucked her up just now and seen — 33

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saw her lying back, her hands outside and her head on the pillow — so pretty — I couldn't help thinking, "Now you look just like your dear mother when I laid her out!" ...Yes, madam, it was all left to me. Oh, she did look sweet. I did her hair, soft-like, round her forehead, all in dainty curls, and just to one side of her neck I put a bunch of most beautiful purple pansies. Those pansies made a picture of her, madam! I shall never forget them. I thought to-night, when I looked at my lady, "Now, if only the pansies was there no one could tell the difference." ...Only the last year, madam. Only after she'd got a little — well — feeble2 as you might say. Of course, she was never dangerous; she was the sweetest old lady. But how it took her was3 — she thought she'd lost something. She couldn't keep still, she couldn't settle. All day long she'd be up and down, upland down; you'd meet her everywhere — on the stairs, in the porch, making for the kitchen. And she'd look up at you, and she'd say — just like a child, "I've lost it; I've lost it." "Come along," I'd say, "come along and I'll lay out your patience for you." But she'd catch me by the hand — I was a favourite of her — and whisper, "Find it for me, Ellen. Find it for me." Sad, wasn't it? ...No, she never recovered, madam. She had a stroke at the end. Last words she ever said was — very slow. "Look in — the — Look — in — " And then she was gone. ...No, madam, I can't say I noticed it. Perhaps some girls. But you see, it's like this, I've got nobody but my lady. My mother died of consumption when I was four, and I lived with my grandfather, who kept a hairdresser's shop. I used to spend all my time in the shop under a table dressing my doll's hair — copying the assistants, I suppose. They were ever so kind to me. Used to make me little wigs, all colours, the latest fashions and all. And there I'd sit all day, quiet as quiet — the customers never knew. Only now and again I'd take my peep from under the tablecloth. ...But one day I managed to get a pair of scissors and — would you believe it, madam? - I cut off all my hair; snipped it all off in bits, like the little monkey I was. Grandfather was furious - caught hold of the tongs — I shall never forget it — grabbed me by the hand and shut my fingers in them. "That'll teach you!" he said. It was a fearful burn. I've got the mark of it to-day.

2 3

feeble — here: weak-minded how it took her was — here: with her it was like that

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...Well, you see, madam, he'd taken such pride in my hair, lie used to sit me up on the counter, before the customers came, and do it something beautiful — big, soft curls and waved over the top. I remember the assistants standing round, and me ever so solemn with the penny grandfather gave me to hold while it was being done... But he always took the penny back afterwards. Poor grandfather! Wild, he was, at the fright I'd made of myself. But he frightened me that time. Do you know what I did, madam? I ran away. Yes, I did, round the corners, in and out, I don't know how far I didn't run. Oh, dear, I must have looked a sight, with my hand rolled up in my pinny4 and my hair sticking out. People must have laughed when they saw me... ...No, madam, grandfather never got over it. He couldn't bear the sight of me after. Couldn't eat his dinner, even, if I was there. So my aunt took me. She was a cripple, an upholstress. Tiny! She had to stand, on the sofa when she wanted to cut out the backs.5 And it was helping her I met my lady... ...Not so very, madam. I was thirteen, turned. And I don't remember ever feeling — well — a child, as you might say. You see there was my "uniform, and one thing and another. My lady put me into collars and cuffs 6 from the first. Oh yes — once I did!, That was — funny! It was like this. My lady had her two little nieces staying with her — we were at Sheldon at the time — and there was a fair on the common. "Now, Ellen," she said, "I want you to take the two young ladies for a ride on the donkeys." Off we went; solemn little loves they were; each had a hand.7 But when we came to the donkeys they were too shy to go on. So we stood and watched instead. Beautiful those donkeys were! They were the first I'd seen out of a cart — for pleasure, as you might say. They were a lovely silver-grey, with little red saddles and blue bridles and bells jing-a-jingling on their ears. And quite big girls — older than me, even — were riding them, ever so gay. Not at all common. I don't mean, madam, just enjoying themselves. And I don't know what it was, but the way the little feet went, and the eyes — so gentle — and the soft ears — made me want to go on a donkey more than anything in the world! ...Of course, I couldn't. I had my young ladies. And what would I have looked like perched up there in my uniform? But all the rest of the day it was donkeys — 4

pinny — pinafore the backs — here: the backs for the upholstery 6 collars and cuffs — part of a maid's uniform 7 each, had a hand — I gave a hand to each 5

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donkeys on the brain with me. I felt I should have burst if I didn't tell someone; and who was there to tell? But when I went to bed — I was sleeping in Mrs. James's bedroom, our cook that was, at the time — as soon as the lights was out, there they were, my donkeys, jingling along, with their neat little feet and sad eyes... Well, madam, would you believe it, I waited for a long time and pretended to be asleep, and then suddenly I sat up and called out as loud as I could, "I do want to go on a donkey! I do want a donkey-ride!" You see, I had to say it, and I thought they wouldn't laugh at me, if they knew I was only dreaming. Artful — wasn't it? Just what a silly child would think... ...No, madamy never now. Of course, I did think of it at one time. But it wasn't to be. He had a little flower-shop just down the road and across from where we was living. Funny, wasn't it? And me such a one for flowers. We were having a lot of company at the time and I was in and out of the shop more often than not, as the saying is. And Harry and I (his name was Harry) got to quarrelling about how things ought to be arranged — and that began it. Flowers! you wouldn't believe it, madam, the flowers he used to bring me. He'd stop at nothing. It was lilies-of-thevalley more than once, and I'm not exaggerating! Well, of course, we were going to be married and live over the shop, and it was all going to be just so, and I was to have the window8 to arrange... Oh, how I've done that window of a Saturday! Not really, of course, madam, just dreaming, as you might say. I've done it for Christmas — motto in holly9, and all — and I've had my Easter lilies with a gorgeous star all daffodils in the middle. I've hung — well, that's enough of that. The day came he was to call for me to choose the furniture. Shall I ever forget it? It was a Tuesday. My lady wasn't quite herself that afternoon". Not that she'd said anything, of course; she never does or will. But I knew by the way that she kept wrapping herself up and asking me if it was cold — and her little nose looked... pinched. I didn't like leaving her; I knew I'd be worrying all the time. At last I asked her if she'd rather I put it off. "Oh no, Ellen," she said, "you mustn't mind about me. You mustn't disappoint your young man." And so cheerful, you know, madam, never thinking about herself. It made me feel worse than ever. I began to wonder... then she dropped her handkerchief and began to stoop down to pick it up herself — a thing she never did. "Whatever are you doing!" I cried, running to stop her. "Well," she said, smiling, you know, 8 9

the window — the show-window motto in holly — the motto "Merry Christmas" laid out with leaves of holly

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madam, "I shall I to begin to practise." Oh, it was all I could do not to burst crying. I went over to the dressing-table and made believe to up the silver, and I couldn't keep myself in, and I asked In she'd rather I ... didn't get married. "No, Ellen," she said — that, her voice, madam, like I'm giving you — "No, Ellen, not for wide world!" But while she said it, madam — I was looking in glass; of course, she didn't know I could see her — she put her little hand on her heart just like her dear mother used to, and lifted her eyes... Oh, madam. When Harry came I had his letters all ready, and the ring and a ducky little brooch he'd given me — a silver bird it was, with a chain in its beak, and on the end of the chain a heart with a dagger. Quite the thing! I opened the door to him. I never gave him time for a word. "There you are," I said. "Take them all back," I said, "it's all over. I'm not going to marry you," I said. "I can't leave my lady." White! He turned as white as a woman. I had to slam the door, and there I stood, all of a tremble, till I knew he had gone. When I opened the door — believe me or not, madam — that man was gone! I ran out into the road just as I was, in. my apron and my houseshoes, and there I stayed in the middle of the road... staring. People must have laughed if they saw me... ...Goodness gracious! — What's that? It's the clock striking! And here I've been keeping you awake. Oh, madam, you ought to have stopped me... Can I tuck in your feet? I always tuck in my lady's feet, every night, just the same. And she says, "Good night, Ellen. Sleep sound and wake early!" I don't know what I should do if she didn't say that, now. ...Oh dear, I sometimes think... whatever should I do if anything were to... But, there, thinking's no good to anyone — is it, madam? Thinking won't help. Not that I do it often. And if ever I do I pull myself up sharp. "Now then, Ellen. At it again ' — you silly girl! If you can't find anything better to do than to start thinking...!"

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2 Unit 2. Macro-components of a poetic structure 2.1 An Outline

2.1.1 Literary images Image as an aesthetic category. Both science and the arts aim at cognizing and interpreting the world we live in. But in contrast to science where the means of cognition is an inductive and a deductive analysis, the means of cognition in literature and the other arts is a re-creation of objective reality in the form of images drawn from reality itself. Stated in general terms, the relation between reality and literature is essentially that of an object and its image. An image is always similar to its object, as, for example, a painted portrait of a person is similar to the person himself. The similarity between an object and its image is conditioned by the fact that the latter is a representation of the former. It is implied in the word "image" itself which is defined in the dictionary as "a likeness of a person, animal or object". The similarity between an object and its image may be barely traceable, but there will be a similarity. A picture (or a portrait) is always that of an object (a tree, a human being, an animal and the like). The similarity between an object and its image may be great, nonetheless it will remain a similarity (a likeness) and never become an identity, for an object cannot be at the same time its own image. The two are different categories, the former being reality itself, the latter a representation of reality. Thus, a portrait is always a representation of a certain person, never the person himself. Turning now to the literary work, we may say that image is always a representation of a life situation. In other words, the literary work in its re-creation of life gives images which are similar to but not identical with life. If an image is not an identity of the object it represents, then the image contains within itself not only features similar to the object but also features dissimilar to it. Dissimilar features appear because an image is always somebody's 38

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creation, i.e. an image has not only its object but also its creator, the author. It implies that: 1) An author, in setting out to re-create a fragment of reality, re-creates those features of it which, to him, seem to be most essential. In doing this he is guided by his own consciousness, his vision of the world (as well as by the laws of verbal art representation). He makes a selection of the features to be represented in the image of the re-created reality, which alone makes the image dissimilar to the object (reality). 2) The object, i.e. reality, is neutral to the observer; the image of reality created by the author is not. For through such an image, the author expresses his vision of the world, his attitude towards the world. Thus, in any image of reality (in a literary work), there are always present, side by side, with objective features, subjective ones as well. The subjective is the organizing axis of the literary work, for, in expressing his vision of the world, the author represents reality in the way that he considers to be most fitting. What emerges as a result of such a representation is a world in itself, an imagined world, based, however, on what the author has perceived and imbibed from objective reality. So literature recreates life in the form of images, inspired by life itself and by the author’s vision. Image is a means of life reflection and representation. Image is a definite reflection of an abstract notion. When a writer creates his work he does not make it abstract, but he describes definite characters and their lives as the representatives of the whole society and the whole epoch. It means that, for instance, Soames Forsyte from J. Galsworthy's “Forsyte Saga” is not just an English bourgeois, but a literary character created by Galsworthy in precisely the way his talent, his vision, his understanding of the English middle class life have urged him to create. In giving the image of Soames as well as the other images of “The Forsyte Saga” the author transmits to the reader his own philosophy of life, his ethic, and moral code. The term “image” is referred to the whole literary work, characters, nature and smaller meaningful units such as details and tropes. Literary image is perceived 39

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throughout the whole work. You can’t read the first part of a novel and see a complete literary image. So a structure of a literary work consists in imagery development, shifting and grouping. Poetic structure of a literary text composes a hierarchy, an organization of macro- and micro-images. The basic unit of the poetic structure is the word. Words build up microimages and micro-images build up macro-images: images of characters, landscape images, thing images. At the top of the poetic structure is macro-image – an image of life depicted by the author. Imagery of characters. The central part of this system belongs to imagery of characters. The author entrusts them with his own thoughts and ideas. The character may be introduced by: 1.

A long descriptive paragraph introducing his physical appearance and

sometimes his moral and psychological nature. 2.

The author may be impartial (objective) in the presentation of his

characters. 3.

He may portray them ironically.

4.

He may identify himself completely with his creations, which become

his mouthpieces. 5.

Many writers use names, which through onomatopoeia or association

suggest certain inherent characteristics. 6.

Through the very physical appearance of the characters, especially the

facial features, the author may be calling our attention to certain inner phenomena of character. 7.

Characters may be revealed through mimicry, gesture, turn of phrase, or

through the way they dress [8]. E.g.: “He was a little man, considerably less than of middle height, and enormously stout; he had a large, fleshy face, clean-shaven, with the cheeks hanging on each side in great dew-laps, and three vast chins; his small features were all dissolved in fat; and, but for a crescent of white hair at the back of his head, he was 40

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completely bald. He reminded you of Mr. Pickwick. He was grotesque, a figure of fun, and yet, strangely enough, not without dignity.” (S.M. Mackintosh). There are two main methods of character drawing: direct and indirect characterization. When the author describes the character himself, or makes another do it, it is direct characterization. When the author shows the character in action, and lets the reader judge for himself, it is indirect characterization. In this case the character’s portrait is drawn through his action or speech. Characters, like other elements in a work of fiction (e.g. events, scenery, atmosphere), are “functions”. The reader may classify or identify the characters he comes across into traditional or historical types, such as the 18th or 19th century miser, rogue, wily servant, heartless dandy, etc. (W.M. Thackeray. “Vanity Fair”: Rebecca Sharp) E.M. Foster differentiates between “flat” and “round” characters, and occasionally insignificant characters [8]. Flat characters are built around a single idea, trait or quality. They are static, they never change, are not allowed to develop; they are predictable, unalterable, permanent. They always lack the depth needed for a tragic or even sensitive character, but often serve as comic characters. E.g. Mr. Pickwick and other characters in Dickens’s novels. A round character is capable of all the human emotions from joy to sorrow. He needs space and emphasis, as he is liable to develop, to deteriorate or improve. The plot and character are closely linked. Round characters interact, play on each other, they are constantly unexpected and surprising. [8] Style in modern writing has changed. It is difficult to find in modern novels the “types” of Dickens’ novels. The concept of the “round” character with its depth and development is changing too. The concept of personality has been shattered by many writers, by modern human sciences (psychoanalysis, structuralism, etc.). The characters have lost all consistency; their behavior often seems strange, inexplicable and illogical. 41

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If two characters have distinctly opposing features, one serves as a foil to the other, and the contrast between them becomes more apparent. Round and flat characters have different functions in the conflict of the story. The conflict may be external, i.e. between human beings or between man and the environment (individual against nature, individual against the established order (values in the society). The internal conflict takes place in the mind, here the character is torn between opposing features of his personality. The two parties in the conflict are called the protagonist and his antagonist [8]. The image of nature, thing images. Nature becomes an image when it expresses emotional state of a protagonist or an author. It surrounds a person from his birth. It is a continuous object of his perception and a source of his emotions. Nature plays a number of roles in a literary work. In poetry it plays a leading part, while in prose it plays a supporting role – to create a full character sketch of a protagonist or it can stand for a background of a conflict. Nature can be in harmony with a protagonist or in contrast. The contrast between a protagonist and nature shows his inner dissonance, his selfishness and fuss in comparison with peaceful greatness of Nature. Descriptions of peaceful nature influence a reader positively. A writer applies for such descriptions before dynamic events that can result in unexpected denouement. Here we deal with the case of defeated expectancy and the impact is very strong. Thing image (“образ вещественной природы” – a term introduced by V.A. Kuharenko) can also fulfill a contrasting function in a text. But the main function is to make an image of a protagonist full. While nature reflects a protagonist’s emotional state, thing images (clothes, furniture, surroundings) reflect his tastes, interests, habits and preferences [5]. Images of characters, thing and landscape images are not created by a single word or within one part of a story, they develop throughout the whole text and are created by micro-images – word images. 42

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Theme and idea. The theme of a literary work is the represented aspect of life. As literary works commonly have human characters for their subject of depiction, the theme of a literary work may be understood to be an interaction of human characters under certain circumstances, such as some social or psychological conflict (war and peace, race discrimination, a clash of ideologies and the like). A writer may depict the same theme, e.g. the theme of war, from different angles. The same theme may on the one hand be differently developed and integrated with other themes in different works. Within a single work the basic theme may alternate with rival themes and their relationship may be complex. Thus, for instance, the basic theme of “The Forsyte Saga” may be defined as the life of the English middle class at the end of and after the Victorian epoch. This basic theme is disclosed mainly in the representation of the Forsyte family, specifically in Soames’s lines. The bythemes in this comprehensive trilogy are numerous: the first Labour government, the post-war generation, the general strike, the arts and artists, etc. They are all linked together to represent a unity. Indeed, a link between the various constructive themes is indispensable: without such a link the literary work loses its essential characteristic, which is unity of all its elements. The theme of a literary work can be easily understood from the plot (the surface layer) of the work [11]. The idea of a literary work is the underlying thought and emotional attitude transmitted to the reader by the whole poetic structure of the literary text. Poetic structure being a multi-layered entity, all of its layers pertain to the expression of the idea. Genre. The word “genre” which comes from French, where its primary meaning is “a kind”, denotes in the theory of literature a historically formed type of literary work. Genres are distinguished according to three factors: 1) according to the represented aspect of reality: epic, lyric and dramatic genres. If it is outside events that are objectively narrated by the author, the genre is epic with narrative prose as its main variety. 43

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If the author speaks about an aspect of reality reflected his own inner world, if his emotions and meditations are presented without a clearly cut thematic or temporal setting, the genre is lyric with lyric poetry as its main variety. If it is present day conflicting events that are represented in the speech and actions of characters in their interrelation with each other, the genre is dramatic, with different types of plays as its main manifestations. 2) according to the nature of the represented conflict: where the conflict is fatal for the main character or, on the contrary, easily overcome by him and expressed in a peculiar emotive quality of writing (elevated, humorous, ironic, sarcastic) works are divided into tragedy, comedy and drama. 3) according to the volume of the represented subject matter in narrative prose, for instance, we distinguish novel and short story. A short story is usually centered on one main character (protagonist), one conflict, one theme, while in a novel alongside the main theme there are several other, rival themes; several minor conflicts alongside the main conflict rival characters alongside the main character. “Pure genres” are characteristic of ancient Greek and Roman literature as well as that of the Renaissance and Classicism periods. In modern literature (since the 18th century) mixed genres are prevalent. 2.2 Practical tasks Task 1. Read the story written by E. Hemingway and answer the following questions: 1. What is the story about? Is it complicated? 2. In what vein is the story written? What images impart the story this tone? 3. What role does the weather play in the story? 4. How does the author create his characters? What methods of characterization are used? 5. What are the relations in the young family? How are they shown? 6. Whose eyes is the description of the hotelkeeper given through? 7. What is the difference between the husband and the hotelkeeper? Why and how is it emphasized? 8. Why and how is the girl’s desire to have a cat shown? (Analyze stylistic devises used to achieve this effect). 44

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9. 10. of view.

What type of conflict is shown in the story? Single out the theme and the main idea of the story. Prove your point CAT IN THE RAIN

Ernest Hemingway There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room. Their room was on the second floor facing the sea. It also faced the public garden and the war monument. There were big palms and green benches in the public garden. In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea. Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war monument. It was made of bronze and glistened in the rain. It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. Water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain. The motor cars were gone from the square by the war monument. Across the square in the doorway of the cafe a waiter stood looking out at the empty square. The American wife stood at the window looking out. Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on. “I’m going down and get that kitty,” the American wife said. “I'll do it,” her husband offered from the bed. “No, I'll get it. The poor kitty out trying to keep dry under a table.” The husband went on reading, lying propped up with the two pillows at the foot of the bed. “Don't get wet,” he said. The wife went downstairs and the hotel owner stood up and bowed to her as she passed the office. His desk was at the far end of the office. He was an old man and very tall. “I piove10,” the wife said. She liked the hotelkeeper. “Si, si, Signora, brutto tempo11. It's very bad weather.” He stood behind his desk in the far end of the dim room. The wife liked him. She liked the deadly serious way he received any complaints. She liked his dignity.

10 11

(итал.) Дождь идет. (итал.) Да, да, синьора, погода скверная.

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She liked the way he wanted to serve her. She liked the way he felt about being a hotelkeeper. She liked his old, heavy face and big hands. Liking him she opened the door and looked out. It was raining harder. A man in a rubber cape was crossing the empty square to the cafe. The cat would be around to the right. Perhaps she could go along under the leaves. As she stood in the doorway an umbrella opened behind her. It was the maid who looked after their room. “You must not get wet,” she smiled, speaking Italian. Of course, the hotelkeeper had sent her. With the maid holding the umbrella over her, she walked along the gravel path until she was under their window. The table was there, washed bright green in the rain, but the cat was gone. She was suddenly disappointed. The maid looked up at her. “Ha perduto qualque cosa, Signora?12” “There was a cat,” said the American girl. “A cat?” “Si, il gatto.13” “A cat?” the maid laughed. “A cat in the rain?” “Yes,” she said, “under the table.” Then, “Oh, I wanted it so much, I wanted a kitty.” When she talked English the maid's face tightened. “Come, Signora,” she said. “We must get back inside. You will be wet.” “I suppose so,” said the American girl. They went back along the gravel path and passed in the door. The maid stayed outside to close the umbrella. As the American girl passed the office, the padrone bowed from his desk. Something felt very small and tight inside the girl. The padrone made her feel very small and at the same time really important. She had a momentary feeling of being of supreme importance. She went on up the stairs. She opened the door of the room. George was on the bed, reading. “Did you get the cat?” he asked, putting the book down. “It was gone.” “Wonder where it went to,” he said, resting his eyes from reading. She sat down on the bed.

12 13

(итал.) Вы потеряли что-нибудь, синьора? (итал.) Да, кошка.

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“I wanted it so much,” she said. “I don't know why I wanted it so much. I wanted that poor kitty. It isn't any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain.” George was reading again. She went over and sat in front of the mirror of the dressing table looking at herself with the hand glass. She studied her profile, first one side and then the other. Then she studied the back of her head and her neck. “Don't you think it would be a good idea if I let my hair grow out?” she asked, looking at her profile again. George looked up and saw the back of her neck, clipped close like a boy's. “I like it the way it is.” “I get so tired of it,” she said. «I get so tired of looking like a boy.” George shifted his position in the bed. He hadn't looked away from her since she started to speak. “You look pretty darn nice,” he said. She laid the mirror down on the dresser and went over to the window and looked out. It was getting dark. “I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel,” she said. “I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her.” “Yeah?” George said from the bed. “And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes.” “Oh, shut up and get something to read,” George said. He was reading again. His wife was looking out of the window. It was quite dark now and still raining in the palm trees. “Anyway, I want a cat,” she said, “I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I can't have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat.” George was not listening. He was reading his book. His wife looked out of the window where the light had come on in the square. Someone knocked at the door. “Avanti,14” George said. He looked up from his book. In the doorway stood the maid. She held a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tight against her and swung down against her body. “Excuse me,” she said, “the padrone asked me to bring this for the Signora.” 14

(итал.) Войдите.

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3 Unit 3. The author’s image 3.1 Types of narration 3.1.1 An Outline

A narrator is, within any story (literary work, movie, play, verbal account, etc.), the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for story-telling of any kind. The others are the author and the audience; the latter called the "reader" when referring specifically to literature. The author and the audience both inhabit the real world. It is the author’s function to create the universe, people, and events within the story. It is the audience's function to understand and interpret the story. The narrator only exists within the world of the story (and only there—although in non-fiction the narrator and the author can share the same person, since the real world and the world of the story may be the same) and present it in a way the audience can comprehend. A narrator may tell the story from his own point of view (as a fictive entity) or from the point of view of one of the characters in the story. The act or process of telling the particulars of a story is referred to as narration. Along with exposition, argumentation, and description, narration (broadly defined) is one of four rhetorical modes of discourse. More narrowly defined, narration is the fiction-writing mode whereby the narrator communicates directly to the reader. Types of narration (narrative modes). A writer's choice of narrator is crucial because the way of work fiction is perceived by the reader. Most narrators present their story from one of the following perspectives (called narrative modes): a.

the author’s narration done by the omniscient narrator;

b.

entrusted narrative carried out in the 1st person singular;

c.

anonymous entrusted narrative carried out in the 3d person.

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1)

the

author’s

narration

done

by

the

omniscient

narrator

(аукториальный рассказчик): A third-person omniscient narrator gives a panoramic view of the world of the story, looking into many characters and into the broader background of a story. A third-person omniscient narrator can tell feelings of every character. He has direct knowledge of them and acts as an observer, as he is above the world of narration. For stories in which the context and the views of many characters are important, a third-person narrator is a better choice. 2) entrusted narrative carried out in the 1st person singular: The writer entrusts some fictitious character (who might also participate in the narrated events) with the task of story-telling to make his writing more plausible, to impress the reader with the effect of authenticity of the described events. The writer himself thus hides behind the figure of the narrator, presents all the events of the story from the latter's viewpoint and only sporadically emerges in the narrative with his own considerations which may reinforce, or contradict those expressed by the narrator [10]. A first-person narrator brings greater focus on the feelings, opinions, and perceptions of a particular character in a story, and on how the character views the world and the views of other characters. In the entrusted narrative carried out in the 1st person singular the narrator proceeds with his story openly and explicitly, from his own name, as, e.g., in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger, or ‘”The Great Gatsby” by Sc. Fitzgerald. In the first book Holden Caulfield himself retells about the crisis in his own life which makes the focus of the novel. In this case the narrator is both a speaker and a perceiver. In the second book Nick Carraway tells about Jay Gatsby, whom he met only occasionally, so that to tell Gatsby's life-story he had to lean on the knowledge of other personages too. In the first case the narration has fewer deviations from the main line, than in the second in which the narrator has to supply the reader also with the information about himself and his connection with the protaganist. In this case the narrator is a speaker and an observer of the events. 49

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3) anonymous entrusted narrative carried out in the 3d person (also known as third person limited narrator). The anonymous narrator can be is the protagonist referring to himself in the third person. The author himself hides behind the limited narrator, but as in the case with the 1 st person narration the narrator tells only about his own feelings or if the other characters’ than only of those which can be observed making the narrative mode rather restricted. The most objective type of narration is the author’s narration done by the omniscient author. The other two types are more or less subjective as they reveal empathy and participation in the story told. Multiple narrators. A writer may choose to let several narrators tell the story from different points of view. Then it is up to the reader to decide which narrator seems most reliable for each part of the story. It may refer to the style of the writer in which he/she expresses the paragraph written. William Faulkner's “As I Lay Dying” is a prime example of the use of multiple narrators. Faulkner employs stream of consciousness by narrating the story from the first person view of multiple characters. Each chapter is devoted to the voice of a single character after whom it is titled. Some writers employ an alternate form of this style, in which multiple characters narrate the story at once, or at least a single character narrates the actions of a group of characters while never referring to a "me", and only to a "we" of the group. The technique of narrating from the point of view of a group as opposed to an individual can create a dissociative effect of observation, as if a Greek chorus, or personalize the story further by providing the reader with the knowledge and experience of a party involved in the story, without the specifics of an individual personality or character. In literary work, the narrator is the person who tells the story. Point of view is the narrator’s relationship to the story. In a story using first-person point of view, the narrator is a character in the story. The reader sees everything through the character's eyes. In a work with third-person limited point of view, the narrator is outside the story and reveals the thoughts and feelings of only one character. 50

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3.1.2 Practical tasks

Task 1. Read three texts “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Good Deed” by Pearl Buck and “Her First Ball” by Katherine Mansfield and analyse the texts according to the following questions: 1.

Be ready to tell the plot of each story.

2.

State the types of narrative:

Who is the narrator? Is it the author himself or one of the characters? How is it perceived? 3.

Analyse the imagery of characters:

How many characters are there in the story? Are they flat or round? What methods of characterization does the author resort to? Prove your point of view. THE TELL-TALE HEART Edgar Allan Poe True!-—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—nor destroyed— not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story. It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever. Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded—with what 51

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caution—with what foresight—with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it—oh, so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly— very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha!—would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously—oh, so cautiously —cautiously (for the hinges creaked)—I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight—but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and I spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept. Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers—of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back—but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers), and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

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THE GOOD DEED Pearl Buck New York Chinatown 1953 Mr. Pan was worried about his mother. He had been worried about her when she was in China, and now he was worried about her in New York, although he had thought that once he got her out of his ancestral village in the province of Szechuen 1 and safely away from the local bullies, who took over when the distant government fell, his anxieties would be ended. To this end he had risked his own life and paid out large sums of sound American money, and he felt that day when he saw her on the wharf, a tiny, dazed little old woman, in a lavender silk coat and black skirt, that now they would live happily together, he and his wife, their four small children and his beloved mother, in the huge safety of the American city. It soon became clear, however, that safety was not enough for old Mrs. Pan. She did not even appreciate the fact, which he repeated again and again, that had she remained in the village, she would now have been dead, because she was the widow of the large landowner who had been his father and therefore deserved death in the eyes of the rowdies in power. Old Mrs. Pan listened to this without reply, but her eyes, looking very large in her small withered face, were haunted with homesickness. "There are many things worse than death, especially at my age," she replied at last, when again her son reminded her of her good fortune in being where she was. He became impassioned when she said this. He struck his breast with his clenched fists and he shouted, "Could I have forgiven myself if I had allowed you to die? Would the ghost of my father have given me rest?" "I doubt his ghost would have traveled over such a wide sea," she replied. "That man was always afraid of the water." Yet there was nothing that Mr. Pan and his wife did not try to do for his mother in order to make her happy. They prepared the food that she had once enjoyed, but she was now beyond the age of pleasure in food, and she had no appetite. She touched one dish and another with the ends of her ivory chopsticks, 53

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which she had brought with her from her home, and she thanked them prettily. "It is all good," she said, "but the water is not the same as our village water; it tastes of metal and not of earth, and so the flavor is not the same. Please allow the children to eat it." She was afraid of the children. They went to an American school and they spoke English very well and Chinese very badly, and since she could speak no English, it distressed her to hear her own language maltreated by their careless tongues. For a time she tried to coax them to a few lessons, or she told them stories, to which they were too busy to listen. Instead they preferred to look at the moving pictures in the box that stood on the table in the living room. She save them up finally and merely watched them contemplatively when they were in the same room with her and was glad when they were gone. She liked her son's wife. She did not understand how there could be a Chinese woman who had never been in China, but such her son's wife was. When her son was away, she could not say to her daughterin-law, "Do you remember how the willows grew over the gate?" For her son's wife had no such memories. HER FIRST BALL Katherine Mansfield Exactly when the ball began Leila would have found it hard to say. Perhaps her first real partner was the cab. It did not matter that she shared the cab with the Sheridan girls and their brother. She sat back in her own little corner of it, and the bolster on which her hand rested felt like the sleeve of an unknown young man's dress suit; and away they bowled, past waltzing lampposts and houses and fences and trees. "Have you really never been to a ball before, Leila? But, my child, how too weird—" cried the Sheridan girls. "Our nearest neighbor was fifteen miles," said Leila softly, gently opening and shutting her fan. Oh dear, how hard it was to be indifferent like the others! She tried not to smile too much; she tried not to care. But every single thing was so new and exciting. Meg's tuberoses, Jose's long loop of amber, Laura's little dark head, 54

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pushing above her white fur like a flower through snow. She would remember forever. It even gave her a pang to see her cousin Laurie throw away the wisps of tissue paper he pulled from the fastenings of his new gloves. She would like to have kept those wisps as a keepsake, as a remembrance. Laurie leaned forward and put his hand on Laura's knee. "Look here, darling," he said. "The third and the ninth as usual. Twig?"2 Oh, how marvelous to have a brother! In her excitement Leila felt that if there had been time, if it hadn't been impossible, she couldn't have helped crying because she was an only child, and no brother had ever said "Twig15?" to her; no sister would ever say, as Meg said to Jose that moment, "I've never known your hair go up more successfully than it has tonight!" But, of course, there was no time. They were at the drill hall already; there were cabs in front of them and cabs behind. The road was bright on either side with moving fanlike lights, and on the pavement gay couples seemed to float through the air; little satin shoes chased each other like birds. "Hold on to me, Leila; you'll get lost," said Laura. "Come on, girls; let's make a dash for it," said Laurie. Leila put two fingers on Laura's pink velvet cloak, and they were somehow lifted past the big golden lantern, carried along the passage, and pushed into the little room marked "Ladies." Here the crowd was so great there was hardly space to take off their things; the noise was deafening. Two benches on either side were stacked high with wraps. Two old women in white aprons ran up and down tossing fresh armfuls. And everybody was pressing forward trying to get at the little dressing table and mirror at the far end. A great quivering jet of gas lighted the ladies' room. It couldn't wait; it was dancing already. When the door opened again and there came a burst of tuning from the drill hall, it leaped almost to the ceiling.

15

Twig – informal Understand?

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Dark girls, fair girls were patting their hair, tying ribbons again, tucking handkerchiefs down the fronts of their bodices, smoothing marble-white gloves. And because they were all laughing it seemed to Leila that they were all lovely. Task 2. Read and analyse the story “Daughter” by Eriskine Caldwell according to the following questions: 1. Point of view: 1. Does the author speak in his own voice or does he present the events from the point of view of one of the characters? 2. Has the narrator access to the thoughts and feelings of all the characters or just one? 3. Does the narrator sympathise with any of the characters or remain aloof and detached? Is the attitude explicit or implicit? 4.Can we trust the narrator's judgement?

2. Characters: 1. What are the characters' names and what do they look like? Does this have any significance? 2. Are the characters presented directly or indirectly through action and speech? 3. With what problem is the protagonist faced? Is it a conflict with another individual (with society, within himself)? 4. Does the protagonist achieve self-knowledge and awareness as a result of his or her experience? DAUGHTER Eriskine Caldwell At sunrise a Negro on his way to the big house to feed the mules had taken the word to Colonel Henry Maxwell, and Colonel Henry phoned the sheriff. The

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sheriff had hustled Jim into town and locked him up in the jail, and then he went home and ate breakfast. Jim walked around the empty cellroom while he was buttoning his shirt, and after that he sat down on the bunk and tied his shoelaces. Everything that morning had taken place so quickly that he had not even had time to get a drink of water. He got up and went to the water bucket near the door, but the sheriff had forgotten to put water into it. By that time there were several men standing in the jailyard. Jim went to the window and looked out when he heard them talking. Just then another automobile drove up, and six or seven men got out. Other men were coming towards the jail from both directions of the streets. "What was the trouble out at your place this morning, Jim?" somebody said. Jim stuck his chin between the bars and looked at the faces in the crowd. He knew everyone there. While he was trying to figure out how everybody in town had heard about his being there, somebody else spoke to him. "It must have been an accident, wasn't it, Jim?" A colored boy hauling a load of cotton to the gin drove up the street. When the wagon got in front of the jail, the boy whipped up the mules with the ends of the reins and made them trot. "I hate to see the State have a grudge against you, Jim," somebody said. The sheriff came down the street swinging a tin dinner-pail in his hand. He pushed through the crowd, unlocked the door, and set the pail inside. Several men came up behind the sheriff and looked over his shoulder into the jail. 57

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"Here's your breakfast my wife fixed up for you, Jim. You'd better eat a little, Jim boy." Jim looked at the pail, at the sheriff, at the open jail door, and he shook his head. "I don't feel hungry," he said. "Daughter's been hungry, though — awful hungry." The sheriff backed out the door, his hand going to the handle of his pistol. He backed out so quickly that he stepped on the toes of the men behind him. "Now, don't you get careless, Jim boy," he said. "Just sit and calm yourself." He shut the door and locked it. After he had gone a few steps towards the street, he stopped and looked into the chamber of his pistol to make sure it had been loaded. The crowd outside the window pressed in closer. Some of the men rapped on the bars until Jim came and looked out. When he saw them, he stuck his chin between the iron and gripped his hands around it. "How come it to happen, Jim?" somebody asked. "It must have been an accident, wasn't it?" Jim's long thin face looked as if it would come through the bars. The sheriff came up to the window to see if everything was all right. "Now, just take it easy, Jim boy," he said. The man who had asked Jim to tell what had happened, elbowed the sheriff out of the way. The other men crowded closer. "How come, Jim?" the man said. "Was it an accident?" "No," Jim said, his fingers twisting about the bars. "I picked up my shotgun and done it."

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The sheriff pushed towards the window again. "Go on, Jim, and tell us what it's all about." Jim's face squeezed between the bars until it looked as

though

only his ears kept his head from coming through. "Daughter said she was hungry, and I just couldn't stand it no longer. I just couldn't stand to hear her say it." "Don't get all excited now, Jim boy," the sheriff said, pushing forward one moment and being elbowed away the next. "She waked up in the middle of the night again and said she was hungry. I just couldn't stand to hear her say it." Somebody pushed all the way through the crowd until he got to the window. "Why, Jim, you could have come and asked me for something for her to eat, and you know I'd have given you all I got in the world." The sheriff pushed forward once more. "That wasn't the right thing to do," Jim said. "I've been working all year and I made enough for all of us to eat." He stopped and looked down into the faces on the other side of the bars. "I made enough working on shares, but they came and took it all away from me. I couldn't go around begging after I'd made enough to keep us. They just came and took it all off. Then Daughter woke up again this morning saying she was hungry, and I just couldn't stand it no longer." "You'd better go and get on the bunk now, Jim boy," the sheriff said. "It don't seem right that the little girl ought to be shot like that," somebody said. "Daughter said she was hungry," Jim said. "She'd been saying that for all of the past month. Daughter'd wake up in the middle of the night and say it. I just couldn't stand it no longer." 59

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"You ought to have sent her over to my house, Jim. Me and my wife could have fed her something, somehow. It don't look right to kill a little girl like her." "I'd made enough for all of us," Jim said. "I just couldn't stand it no longer. Daughter'd been hungry all the past month." "Take it easy, Jim boy," the sheriff said, trying to push forward. The crowd swayed from side to side. "And so you just picked up the gun this morning and shot her?" somebody asked. "When she woke up this morning saying she was hungry, I just couldn't stand it." The crowd pushed closer. Men were coining towards the jail from all directions, and those who were then arriving pushed forward to hear what Jim had to say. "The State has got a grudge against you now, Jim," somebody said, "but somehow it don't seem right." "I can't help it," Jim said. "Daughter woke up again this morning that way." The jailyard, the street, and the vacant lot on the other side were filled with men and boys. All of them were pushing forward to hear Jim. Word had spread all over town by that time that Jim Carlisle had shot and killed his eight-year-old daughter Clara. "Who does Jim share-crop for?" somebody asked. "Colonel Henry Maxwell," a man in the crowd said. "Colonel Henry has had Jim out there about nine or ten years." "Henry Maxwell didn't have no business coming and taking all the shares. He's got plenty of his own. It ain't right for Henry Maxwell to come and take Jim's too." The sheriff was pushing forward once more. "The State's got a grudge against Jim now," somebody said. "Somehow it don't seem right, though." The sheriff pushed his shoulder into the crowd of men and worked his way in closer. A man shoved the sheriff away. "Why did Henry Maxwell come and take your share of the crop, Jim?" "He said I owed it to him because one of his mules died about a month ago." The sheriff got in front of the barred window. 60

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"You ought to go to the bunk now and rest some, Jim boy," he said. "Take off your shoes and stretch out, Jim boy." He was elbowed out of the way. "You didn't kill the mule, did you, Jim?" "The mule dropped dead in the barn," Jim said. "I wasn't nowhere around. It just dropped dead." The crowd was pushing harder. The men in front were jammed against the jail, and the men behind were trying to get within earshot. Those in the middle were squeezed against each other so tightly they could not move in any direction. Everyone was talking louder. Jim's face pressed between the bars and his fingers gripped the iron until the knuckles were white. The milling crowd was moving across the street to the vacant lot. Somebody was shouting. He climbed up on an automobile and began swearing at the top of his lungs. A man in the middle of the crowd pushed his way out and went to his automobile. He got in and drove off alone. Jim stood holding to the bars and looking through the window. The sheriff had his back to the crowd, and he was saying something to Jim. Jim did not hear what he said. A man on his way to the gin with a load of cotton stopped to find out what the trouble was. He looked at the crowd in the vacant lot for a moment, and then he turned around and looked at Jim behind the bars. The shouting across the street was growing louder. "What's the trouble, Jim?" Somebody on the other side of the street came to the wagon. He put his foot on a spoke in the wagon wheel and looked up at the man on the cotton while he talked. "Daughter woke up this morning again saying she was hungry," Jim said. The sheriff was the only person who heard him. The man on the load of cotton jumped to the ground, tied the reins to the wagon wheel, and pushed through the crowd to the car where all the shouting and swearing was being done. After listening for a while, he came back to the street, called a Negro who was standing with several other Negroes on the corner, and handed him the reins. The Negro drove off with the cotton towards the gin, and the man went back into the crowd. 61

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Just then the man who had driven off alone in his car came back. He sat for a moment behind the steering wheel, and then he jumped to the ground. He opened the rear door and took out a crowbar that was as long as he was tall. "Pry that jail door open and let Jim out," somebody said. "It ain't right for him to be in there." The crowd in the vacant lot was moving again. The man who had been standing on top of the automobile jumped to the ground, and the men moved towards the street in the direction of the jail. The first man to reach it jerked the six-foot crowbar out of the soft earth where it had been jabbed. The sheriff backed off. "Now, take it easy, Jim boy," he said. He turned and started walking rapidly up the street towards his house.

3.2 Plot and structural composition 3.2.1 An Outline

Plot is a sequence of events in which the characters are involved, the theme and the idea revealed. Events are made up of episodes, episodes, in their turn, of smaller action details. Every plot is an arrangement of meaningful events. No matter how insignificant or deceptively casual, the events of the story are meant to suggest the character's morals and motives. Plot Structure and Literary Time. The events span in time; they make a sequence of the past, the present and the future. Each single event takes the place of one that has occurred before so that they all may be figured as forming one straight line. Time in the literary work differs from natural, historical time. The narrative may begin at any moment in the life of the character and end at any other moment, 62

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which is not necessarily the one which chronologically follows the former. It may end with the event that preceded those given at the beginning or in the middle of the narrative. Time in the literary work is called literary or poetic, and its representation is conditioned by the laws of narrative literature and the work's content [11]. Sometimes a plot follows the chronological order of events. At other times there are jumps back and forth in time which are called flashbacks and foreshadowing. The four structural components of the plot are exposition, complication, climax and denouement. Exposition contains a short presentation of time, place and characters of the story. Complication (or story) is a separate incident helping to unfold the action, and might involve thoughts and feelings as well. It represents the beginning of collision and the collision itself. Climax is a decisive moment on which the fate of the characters and the final action depend. Denouement means 'the untying of a knit' which is precisely what happens in this phase. It is the event or events that bring the action to an end. The interrelation between these components of a literary text is called composition [11]. Not all stories have a denouement, some stories end right after the climax, some lack exposition.

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3.2.2 Practical tasks

Task 1. Read the short story by Mike Quin and get ready with the tasks for discussion and analysis. 1.

What is the story about?

2.

What is the general atmosphere of the text? How is it sustained?

3.

Give the general definition of the text and its type of narration.

4.

Dwell upon the composition of the story. Does it contain any

peculiarities? Are the events which happen in the story arranged chronologically? If not? Why? 5.

Who are the main characters in the story? Describe them. Which

method of characterization does the author apply for? Give examples. 6.

Why does the author use short and simple sentences in the beginning of

the story? How do they characterize Jonathan Bones? 7.

Are there instances of personage’s speech in the story? Give examples.

8.

What are the relations between the characters? How are they

expressed? Consider the choice of words and devices. 9.

Are the main characters contrasted to each other? If so, how is this

opposition sustained? 10.

What does the author mean when he says “For two long years the battle

raged until both men were hanging by a thread over the pit of bankruptcy”? What devices are used in this sentence? 11.

Why does the author describe Ellsworth again in the end of the story?

Are there any changes in him? If so, what can you compare these changes to? 12.

The author introduces into the text some paragraphs devoted to the

description of nature. Why?

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13.

Is there any effect of defeated expectancy in the story? If there is, how

is it created? Consider the choice of words “doomed and damned” and syntactical stylistic devices. 14.

What is the main idea of the extract? Does the title reflect its main

idea? SURVIVAL OF THE FINKIEST Mike Quin Jonathan Bones was not in business for his health. If you asked him he would tell you so frankly. His object was to make money, and to do that you had to be just a little smarter than the next fellow. Take that fellow across the street. He'd never get anywhere in the business world. Too much of a dreamer. An easy mark for anyone. Bones had no use for dreamers. He had fired many of them. They'd never get any place in this world. Dark spots on the pavement told him it was beginning to rain. He took the iron rod from under the counter, went outside and cranked down the awning. The words «JONATHAN BONES, MERCHANDISE», extended out over the sidewalk on a canvas flap. A bit of paper caught his eye. He picked it up, walked to the curb and carefully dropped it in the gutter. Across the street his competitor had come out and was also cranking down the awning. The words, «ELLSWORTH SPOTTS, MERCHANDISE», moved slowly downward, like a cannon maneuvering into position. Damn that man! For two years now the bitter contest had gone on. There was no room for two merchandise stores. One was all the neighborhood could support. Which would prove himself the better business man of the two? Which one would succeed in bankrupting the other? Jonathan Bones was the first to cut his staff down to three clerks and make up the difference by increasing their hours. That enabled him to run special sales every week. 65

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Ellsworth Spotts was quick to imitate the special sales and even went one better by running ads in the neighborhood paper. It was a bold answer to the challenge, but costly. The heavier overhead was a drag on competition. Within three months, he too had to cut his staff down to three. Stout, good natured and inclined to pal with his employees, Ellsworth Spotts took this hard. Bones was right. He wasn't much of a business man — too emotional. It took him three days to screw up courage for the firing and then he went out and got drunk. Bones was not long in finding this out, and he knew he had his competitor on the run. It was time for another push. Young men and women who live at home need little money. Anxious to get a start in the world, they are glad for a chance to learn some business. An ad in the paper brought twenty smiling and pleading for a chance. Soon the three old clerks were gone and their places filled by youngsters at very trivial pay. Two of them took it all right, if a little sadly. But the third stood in front of the door and called him every dirty name in the book. «It only goes to show», Bones remarked later, «how easily you can be fooled on a man's character and how careful you have to be. That man was with me for a year and a half and in all that while I never suspected he was such a bad actor». The youngsters caught on very rapidly. They were very intelligent. He showed them which was the good merchandise and which were worthless items he had been stuck with. The good merchandise they didn't have to bother about. That would sell itself in due time. It was the bad items they must get rid of. Greet the customers with a smile, win their confidence by your pleasing personality, make them feel you are a friend whom they can trust, then lead them to the rotten merchandise. Tell them it is very good value and try to take their money away from them in exchange for it. That was the gist of Bones' training. Ellsworth Spotts was soon taking the bumps. Everytime he looked across the street his competitor's store was blazing with sale banners. One after another he was forced to fire his clerks and replace them with young girls. He got used to firing 66

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people and soon thought nothing of it. He was obliged to extend the closing hour to 9 o'clock at night and stay open Saturday until midnight. For two long years the battle raged until both men were hanging by a thread over the pit of bankruptcy. Ellsworth had lost weight and much of his good nature vanished with it. His face had a tired, haggard look and a trace of meanness was beginning to appear on it. As he finished cranking down his awning, he turned and looked across the street at where Jonathan Bones was still standing. The sky had clouded, the street was gloomy and the rain was coming down now in full volume. There they stood; each under his own awning, gazing across the melancholy street in mutual hatred — and both of them doomed and damned. For little did they realize that the lot on the corner had been purchased that morning by Jones and Hardbottom, Inc., the largest chain store, cut-rate merchandise firm in the country. 3.3 Narrative-compositional forms 3.3.1 An Outline The author’s speech in a literary text is realized in three narrative compositional forms traditionally analyzed in poetics and stylistics. They are: narrative proper where the unfolding of the plot is concentrated. This is the most dynamic compositional form of the text. Two other forms – description and essay are static. The description usually includes landscape and a portrait. The portrait plays a great role in individualizing a personage, because it supplies not only the details of the appearance of people, but also the information about his haircut, clothes, manners, that reflects his habits and tastes. The portrait defines a personage’s social status, the place and time of action. There is a dynamic portrait when the whole story is based on the description of a personage’s life (including information about his appearance and his traits of character), the chief peculiarity of a dynamic portrait

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is that the author uses both methods of characterization and the reader should imagine this personage himself. Essay contains causes and effects of the personage's behaviour, his (or the author's) considerations about moral, ethical, ideological and other issues. It is rather seldom that any of these compositional forms is used in a “pure”, uninterrupted way. As a rule they intermingle even within the boundaries of a paragraph.

3.3.2 Practical tasks

Task 1. State the type of narrative compositional form of the extracts given below. Pay attention to the language means used in each one which the author resorts to. 1.

Sibyl roused to sounds of panic. Screams, crashes, running footsteps...

Above those sounds was an awesome, earthshaking noise. Vesuvius. She tried to move, then groaned, instead. Nothing seemed to be working properly and she was mortally certain she did not want to try moving again. Sibyl tried to move, anyway. She had to get out of the house before the real eruption started. The steam explosions had already begun. Which meant the main eruption couldn't be more than minutes away. Sibyl rolled over and tried to gain her knees. Pain stabbed through her belly, her groin, her back. She sobbed aloud. She wouldn't have to wait for the volcano to kill her. She felt as though she were bleeding to death where she lay. (L.E.) 2.

Novelists write for countless different reasons, for money, for fame, for

reviewers, for parents, for friends, for loved ones; for vanity, for pride, for curiosity, for amusement; as skilled furniture-makers enjoy making furniture, as drunkards like drinking, as judges like judging, as Sicilians like emptying a shotgun into an enemy's back. I could fill a book with reasons, and they would all be true, though not true of all. Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create 68

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worlds as real as, but other than the world that is. Or was. This is why we cannot plan. We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator: a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live. (J. I.) 3.

When Rachel pulls out into traffic, he turns and checks his reflection in

the plateglass window. His face is still ruddy, a little tan left over from a weekend spent out at Montauk. Behind his glasses, pale lines splinter out from the edges of his eyes, like cracked glaze on pottery. There's also a little silvering at the temples that wasn't there when Caitlin last saw him. You could make a case that the gray hairs go with the suit and the tan. Makes him look successful, he decides. All in all, looking pretty good at thirty-eight, one of the last of his crowd who hasn't gotten thin on top or thick in the middle. (D.D.) 4.

Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in

his ways and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up after ten at night and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning. His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feel and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin hawklike nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. (C. D.) Task 2. Read the text “Stalking” by Joyce Carol Oates and analyse it according to the questions: 1. What is the story about? 2. Is there any exposition in the story? What does it begins with? 3. When and how do you get to know preliminary information about the main character? 4. In what tense is the story written? Why? 5. What kind of narration is it? Why? 69

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6. What kind of character is Gretchen? 7. Does the author express his attitude to Gretchen or let e reader judge? 8. What kind of girl is Gretchen? How do you know? How does she live? What is she interested in? 9. What do you know about her family? 10. What is the Adversary? Is it a man or a thing? What is it for Gretchen? What kind of conflict is depicted in the story? 11. What can you say about your actions in the store? 12. What is the main idea of the story? STALKING Joyce Carol Oates The Invisible Adversary is fleeting across a field. Gretchen, walking slowly, deliberately, watches with her keen unblinking eyes the figure of the Invisible Adversary some distance ahead. The Adversary has run boldly in front of all that traffic — on long spiky legs brisk as colt's legs — and jumped up onto a curb of new concrete, and now is running across a vacant field. The Adversary glances over his shoulder at Gretchen. Bastard, Gretchen thinks. Saturday afternoon. November. A cold gritty day. Gretchen is out stalking. She has hours for her game. Hours. She is dressed for the hunt, her solid legs crammed into old blue jeans, her big, square, strong feet jammed into white leather boots that cost her mother forty dollars not long ago, but are now scuffed and filthy with mud. Hopeless to get them clean again, Gretchen doesn't give a damn. She is wearing dark green corduroy jacket that is worn out at the elbows and the rear, with a zipper that can be zipped swiftly up or down, attached to a fringed leather strip. On her head nothing, though it is windy today. She has hours ahead. Cars and trucks and buses from the city and enormous trucks hauling automobiles pass by on the highway; Gretchen waits until the way is nearly clear, then starts out. A signal car is approaching. Slow down, you bastard, Gretchen 70

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thinks; and like magic he does. Following the footprints of the Invisible Adversary. There is no sidewalk here yet, so she might as well cut right across the field. A gigantic sign announces the site of the new Pace & Fishbach Building, an office building of fifteen floors to be completed the following year. The land around here is all dug up and muddy; she can see the Adversary's footsteps leading right past the gouged-up area ... and there he is, smirking back at her, pretending panic. I'll get you. Don't worry, Gretchen thinks carefully. Because the Adversary is so light-footed and invisible, Gretchen doesn't make any effort to be that way. She plods along as she does at school, passing from classroom to classroom, unhurried and not even sullen, just unhurried. She knows she is very visible. She is thirteen years old and weighs one hundred and thirty-five pounds. She's only five feet three— stocky, muscular, squat in the torso and shoulders, with good strong legs and thighs. She could be good at gym, if she bothered; instead, she just stands around, her face empty, her arms crossed and her shoulders a little slumped. If forced, she takes part in the games of volleyball and basketball, but she runs heavily, without spirit, and sometimes bumps into other girls, hurting them. Out of my way, she thinks; at such times her face shows no expression. And now? ... The Adversary is peeking out at her from around the corner of a gas station. Something flickers in her brain. I see you, she thinks, with quiet excitement. The Adversary ducks back out of sight. Gretchen heads in his direction, plodding through a jumbled, bulldozed field of mud and thistles and debris that is mainly rocks and chunks of glass. The gas station is brand-new and not yet opened for business. It is all white tile, while concrete, perfect plate-glass windows with white-washed X's on them, a large driveway and eight gasoline pumps, all proudly erect and ready for business. But the gas station has not opened since Gretchen and her family moved here — about six months ago. Something must have gone wrong. Gretchen fixes her eyes on the corner where the Adversary was last seen He can't escape. 71

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One wall of the gas stations's white tile has been smeared with something like tar. Dreamy, snakelike, thick twistings of black. Black tar. Several windows have been broken. Gretchen stands in the empty driveway, her hands jammed into her pockets. Traffic is moving slowly over here. A barricade has been set up that directs traffic out onto the shoulder of the highway, on a narrow, bumpy, muddy lane that loops out and back again onto the pavement. Cars move slowly, carefully. Their bottoms scrape against the road. The detour signs are great rectangular things, bright yellow with black zigzag lines. SLOW. DETOUR. In the two center lanes of the highway are bulldozers not being used today, and gigantic concrete pipes to be used for storm sewers. Eight pipes. They are really enormous; Gretchen's eyes crinkle with awe, just to see them. She remembers the Adversary. There he is — headed for the shopping plaza. He won’t get away in the crowds, Gretchen promises herself. She follows. Now she is approaching an area that is more completed, though there are still no sidewalks and some of the buildings are brand-new and yet unoccupied, vacant. She jumps over a concrete ditch that is stained with rust-colored water and heads up a slight incline to the service drive of the Federal Savings Bank. The drive-in teller's windows are all dark today, behind their green-tinted glass. The whole bank is dark, closed. Is this the bank her parents go to now? It takes Gretchen a minute to recognize it. Now a steady line of traffic, a single lane, turns onto the service drive that leads to the shopping plaza. BUCKINGHAM MALL. 101 STORES. Gretchen notices a few kids her own age, boys or girls, trudging in jeans and jackets ahead of her, through the mud. They might be classmates of hers. Her attention is captured again by the Invisible" Adversary, who has run all the way up to the Mall and is hanging around the entrance of the Cunningham Drug Store, teasing her. You'll be sorry for that, you bastard, Gretchen thinks with a smile. Automobiles pass her slowly. The parking lot for the Mall is enormous, many acres. A city of cars on a Saturday afternoon. Gretchen sees a car that might be her mother's, but she isn't sure. Cars are parked slanted here, in lanes marked LOT K, 72

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LANE 15; LOT K, LANE 16. The signs are spheres, bubbles, perched up on long slender poles. At night they are illuminated. Ten or twelve older kids are hanging around the drugstore entrance. One of them is sitting on top of a mailbox, rocking it back and forth. Gretchen pushes past them — they are kidding around, trying to block people — and inside the store her eye darts rapidly up and down the aisles, looking for the Invisible Adversary. Hiding here? Hiding? She strolls along, cunning and patient. At the cosmetics counter a girl is showing an older woman some liquid make-up. She smears a small oval onto the back of the woman's hand, rubs it in gently. "That's Peach Pride," the girl says. She has shimmering blond hair and eyes that are penciled to show a permanent exclamatory interest. She does not notice Gretchen, who lets one hand drift idly over a display of marked-down lipsticks, each for only $ 1.59. Gretchen slips the tube of lipstick into her pocket. Neatly. Nimbly. Ignoring the Invisible Adversary, who is shaking a finger at her, she drifts over to the newsstand, looks at the magazine covers without reading them, and edges over to another display. Packages in a cardboard barrel, out in the aisle. Big bargains. Gretchen doesn't even glance in the barrel to see what is being offered ... she just slips one of the packages in her pocket. No trouble. She leaves by the other door, the side exit. A small smile tugs at her mouth. The Adversary is trotting ahead of her. The Mall is divided into geometric areas, each colored differently; the Adversary leaves the blue pavement and is now on the green. Gretchen follows. She notices the Adversary going into a Franklin Joseph store. Gretchen enters the store, sniffs in the perfumery, overheated smell, sees nothing that interests her on the counters or at the dress racks, and so walks right to the back of the store, to the Ladies Room. No one inside. She takes the tube of lipstick out of her pocket, opens it, examines the lipstick. It has a tart, sweet smell. A very light pink: Spring Blossom. Gretchen goes to the mirror and smears the lipstick onto it, at first lightly, then coarsely; part of the lipstick breaks and falls into 73

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a hair-littered sink. Gretchen goes into one of the toilet stalls and losses the tube into the toilet bowl. She takes handfuls of toilet paper and crumbles them into a ball and throws them into the toilet. Remembering the package from the drugstore, she takes it out of her pocket — just toothpaste. She throws it, cardboard package and all, into the toilet bowl, then, her mind glimmering with an idea, she goes to the apparatus that holds the towel — a single cloth towel on a roll and lugs at it until it comes loose, then pulls it out hand over hand, patiently, until the entire towel is out. She scoops it up and carries it to the toilet. She pushes it in and flushes the toilet. The stuff doesn't go down, so she tries again. This time it goes part-way down before it gets stuck. Gretchen leaves the rest room and strolls unhurried through the store. The Adversary is waiting for her outside — peeking through the window — wagging a finger at her. Don't you wag no finger at me, she thinks, with a small tight smile. Outside, she follows him at a distance. Loud music is blaring around her head. It is rock music, piped out onto the colored squares and rectangles of the Mall, blown everywhere by the November wind, but Gretchen hardly hears it. Some boys are fooling around in front of the record store. One of them bumps into Gretchen and they all laugh as she is pushed against a trash can. "Watch it, babe!" the boy sings out. Her leg hurts. Gretchen doesn't look at them but, with a cold, swift anger, her face averted, she knocks the trash can over onto the sidewalk. Junk falls out. The can rolls. Some women shoppers scurry to get out of the way and the boys laugh. Gretchen walks away without looking back. She wanders through Sampson Furniture, which has two entrances. In one door and out the other, as always; it is a ritual with her. Again she notices the sofa that is like the sofa in their family room at home — covered with black and white fur, real goatskin. All over the store there are sofas, chairs, tables, beds. A jumble of furnishings. People stroll around them, in and out of little displays, displays meant to be living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, family rooms ... It makes Gretchen's eyes squint to see so many displays: like seeing the inside of a hundred houses. She slows down, almost comes to a stop. 74

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Gazing at a living-room display on a raised platform. Only after a moment does she remember why she is here — whom she is following — and she turns to see the Adversary beckoning to her. She follows him outside again. He goes into Dodi's Boutique and, with her head lowered so that her eyes seem to move to the bottom of her eyebrows, pressing up against her forehead, Gretchen follows him. You'll regret this, she thinks. Dodi's Boutique is decorated in silver and black. Metallic strips hang down from a dark ceiling, quivering. Salesgirls dressed in pants suits stand around with nothing to do except giggle with one another and nod their heads in time to the music amplified throughout the store. It is music from a local radio station. Gretchen wanders over to the dress rack, for the hell of it. Size 14. "The time is now 2 : 35," a radio announcer says cheerfully. "The weather is 32 degrees with a chance of showers and possible sleet tonight. You're listening to WCKK, Radio Wonderful. ..." Gretchen selects several dresses and a salesgirl shows her to a dressing room. "Need any help?" the girl asks. She has long swinging hair and a highshouldered, indifferent, bright manner. Alone, Gretchen takes off her jacket. She is wearing a navy blue sweater. She zips one of the dresses open and it falls off the flimsy plastic hanger before she can catch it. She steps on it, smearing mud onto the white wool. The hell with it. She lets it lie there and holds up another dress, gazing at herself in the mirror. She has untidy, curly hair that looks like a wig set loosely on her head. Light brown curls spill out everywhere, bouncy, a little frizzy, a cascade, a tumbling of curls. Her eyes are deep set, her eyebrows heavy and dark. S he has a stern, staring look, like an adult man. Her nose is perfectly formed, neat and noble. Her upper lip is long, as if it were stretched to close with difficulty over the front teeth. She wears no makeup, tier lips are perfectly colorless, pale, a little chapped, and they are usually held tight, pursed tightly shut. She has a firm, rounded chin. Her facial structure is strong, pensive, its features stern and symmetrical as a statue's, blank, neutral, withdrawn. Her face is attractive. But there is a blunt, neutral, sexless stillness to it, as if she were detached from it and somewhere else, uninterested. 75

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She holds the dress up to her body, smoothes it down over her breasts, staring. After a moment she hangs the dress up again, and runs down the zipper so roughly that it breaks. The other dress she doesn't bother with. She leaves the dressing room, putting on her jacket. At the front of the store the salesgirl glances at her ... “— Didn't fit? —” “No,” says Gretchen. She wanders around for a while, in and out of Carmichael's, the Mall's big famous store, where she catches sight of her mother on an escalator going up. Her mother doesn't notice her. She pauses by a display of "winter homes." Her family owns a home like this, in the Upper Peninsula, except theirs is larger. This one comes complete for only $ 5330: PACKAGE ERECTED ON YOUR LOT — YEAR-ROUND HOME FIBER GLASS INSULATION — BEAUTIFUL ROUGH-SAWN VERTICAL В. C. CEDAR SIDING WITH DEEP SIMULATED SHADOW LINES FOR A RUGGED EXTERIOR. Only 3 : 15. For the hell of it, Gretchen goes into the Big Boy restaurant and orders a ground-round hamburger with French fries. Also a Coke. She sits at the crowded counter and eats slowly, her jaws grinding slowly, as she glances at her reflection in the mirror directly in front of her —-her mop of hair moving almost imperceptibly with the grinding of her jaws — and occasionally she sees the Adversary waiting outside coyly. You'll get yours, she thinks. She leaves the Big Boy and wanders out into the parking lot, eating from a bag of potato chips. She wipes her greasy hands on her thighs. The afternoon has turned dark and cold. Shivering a little, she scans the maze of cars for the Adversary—yes, there he is — and starts after him. He runs ahead of her. He runs through the parking lot, waits teasingly at the edge of a field, and as she approaches he runs across the field, trotting along with a noisy crowd of four or five loose dogs that don't seem to notice him. Gretchen follows him through that field, trudging in the mud, and through another muddy field, her eyes fixed on him. Now he is at the highway — hesitating 76

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there — now he is about to run across in front of traffic — now, now — now he darts out — Now! He is struck by a car! His body knocked backward, spinning backward. Ah, now, now how does it feel? Gretchen asks. He picks himself up. Gets to his feet. Is he bleeding? Yes, bleeding! He stumbles across the highway to the other side, where there is a sidewalk. Gretchen follows him as soon as the traffic lets up. He is staggering now, like a drunken man. How does it feel? Do you like it now? The Adversary staggers along the sidewalk. He turns onto a side street, beneath an archway. Piney Woods. He is leading Gretchen into the Piney Woods subdivision. Here the homes are quite large, on artificial hills that show them to good advantage. Most of the homes are white colonials with attached garages. There are no sidewalks here, so the Adversary has to walk in the street, limping like an old man, and Gretchen follows him in the street, with her eyes fixed on him. Are you happy now? Does it hurt? Does it? She giggles at the way he walks. He looks like a drunken man. He glances back at her, while-faced, and turns up a flagstone walk ... goes right up to a big white colonial house. ... Gretchen follows him inside. She inspects the simulated brick of the foyer: yes, there are blood spots. He is dripping blood, entranced, she follows the splashes of blood into the hall, to the stairs ... forgets her own boots, which are muddy ... but she doesn't feel like going back to wipe her feel. The hell with it. Nobody seems to be home. Her mother is probably still shopping, her father is out of town for the weekend. The house empty. Gretchen goes into the kitchen, opens the refrigerator, takes out a Coke, and wanders to the rear of the house, to the family room. It is two steps down from the rest of the house. She takes off her jacket and tosses it somewhere. Turns on the television set. Sits on the goatskin sofa and stares at the screen: a return of a Shotgun Steve show, which she has already seen. If the Adversary comes crawling behind her, groaning in pain, weeping, she won't even bother to glance at him. 77

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3.4 Text categories: modality, the categories of the comic and the tragic 3.4.1 An Outline

The category of modality. Modality is based on analogy between the text and the sentence. The semantics of the sentence consists of nominative and evaluative components. Nomination means naming a certain real situation. Evaluation is achieved through modality. Z. Turaeva speaks about communicative, cognitive and emotive functions of the text. Emotive function is realized through modality [8]. Modality is subdivided into objective and subjective. Objective modality expresses possibilities, conditions, imperative character and necessity; true and false components. It depends upon the predicate of the sentence. Bericus' villa lay a couple of miles from Vesuvius' summit and at least another two miles line-of-sight from Herculaneum. By road, town was much farther; the road snaked around the flank of the volcano, taking the easiest route. Subjective modality portrays the speaker’s attitude (feelings, emotions and evaluation). It is revealed through Subjunctive and conditional mood, modal verbs and words which express probability. “Huh. If I don't work out to your satisfaction, I suppose you could always sell me”. Soft arms and a trembling little body pressed close in the darkness. “Shh... Shh…It's all right, Lucania, it's all right, shh, it's all right…” Maybe if I say it often enough, it'll be true. “Connor, if I've said something obscene to you, it must have popped out of the back of my mind where I stored it from the time I was a little girl and my older brothers…”.

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Moreover the category of person is a good means of creating objective and subjective modal character of the utterance. The 1st and 2nd pronouns express subjectivity while the 3d person pronouns – objective. Text modality is also realized through the category of person and other grammatical means, through lexical elements and syntactical structures. The choice of the theme and problems by the writer are predetermined by the category of modality. It is closely connected with pragmatic orientation of the writer. If the author wants to make an appeal to the reader’s response the text is characterized by the subjective modality, if the author intends to show the reality without expressing his own point of view, the text modality is objective. It is either explicit: “Dear reader!” in novels by D. Defoe, J. Swift, J. Fowles: “I would have you share my own sense” (The French Lieutenant’s Woman), or implicit, based on different implications, EM and SD. Modality is closely connected with tone of the text or mood, which can be expressed through different techniques. To discover the mood of a passage you may refer to the title, consult your own mind and heart, pay due attention to such contributory elements as 

the presentation of character,



the setting,



The art of storytelling [8].

The setting and the atmosphere in the text. The setting may play an important part in the building up of the atmosphere. It can provide a clue to the writer’s intention, and through a clever manipulation, condition the reader’s reaction. A setting may be: 1)

neutral or fairly neutral;

2)

suggestive of a mood or a certain atmosphere.

The term “setting” is generally taken to include not only the geographical place in which the events in a story happen, but also a historical era, the daily lives 79

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and customs of the characters. Such details as the time of the year, certain parts of the landscape, the weather, colours, sounds or other seemingly trivial details may be of great importance. The setting can have various functions in a given story: 1) it can provide a realistic background; 2) it can evoke the necessary atmosphere; 3) it can help to describe the characters indirectly [8]. Colours are often more than descriptive, they are symbolic. Gray and brown may help to emphasize the theme of mediocrity of life in a city. Other colours like red, or blue, or green may suggest passion, happiness or purity and so on. The description of an interior often reveals the personality of a character. Environment is molded by man’s will or taste. If it is an exterior, the description of a landscape, it may be in harmony with the hero’s state of mind or personality (soul). Environment may be: 1) oppressive; 2) producing an impression of absurdity, helplessness (the descriptions of the atrocities of war). Atmosphere of the story can arouse a whole range of moods in the reader: 1) Pleasurable state of emotion, more or less intensely felt; 2) A sense of drama or sheer suspense – that state of anxious expectancy concerning the outcome of a plot or a situation. To assess the degree of emotional responses aroused in the reader and examine the different devices (the interplay of a variety of elements) in the art of storytelling, the reader should note the following means: 1. Delaying (postponing) information, withholding the knowledge of most important facts until the last moment, thus keeping the reader in expectation, eager to know what will happen next. 2. Introducing clues to implicate apparently innocent characters, sending the reader on the wrong track or, at any rate, making him share the character’s uncertainties and fears. 80

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3. Building up to the last phase of the action, called climax, when the intensity is at its highest. 4. The rising tension, leading to the climax is generally followed by a descending movement (the anti-climax), producing a release of feeling. 5. Through syntax: short sentences, asyndeton [8]. The category of the comic in the text. The prevailing mood (tone, slant) of the story may be not only tense but lyrical, dramatic, tragic, optimistic, pessimistic, melodramatic, sentimental, unemotional/emotional, pathetic, dry and matter-of-fact, gloomy, bitter, sarcastic, cheerful, etc. We will discuss the way comic and tragic types of mood are created in a literary text. Any incident, situation, behavior, gesture, word or phrase, anything that provokes laughter may be called comic. There are many forms of the comic, many theories to explain the causes of laughter: 1. Laughter springs from our feelings of superiority over people less fortunate, or adaptable, or intelligent than ourselves. 2. Laughter serves the social purpose of criticizing unsocial behavior. 3. Lack of flexibility, lack of moral suppleness and certain rigidity is ridiculous. Comical effects are often produced by associating incongruous elements that contrast with each other:  People who are totally different physically and mentally (Don Quixote and Sancho Panza);  Words and expressions belonging to different levels of language or words pronounced in a situation in which other types of words are expected (“My children, my defrauded, swindled infants!”). Parody is a form of the comic. The most extreme forms of parody are the mock-heroic and the burlesque. If you describe low incidents, trivial events in noble, high-sounding terms you use a mock-heroic style. If, on the other hand, you make heroes (kings, princes, etc.) speak like ruffians, the effect is burlesque. In both cases a comic effect is produced by the discrepancy between manner and matter [8]. The word humour may have a broad or a restricted sense. It is a special aspect of the comic. Other notions or categories like wit, irony or satire generally imply different attitudes and methods. If the playwright makes use of comic devices placing his characters in embarrassing or ridiculous situations, this type of laughter 81

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is seldom humorous. It is too direct, too explicit, too obvious and too mechanical to be called humour. It is farce. The humorist uses an indirect method. He generally pretends to be serious, unmoved, unconcerned. Unlike the satirist, the humorist does not take sides openly. He does not condemn or pass judgment based on explicit or implicit moral standards. He is imbued with a sense of the relativity of things. Irony describes the ideal while pretending it is the real. Humour describes the real while pretending it is ideal. Hence the humorist is interested in reality. The humorist is a realist; an observer of life but his presentation of reality is often fanciful, original, unexpected, paradoxical, or illogical [8]. The ironist is often more derisive, more biting than the humorist. Irony, as a rhetorical device, is often used to denounce stupidity, hypocrisy or dishonesty. It may aim at provoking scorn, indignation, or outrage. The ironist is supposed to be less lenient, more involved emotionally [8]. E.g.: “What a noble illustration of the tender laws of this favored country – they let the paupers go to sleep!” (Ch. Dickens) Irony can be gentle, melancholy, extravagant, fanciful, bitter, sarcastic, dry, cynical, ruthless, biting, shattering, devastating, etc… In the extract given below which is taken from Ch. Dickens’s “Dombey and Son” irony is created by a convergence of stylistic devices: anaphora, syntactical parallelism in combination with antithesis and personification. “Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his general effect, as yet.” Wit is felt to be more intellectual, more brilliant, but less genial and less restrained than humour: “When a man teaches something he does not know to somebody else who has no aptitude for it, and gives him a certificate of proficiency, the latter has completed the education of a gentleman”. The category of the tragic in the text. Tragedy relates the downfall of a character enjoying high prestige, and possessing most desirable attributes. The tragic hero is seldom a pattern of virtue, but he cannot be a villain, otherwise he would not arouse pity, which is a basic tragic emotion [8]. 82

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In Greek tragedy, man was the victim of a blind, inescapable fate (e.g. Oedipus). In both French and Elizabethan tragedies, the conflict often sprang from a clash between passion and reason (or duty). When the hero succeeded in mastering his passions, in preserving his integrity and his grandeur, he elicited admiration from the spectators (e.g. Hamlet); when, on the contrary, passion was the victor (allconquering and devastating), fear was experienced by the spectator. Now gods and monarchs have disappeared from the modern stage, and antiheroes have displaced heroes. The tragic is less apparent and not easily detectable in modern literature than it was in the great classical works. The classical idea of the fall has disappeared, but tragic elements are based on the discrepancy between the ideal, the aim the character has set himself, on the one hand, and the futility of human experience on the other. In some modern works, the hero is aware of the absurdity of the world, but nevertheless puts up a brave and gratuitous fight which gives him certain nobility (cf. “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway) [8]. Pathos – the quality in a work, which evokes sympathy, pity or sorrow. Pathos is generally caused by characters that act, struggle, and are to some extent responsible for their sufferings. Modern English and American writers generally keep clear of sentimentality and grandiloquence. Reticence, economy of means is the hallmarks of many modern writers. E. Hemingway often leaves his reader to fill in the gaps in his prose, but while doing so, he still succeeds in rousing the reader’s emotions [8]. Tragic elements are caused by  loneliness;  the failure to communicate;  emotional isolation;  alienation of characters in modern novels. They are trapped in a hostile world. The modern hero often rebels. Revolt will vary in degrees and assume many forms. It is doomed to failure most of the time, and carries tragic overtone: failure, anxiety or despair which are implied under the bright surface of some sophisticated modern novels. In modern fiction a deep sense of the tragic may be in the plot, in various techniques of expressionism, in the atmosphere of bitterness or despair [8].

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3.4.2 Practical tasks Task 1. Read the following extracts, define the kind of atmosphere which is peculiar for each one and state the way the setting creates it. Pay attention to the colours, descriptions of nature, stylistic devices which create a certain effect. Extract 1. The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26 th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner. (from “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson) Extract 2. He was the son of Mrs. Al Robinson who once owned a farm on a side road leading off Trunion Pike, east of Winesburg and two miles beyond the town limits. The farm-house was painted brown and the blinds to all of the windows facing the road were kept closed. In the road before the house a flock of chickens, accompanied by two guinea hens, lay in the deep dust. Enoch lived in the house with his mother in those days and when he was a young boy went to school at the Winesburg High School. Old citizens remembered him as a quiet, smiling youth inclined to silence. He walked in the middle of the road when he came into town and sometimes read a book. Drivers of teams had to shout and swear to make him realize where he was so that he would turn out of the beaten track and let them pass. (from “Loneliness” by Sherwood Anderson) Extract 3. As he entered the dark hall that led to the consulting-room a man cannoned against him. Dick saw the face as it hurried out into the street. "That's the writer-type. He has the same modelling of the forehead as Torp. He looks very sick. Probably heard something he didn't like." 84

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Even as he thought, a great fear came upon Dick, a fear that made him hold his breath as he walked into the oculist's waiting-room, with the heavy carved furniture, the dark-green paper, and the sober-hued prints on the wall. He recognised a reproduction of one of his own sketches. (from “The Light That Failed” by R. Kipling) Task 2. Read the extract from a letter written by Charles Lamb in London to William Wordsworth in the Lakes, January 1801 and do the following assignments for analysis and discussion: 1. What is it that attracts Lamb to London? 2. With what does Lamb contrasts his love for London? 3. Account for Lamb's likening London to a masquerade and a pantomime. 4. Speak of William Wordsworth's tastes and ideals. Why is he known as one of the Lake Poets? 5. Analyse the period beginning with «The lighted shops of...». What is its most arresting peculiarity? How is the monotony of the long enumeration broken up? 6. Point out the elements of the enumeration that express Lamb's individual tastes, interests or feelings. 7. Render in your own words the phrases: " to have lent great portions of my heart with usury to such scenes'", " the spurious engendering of poetry and books", " the Mind will make friends of anything'". 8. To what does Lamb compare his book-case? Comment upon this simile. Why is it so expressive? 9. Explain the expression "dead nature". 10. To what does Lamb compare natural phenomena? 11. Observe the subjective choice of the epithets "fresh and green and warm" in the concluding paragraph. Can it be termed paradoxical? 12. What is the paradox at the bottom of the whole passage? THE DEVOTEE Charles Lamb I have passed all my days in London, until I have formed as many and intense local attachments, as any of your mountaineers can have done with dead nature. The lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street, the innumerable trades, tradesmen and customers, coaches, wagons, playhouses, all the bustle and wickedness round about Covent Garden, the very women of the Town, the Watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles, - life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night, the impossibility of being dull in Fleet Street, the crowds, the very dirt and mud, the Sun shining upon houses 85

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and pavements, the print shops, the old book stalls, parsons cheapening books, coffee houses, steams of soups from kitchens, the pantomimes. London itself a pantomime and a masquerade, - all these things work themselves into my mind and feed me without a power of satiating me. The wonder of these sights impels me into night walks about her crowded streets and I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fullness of joy at so much life. All these emotions must be strange to you. So are you rural emotions to me. But consider, what must I have been doing all my life, not to have lent great portions of my heart with usury to such scenes? My attachments are all local, purely local. I have no passion (or have had none since I was in love, and then it was the spurious engendering of poetry and books) for groves and valleys. The rooms where I was born, the furniture which has been before my eyes all my life, a book-case which has followed me about (like a faithful dog, only exceeding him in knowledge ) wherever I have moved – old chairs, old tables, streets, squares, where I have sunned myself, my old school, – these are my mistresses. Have I not enough, without your mountains? I do not envy you. I should pity you. Did I not know that the Mind will make friends of anything? Your sun and moon and skies and hills and lakes affect me no more, or scarcely come to me in more venerable characters, than as a gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome visible objects. I consider the clouds above me but as a roof, beautifully painted but unable to satisfy the mind, and at last, like the pictures of the apartment of a connoisseur, unable to afford him any longer a pleasure. So fading upon me, from disuse, have been the Beauties of Nature, as they have been confinedly called; so ever fresh and green and warm are the inventions of men and assemblies of men in this great city.

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4 Unit 4. Word-imagery. Expressiveness of vocabulary 4.1 An Outline

The role of foregrounding in a literary work. As long as the principal aim of creating a literary work is to reflect the author’s vision of the world, the role of a word increases, as it obtains a contextual meaning, as a result a literary text acquires an additional meaning and emotional colouring [5]. The ability of a verbal element to obtain extra significance, to say more in a definite context is called foregrounding16. The notion itself was suggested by the scholars of the Prague linguistic circle that was founded in 1926 and existed until early 50s. Among its members were some of the most outstanding linguists of the 2 0 t h century, such as N. S. Trubetskoy, S. O. Kartsevsky, R. Jacobson, V. Matezius, B.Trnka, J.Vachek, V. Skalichka. A contextually foregrounded element carries more information than when taken in isolation, so it is possible to say that in context it is loaded with basic information inherently belonging to it, plus the acquired, adherent, additional information. It is this latter that is mainly responsible for the well-known fact that a sentence means always more than the sum total of the meanings of its componentwords, or a text means more than the sum of its sentences [4]. Foregrounding means a specific role that some language items play in a certain context when the reader's attention cannot but be drawn to them. In a literary text such items become stylistically marked features that build up its stylistic function. Descriptive, statistical, distributional and other kinds of linguistic analysis show that there are certain modes of language use an arrangement to achieve the effect of foregrounding. It may be based on various types of deviation or redundancy or unexpected combination of language units, etc. Prof. Arnold points 16

актуализация

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out that sometimes the effect of foregrounding can be achieved in a peculiar way by the very absence of any expressive or distinctive features precisely because they are expected in certain types of texts, e. g. the absence of rhythmical arrangement in verse [4]. Thus foregrounding of a linguistic unit is possible only within a specially organized context. One of the most frequently used principles is a principle of recurrence. Units of all linguistic levels take part in foregrounding. On the phonetic level units are foregrounded in alliteration, assonance, rhythm and other stylistic means. On the morphemic level – in new morpheme-combinations and their recurrence. On the lexical level there are plenty of devices which create new images in a text [4]. Foregrounding through stylistic devices. In linguistics special means by which a writer obtains his effect are called stylistic devices. A stylistic device is a conscious and intentional intensification of some typical structural and/or semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a generalised status and thus becoming a generative model [9]. A stylistic device combines some general semantic meaning with a certain linguistic form resulting in stylistic effect. It is like an algorithm employed for an expressive purpose. For example, the interplay, interaction or clash of the dictionary and contextual meanings of words will bring about such stylistic devices as metaphor, metonymy or irony. Here is a brief outline of the main stylistic devices which make use of different meanings of a word. Metaphor is transference of names based on the associated likeness between two objects. So similarity between real objects or phenomena finds its reflection in the semantic structures of words denoting them: both words possess at least one common semantic component. Images created by metaphors are very vivid, especially if the metaphors are fresh [6].

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E.g. And the skirts! What a sight were those skirts! They were nothing but vast decorated pyramids; on the summit of each was stuck the upper half of a princess. Personification is the type of metaphor based on transference from the qualities of animate objects to inanimate ones: “The bare old elm trees wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air…” Metonymy is based on contiguity (nearness) of objects or phenomena. Transference of names in metonymy does not involve a necessity for two different words to have a common component in their semantic structures, as is the case with metaphor, but proceeds from the fact that two objects (phenomena) have common grounds of existence in reality [6]. E.g. Some remarkable pictures in this room, gentlemen. A Holbein, two VanDycks and if I am not mistaken, a Velasquez. Metonymy has a strictly delineated character. Types of relations used in transference of names are limited, concrete and often repeated: 1. Between the symbol and the thing it denotes: crown, scepter. 2. In the relations between the instrument and the action performed with this instrument: His pen is rather sharp. 3. In the relation between the container and the thing it contains: He drank one more cup. 4. The concrete is put for the abstract: It was a representative gathering (science, politics). That’s why metonymy loses its freshness and originality. But one kind of metonymy that is more expressive is synecdoche which is based on the relations between the part and the whole. E.g. She saw around her clustered about the white tables, multitudes of violently red lips, powdered cheeks, cold, hard eyes, self-possessed arrogant faces, and insolent bosoms. Irony is a stylistic device also based on the simultaneous realization of two logical meanings – dictionary and contextual, but the two meanings are in 89

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opposition to each other. The literal meaning is the opposite of the intended meaning. Irony is based on the opposition of what is said to what is meant [7]. E.g. "She's a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud and if she has washed her hair since Coolidge's second term, I'll eat my spare tire, rim and all." There is a group of devices called play on words which are aimed at achieving at a humorous effect. Pun is a SD that is based on the simultaneous realization of two meanings of a word or a phrase in a specially organized context that leads to misinterpretation of one speaker's utterance, thus creating a humorous effect. "There is only one brand of tobacco allowed here - Three nuns". None today, none tomorrow, and none the day after". Zeugma is a deliberate use of a word (usually a polysemantic verb) with two or more homogeneous members which are not connected semantically. The semantic relations with the first member are literal, and with the other – transferred. Dora, plunging at once into privileged intimacy and into the middle of the room. It is difficult to draw a hard and fast distinction between zeugma and pun. The only reliable distinguishing feature is a structural one: zeugma is the realization of two semantically different meanings of grammatically homogeneous members with the help of a verb which is made to refer to different subjects or objects (direct and indirect). Pun is based on simultaneous realization of two meanings of a polysemantic word or the usage of two homonyms in the same context. Semantically false chain is a variety of zeugma consisting of a number of homogeneous members, semantically disconnected, but attached to the same verb. As a rule, it is the last member of the chain that falls out of the semantic group, defeats our expectancy and produces a humorous effect: “Babbitt respected bigness in anything: in mountains, jewels, muscles, wealth of words” [6]. Violation of phraseological units occurs when the bound phraseological 90

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meaning of the components of the unit is replaced intentionally by their original literary meanings. "Little Jon was born with a silver spoon in his mouth which was rather curly and large". The word "mouth", with its content, is completely lost in the phraseological unit which means "to have luck, to be born lucky". Attaching to the unit the qualification of the mouth, the author revives the meaning of the word and offers a very fresh, original and expressive description [6]. Nonsense of non-sequence rests on the extension of syntactical valency and results in joining two semantically disconnected, clauses into one sentence, as in: "Emperor Nero played the fiddle, so they burnt Rome". Two disconnected statements are forcibly linked together by cause / effect relations [6]. Epithet is a word (a group of words) carrying an expressive (emotive) characterization of an object described: “Full many a glorious morning have I seen..." From the point of view of their compositional structure epithets may be divided into: 1) simple (adjectives, nouns, participles): He looked at them in animal panic; 2) compound: an apple - faced man; 3) two-step epithets: a pompously majestic female. They are called so because the process of qualifying passes two stages: the qualification of the object and the qualification of the qualification itself; 4) sentence and phrase epithets: It is his do - it – yourself attitude; 5) reversed epithets (inverted epithets) – composed of two nouns linked by an of phrase: a shadow of a smile – a shadowlike smile; 6) single, pairs and chains. Semantically epithets according to I.R. Galperin are: 1) associated with the noun following it, pointing to a feature which is essential to the objects they describe: dark forest; careful attention; 2) unassociated with the noun, epithets that add a feature which is unexpected 91

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and which strikes the reader: smiling sun, voiceless sounds [9]. Oxymoron is ascribing a property to an object incompatible, inconsistent with that property. It’s a logical collision of words syntactically connected but contradictory in their meaning: speaking silence, cold fire, living death. Hyperbole is a deliberate overstatement or exaggeration, the aim of which is to intensify one of the features of the object in question to such a degree as to show its utter absurdity. Hyperbole expresses a highly emotional attitude towards the thing described: A thousand pardons, scared to death, immensely obliged. Understatement consists in lessening, reducing the real quantity of the object of speech. It is a subjective impression that strengthens emotional effect. It’s done intentionally and the hearer understands it. "The wind is rather strong" instead of "There's a gale blowing outside" Antonomasia is the result of interaction between logical and nominal meaning of a word: 1. When the proper name of a person, who is famous for some reasons, is put for a person having the same feature: Her husband is an Othello. "He took little satisfaction in telling each Mary, shortly after she arrived, something... " The attribute "each", used with the name, turns it into a common noun denoting any woman. 2. A common noun is used instead of a proper name: I agree with you Mr. Logic. 3. Speaking names: both naming and characterizing the personage under discussion – Lady Teasle, Mr. Surface, Mr. Snake. There are certain structures, whose emphasis depends not only on the arrangement of sentence members but also on their construction, with definite demands on the lexico-semantic aspect of the utterance. They are known as lexicosyntactical stylistic devices or figures of speech that make use of lexical meaning and peculiar syntactical structure. They are simile, periphrasis, climax, antithesis, anticlimax and litotes. Simile is an imaginative comparison of two unlike objects belonging to two 92

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different semantic classes. Simile has much in common with metaphor and consists of: tenor, vehicle, ground of comparison. Ground of comparison denotes a feature, quality, action, impression or attitude, which is explicit due to the usage of the formal markers are: like; as…as; as though; as if; such as; seem [4]. Simile should not be confused with simple (logical, ordinary) comparison. Structurally identical consisting of the tenor, the vehicle and the uniting formal element, they are semantically different: objects belonging to the same class are likened in a simple comparison, while in a simile we deal with the similarity of objects belonging to two different classes. "She is like her mother" is a simple comparison, used or stated an evident fact. "She is like a rose" is a simile used for purposes of expressive evaluation, emotive explanation, highly individual description. The tenor and the vehicle may be expressed in a brief "nucleus" manner, as in the above example, or maybe extended. Sometimes the foundation of the simile is not quite clear from the context, and the author supplies it with a key, where he explains which similarities led him to compare two different entities, and which in fact is an extended and detailed foundation: "The conversations she began behaved like green logs: they fumed but would not fire" [4]. A simile, often repeated, becomes trite and adds to the stock of language phraseology. Most of trite similes have the foundation mentioned and conjunctions "as", "as...as" used as connectives: "as brisk as a bee", "as strong as a horse", "as live as a bird", etc. Similes in which the link between the tenor and the vehicle is expressed by notional verbs such as "to resemble", "to seem", "to recollect", "to remember", "to look like", "to appear", etc. are called disguised, because the realization of the comparison is somewhat suspended, as the likeness between the objects seems less evident: "His strangely taut, full-width grin made his large teeth resemble a dazzling miniature piano keyboard in the green light" [4]. Periphrasis is a very peculiar stylistic device which basically consists of using a roundabout form of expression instead of a simpler one, i.e. of using a more 93

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or less complicated syntactical structure instead of a word. Depending on the mechanism of this substitution, periphrases are classified into figurative (metonymic and metaphoric), and logical. The first group is made, in fact, of phrase-metonymies and phrase-metaphors as you may well see from the following example: ''The hospital was crowded with the surgically interesting products of the fighting in Africa" where the extended metonymy stands for "the wounded" [4]. Logical periphrases are phrases synonymic with the words which were substituted by periphrases: "Mr. Du Pont was dressed in the conventional disguise with which Brooks Brothers cover the shame of American millionaires." "The conventional disguise" stands here for "the suit" and "the shame of American millionaires" for "the paunch" (the belly). Because the direct nomination of the not too elegant feature of appearance was substituted by a roundabout description this periphrasis may be also considered euphemistic as it offers a more polite qualification instead of a coarser one. The main function of periphrases is to convey a purely individual perception of the described object. To achieve it the generally accepted nomination of the object is replaced by the description of one of its features or qualities, which seems to the author most important for the characteristic of the object, and which thus becomes foregrounded. The often repeated periphrases become trite and serve us universally accepted periphrastic synonyms: "the gentle (soft, weak) sex" (women); "my better half" (my spouse); "minions of Law" (police), etc. Periphrasis may make the utterance sound solemn in order to arise a lofty feeling in the reader or it may contain an element of insult, sarcasm, irony or humour. Climax or gradation (Greek climax –“ladder”; Latin gradatio – “ascent, climbing up”) is a type of semantically complicated parallelism, in which every successive unit is logically more important or emotionally stronger or more explicit than the preceding one: "Better to borrow, better to beg, better to die!" (D.) According to I. R. Galperin [9] and V. A. Kukharenko [6] a gradual increase 94

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in significance may be maintained in three ways: logical, emotional and quantitative. Logical climax occurs when every succeeding concept is logically more important than the previous one: Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb, the prison had no knowledge of the brightness outside. Emotional (emotive) climax happens when a row of synonyms with emotive meaning (often contextual ones) gradually increase the emotional tension of the utterance: "It was a lovely city, a beautiful city, a fair city, a veritable gem of a city." Quantitative climax occurs when an increase in the volume, size or number of each succeeding unit is implied: "They looked at hundreds of houses; they climbed thousands of stairs; they inspected innumerable kitchens". Antithesis is the best example of lexico-syntactical stylistic devices as syntactically it is just another case of parallel constructions. But unlike parallelism, which is indifferent to the semantics of its components, the two parts of an antithesis must be semantically opposite to each other: "Some people have much to live on, and little to live for" (O. Wilde), where "much" and "little" present a pair of antonyms, supported by the contextual opposition of postpositions "on" and "for". Another example: "If we don't know who gains by his death we do know who loses by it." Here, too, we have the one, made stronger by the emphatic form of the affirmative construction – "don't know / do know". Antithesis as a semantic opposition emphasized by its realization in similar structures is often observed on lower levels of language hierarchy, especially on the morphemic level where two antonymous affixes create a powerful effect of contrast: "Their pre-money wives did not go together with their post-money daughters." The main function of antithesis is to stress the heterogeneity of the described phenomenon, to show that the latter is a dialectical unity of two (or more) opposing features. In other words antithesis is a semantic opposition emphasized in similar structures, often involving two antonyms: Don’t use big words. They mean so little. 95

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Antithesis is a SD based on the author's desire to stress certain qualities of the thing by appointing it to another thing possessing antagonistic features. They speak like saints and act like devils. Anticlimax (bathos) represents climax suddenly interrupted by an unexpected turn of the thought that defeats expectations of the reader / listener and ends in complete semantic reversal of the emphasized idea [6, с. 106]; it involves adding one weaker element to one or several strong ones, mentioned before [3, с. 12]. The woman who could face the very devil himself – or a mouse – loses her grip and goes all to pieces in front of a flash of lightning. (Twain) “Early rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead”. (Thurber) The stylistic function of anticlimax is to give an ironic or humorous effect to the whole text. As many other stylistic devices, anticlimax also has a corresponding literary term, which names a similar phenomenon but on a larger scale. The one in question now is the effect of defeated expectancy, often met with in humorous, ironical and sarcastic stories. Litotes is a two-component structure in which two negations are joined to give a positive evaluation. One component is a negative particle (no, not) and the other is a word with negative meaning. Its function is to convey doubts of the speaker concerning the exact characteristics of the object or a feeling. It's not a bad thing - It's a good thing. He is no coward. He is a brave man. He was not without taste. Thus “not unkindly” actually means "kindly", though the positive effect is weakened and some lack of the speaker's confidence in his statement is implied. The first component of litotes is always the negative particle "not", while the second, always negative in semantics, varies in form from a negatively affixed word (as above) to a negative phrase. 96

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Litotes is especially expressive when the semantic centre of the whole structure is stylistically or /and emotionally coloured, as in the case of the following occasional creations: "Her face was not unhandsome» or "Her face was not unpretty". The function of litotes has much in common with that of understatement – both weaken the effect of the utterance. The uniqueness of litotes lies in its specific "double negative" structure and in its weakening only the positive evaluation. Foregrounding of articles and pronouns. The definite article is favourable with most writers, because it obtains extra significance in a story. The use of the definite article shows that a particular object is meant, the one known or mentioned before. Its usage in the beginning of a story or a novel creates an effect of its continuation. In this case there is either no any exposition or the events are put so that a reader comes across preliminary information in the middle of a story. Such introduction of characters, facts and events creates an impression of being a witness of smb’s story the beginning of which is left of-camera though it is told in such a way as if it is known for a reader. This implication of precedence is created by an implicit sign of an antecedent action. In this case it is created by the definite article in the initial paragraph of a story. Personal pronouns used in the initial position create the same effect. Pronouns point out objects and their qualities without naming them. That means that they are used only after the names of the objects have been given. The 1 st and 2d person pronouns are not polysemantic because they are used to denote living beings. While the 3d person pronoun is polysemantic because it can denote both a person and a lifeless thing. This pronoun used in the initial position creates an implication of precedence. E.g. One of the novels of J. Jones begins with: “When he finished packing, he walked out on the third-floor porch of the barracks brushing the dust from his hands…” The character’s name is introduced only on page 18. The character’s image is created little by little. This creates an atmosphere of tension, because a reader doesn’t get any information about a character’s appearance, his job, his role in a story, it makes a reader gather all the details to get a portrait of a 97

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character. Thus narration becomes dynamic. In the following sentences an effect of recollections is less strong. The novel “To kill a mocking-bird” by Harper Lee begins with: “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jeff got his arm badly broken at the elbow”. The personal pronoun he stands before the personal name Jeff, but it everything becomes clear in the first sentence. Demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those) stand for some objects or phenomena mentioned above. But when they appear in the beginning of a story they create the same effect. E.g. Hemingway begins his novel “Farewell to arms” in the following way: “In the late summer of that year…” as if a reader knows everything about this fact. A demonstrative pronoun used with a personal name is always emotionally coloured and coveys either contempt or reproach mixed with admiration of a speaker towards this person. E.g. this Johnson. Recurrence of a demonstrative pronoun emphasizes emotional and evaluative connotations which are not characteristic of pronouns. E.g. «Я это думал, я воображал себе эти дорогие губы, эти глаза, эти кудри», - sadly says the character of a novel “The first love” by Turgenev.

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4.2 Practical tasks

Task 1. Read the sentences, translate them, find stylistic devices and say what principles they are based upon: 1.

England has two eyes, Oxford and Cambridge. They are the two eyes of

England, and two intellectual eyes. 2.

The Italian trio tut-tutted their tongues at me.

3.

She was a sunny, happy sort of creature. Too fond of the bottle.

4.

There had to be a survey. It cost me a few hundred pounds for the right

pockets. 5.

Sara was a menace and a tonic, my best enemy: Rozzie was a disease,

my worst friend. 6.

He ran away from the battle. He was an ordinary human being that

didn't want to kill or be killed. So he ran away from the battle. 7.

He spoke with the flat ugly "a" and withered "r" of Boston Irish, and

Levi looked up at him and mimicked "All right, I'll give the caaads a break and staaat playing". 8.

There is Mr. Guppy, who was at first as open as the sun at noon, but

who suddenly shut up as close as midnight. 9.

Joe was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish

fellow. Task 2. Read the extract from the novel by D. H. Lawrence get ready with the vocabulary tasks and tasks for discussion and analysis. 1. Read and translate the following words from the text: crimson ['krιmz(ə)n]

brier ['braιə]

silhouette [ˌsιlu'et]

hawthorn ['hͻ:θͻ:n]

honeysuckle ['hΛnιֽsΛkl]

foliage ['fəulιιdʒ]

pallid ['pælιd]

to kindle ['kιndl]

communion [kə'mju:nιən]

delirium [dι'lιrιəm] 99

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mother-of-pearl [ˌmΛðə(r)əv'pɜːl]

2. Guess the words by their definitions: a.

of a rich deep red colour inclining to purple

b.

a climbing plant with sweet-smelling yellow, pink, or white flowers

c.

an acutely disturbed state of mind characterized by restlessness,

illusions, and incoherence, occurring in intoxication, fever, and other disorders d.

the shiny layer on the inside of some shells used to make buttons or to

decorate things e.

the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, having the

same mystical feeling f.

any of various thorny shrubs or other plants

g.

a small tree which has sharp thorns and produces white or pink flowers

h.

arouse or inspire (an emotion or feeling)

i.

lacking colour or brightness

j.

the dark shape and outline of someone or something visible in restricted

light against a brighter background k.

the green leaves of a plant

3. Read the extract from the novel by D. H. Lawrence and give a literary translation of the first two paragraphs. SONS AND LOVERS Lad-and-girl Love D. H. Lawrence One evening in the summer Miriam and he went over the field by Herod's Farm on their way from the library home. So it was only three miles to Willey Farm17. There was a yellow glow the mowing-grass, and the sorrel-heads burned crimson. Gradually, as they walked along the high land, the gold in the west sank down to red, the red to crimson, and then the chill blue crept against the glow. 17

Willey Farm — the name of the farm where Miriam lived

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They came out upon the high road to Alfreton, which was white between the darkening fields. There Paul hesitated. It was two miles home for him, one mile forward for Miriam. They both looked up the road that ran in shadow right under the glow of the north-west sky. On the crest of the hill, Selby18, with its stark houses and the up-pricked headstocks of the pit, stood in black silhouette small against the sky. He looked at his watch. "Nine o'clock!" he said. The pair stood, loth19 to part, hugging their books. "The wood is so lovely now," she said. "I wanted you to see it." He followed her slowly across the road to the white gate. "They grumble so if I'm late," he said. "But you're not doing anything wrong," she answered impatiently. He followed her across the nibbled pasture in the dusk. There was a coolness in the wood, a scent of leaves, of honeysuckle, and a twilight. The two walked in silence. Night came wonderfully there, among the throng of dark tree-trunks. He looked round, expectant. She wanted to show him a certain wild-rose bush she had discovered. She knew it was wonderful. And yet, till he had seen it, she felt it had not come into her soul. Only he could make it her own, immortal. She was dissatisfied. Dew was already on the paths. In the old oak-wood a mist was rising, and he hesitated, wondering whether one whiteness were a strand of fog or only campionflowers pallid in a cloud. By the time they came to the pine-trees Miriam was getting very eager and very tense. Her bush might be gone. She might not be able to find it; and she wanted it so much. Almost passionately she wanted to be with him when he stood before the flowers. They were going to have a communion20 together — something that thrilled her, something holy. He was walking beside her in silence. They were very near to 18

Selby — a small coal mining town loth = loath — unwilling 20 communion — here: one and the same mystical feeling 19

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each other. She trembled, and he listened, vaguely anxious. Coming to the edge of the wood, they saw the sky in front, like mother-ofpearl, and the earth growing dark. Somewhere on the outermost branches of the pine-wood the honeysuckle was streaming scent. "Where?" he asked. "Down the middle path," she murmured, quivering. When they turned the corner of the path she stood still. In the wide walk between the pines, gazing rather frightened, she could distinguish nothing for some moments; the greying light robbed things of their colour. Then she saw her bush. "Ah!" she cried, hastening forward. It was very still. The tree was tall and straggling. It had thrown its briers over a hawthorn-bush, and its long streamers trailed thick, right down to the grass, splashing the darkness everywhere with great spilt stars, - pure white. In bosses of ivory and in large splashed stars the roses gleamed on the darkness of foliage and stems and grass. Paul and Miriam stood close together, silent, and watched. Point after point the steady roses shone out to them, seeming to kindle something in their souls. The dusk came like smoke around, and still did not put out the roses. Paul looked into Miriam's eyes. She was pale and expectant with wonder, her lips were parted, and her dark eyes lay open to him. His look seemed to travel down into her. Her soul quivered. It was the communion she wanted. He turned aside, as if pained. He turned to the bush. "They seem as if they walk like butterflies, and shake themselves," he said. She looked at her roses. They were white, some incurved and holy, others expanded in an ecstasy. The tree was dark as a shadow. She lifted her hand impulsively to the flowers; she went forward and touched them in worship. "Let us go," he said. There was a cool scent of ivory roses — a white, virgin scent. Something made him feel anxious and imprisoned. The two walked in silence. "Till Sunday," he said quietly, and left her; and she walked home slowly, feeling her soul satisfied with the holiness of the night. He stumbled down the path. 102

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And as soon as he was out of the wood, in the free open meadow, where he could breathe, he started to run as fast as he could. It was like a delicious delirium in his veins. 4. Do the tasks for discussion and analysis. 1. What is the extract about? 2. Give a general definition of the text. Is it written in the form of narration, description or argumentation? 3. Who is the narrator? 4. What is the prevailing tone of the extract (lyrical, dramatic, tragic, optimistic/pessimistic, melodramatic, sentimental, unemotional/emotional, pathetic, dry and matter-of-fact, gloomy, bitter, sarcastic, cheerful, etc.)? 5. How many logical parts can we divide the extract into? 6. Dwell upon the setting of the story. What part of day is it? How does the author portray it? Pick all colorful epithets and metaphors to prove your point of view. 7. Is there any contrast in the description of nature? How is it sustained and why does the author make it prominent? 8. Who are the main characters of the story? What do you know about them? How are they portrayed? 9. How do the main characters feel on their way home? 10. Why is it so important for Miriam to show the wild-rose bush to Paul? How does the author describe Miriam’s impatience and her desire to show it to Paul? 11. Describe the wild-rose bush that Miriam shows to Paul. What does the author compare the flowers with? What stylistic devices are used to create the image? Give examples and comment upon them. 12. Why does the author describe the flowers in a detailed way? What do they symbolize? 13. Dwell upon Miriam’s and Paul’s attitude to the flowers they are contemplating. Do they share feelings about the roses? 14. How do they part? Compare the way they both return to their houses. 15. Sum up your observations and dwell upon the main idea of this extract. 16. Speak about: a. the role of nature in this text; b. the author’s choice of vocabulary (point out the author’s favourite stylistic devices; frequently repeated words); 103

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c. the syntax of the extract and its role in foregrounding the feelings of the characters. Task 3. Look through the extracts from the analysis of D.H. Lawrence’s style made by I.V. Arnold and prove that the text under discussion fully corresponds to the writer’s outlook. The main characteristic of Lawrence's art is his capacity for detailed and penetrating psychological analysis. The slightest hue and shade of his heroes' feelings are revealed by the writer with the utmost delicacy of touch and subtlety of understanding. And yet he is hardly ever, if at all, successful in drawing convincing characters. For one thing, he neglects the importance of social surroundings in the formation of character; for another, he is less preoccupied with the conscious than with the subconscious mind. In the whole novel Lawrence is subjective, emotional, irrational. His purpose is to express the indefinite, the fugitive, the irrational world of intimate feeling. Lawrence's place in the history of English literature is that of a master of word-painting. He brings out the sharp contrast between the glory and loveliness of nature and the disharmony of men's feelings in richly sensual imagery, probing deep into the hidden recesses of the heart21. Task 4. Prepare a written analysis of the extract taken from the novel by D. H. Lawrence “Sons and Lovers” (Chapter. Lad-and-girl Love). Make use of the analysis scheme of a literary text and stylistic clichés given on pp. 107-110.

Арнольд И.В. Аналитическое чтение (английская проза XVIII – XX веков): Пособие для студентов педагогических институтов и филологических факультетов университетов. – Л.: «Просвещение», 1967. – 367 с. 21

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Список использованных источников 1

Арнольд И. В. Аналитическое чтение (английская проза XVIII – XX

веков): пособие для студентов пед. институтов и филолог. фак-тов ун-тов / И. В. Арнольд, Н. Я. Дьяконова. – Л.: Просвещение, 1967. – 367 с. 2

Гальперин И. Р. Текст как объект лингвистического исследования / И.Р.

Гальперин. – М.: Наука, 1981. – 138 с. 3

Ивашкин М. П. Практикум по стилистике английского языка = A

Manual of English Stylistics: учеб. пособие / М. П. Ивашкин, В. В. Сдобников, А.В. Селяев. - М.: АСТ, 2007. – 103 с. 4

Знаменская Т. А. Стилистика английского языка = Stylistics of the

English Language: основы курса: учеб. пособие для вузов / Т. А. Знаменская. – 5-е изд. – М.: УРСС, 2008. – 224 с. 5

Кухаренко В. А. Интерпретация текста: учеб. пособие / В. А.

Кухаренко. - Л.: Просвещение, 1979. – 327 с. 6

Кухаренко В. А. Практикум по стилистике английского языка. Seminars

in stylistics: учебное пособие / В. А. Кухаренко. – М.: Флинта: Наука, 2009. – 184 с. 7

Обидина Н. В. Стилистика: учебное пособие / Н. В. Обидина. – М.:

ИПГУ, 2011. – 124 с. – Режим доступа: http://www.biblioclub.ru/108078_Stilis tika_Uchebnoe_posobie.html. — 7.12.2015. 8 A

Manual

of

English

Practice

Stylistics

–

Режим

доступа:

umk.utmn.ru›files/0000003435.doc. — 14.01.2016. 9

Galperin I. R. Stylistics: учеб. для вузов / I. R. Galperin. – М.: Higher

School Publishing House, 1971. – 343 p. 10 Nordquist R. Text – Режим доступа: http://grammar.about.com/od/tz/g/ textterm.htm. — 21.11.2015. 11 Sosnovskaya V. B. Analytical reading: учеб. пособие / V. B. Sosnovskaya. – M.: Higher School Publishing House, 1974. – 184 p. 12 What is the English we read: Универсальная хрестоматия текстов на английском языке / Сост. Т. Н. Шишкина, Т. В. Леденева, М. А. Юрченко. – М.: ТК Велби, Изд-во Проспект, 2003. – 792 с. 105

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Приложение A (рекомендуемое) Analysis scheme of a literary text22 1.

Speak of the author in brief. a) the facts of his biography relevant for his creative activities; b) the epoch (social and historical background); c) the literary trend he belongs to; d) the main literary pieces (works).

2.

Give a summary of the extract (story) under consideration (the gist, the

content of the story in a nutshell). 3.

State the problem raised (tackled) by the author.

4.

Formulate the main idea conveyed by the author (the main line of the

thought, the author's message). 5.

Give a general definition of the text under study:

a)

narration;

b)

narration interlaced with descriptive passages and dialogues of the

personages; c)

narration broken by digressions (philosophical, psychological, lyrical,

d)

an account of events interwoven with a humorous (ironical, satirical)

etc.);

portrayal of society, or the personage, etc. 6.

Define the type of narrative and the type of narrators:

a) the 3d person narrative – the omniscient narrator; b) the entrusted narrative carried out in 1st person; c) the entrusted anonymous narrative done in the 3d person.

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Interpretation of a Text - Режим доступа: http://manutd4me.blogspot.ru/2014/02/interpretationof-text.html. — 15.01.2016.

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7.

Define the prevailing mood (tone, slant) of the extract. It may be

lyrical, dramatic, tragic, optimistic / pessimistic, melodramatic, sentimental, unemotional / emotional, pathetic, dry and matter-of-fact, gloomy, bitter, sarcastic, cheerful, etc. 8.

The composition of the story. Divide the text logically into complete

parts and entitle them. If possible choose the key-sentence (the topic sentence) in each part that reveals its essence. The compositional pattern of a complete story (chapter, episode) may be as follows: a)

the exposition (introduction);

b)

the development of the plot (an account of events);

c)

the climax (the culminating point);

d)

the denouement (the outcome of the story).

9. Give a detailed analysis of each logically complete part. Follow the formula-matter form. It implies that firstly you should dwell upon the content of the part and secondly comment upon the language means (expressive means and stylistic devices) employed by the author to achieve a desired effect, to render his thoughts and feelings. 10.

Sum up your own observations and draw conclusions. Point out the

author's language means which make up the essential properties of his individual style.

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Приложение Б (рекомендуемое)

Useful vocabulary and stylistic clichés - The interest of the present selection is manifold. - The story affords a masterful description of ... - The main interest of the story lies in... - The reader is at once prompted to... - The author at once prompts the reader to catch the whole atmosphere of the extract. - The author’s irony is directed upon... - ... is sustained by a special choice of words... - ... is emphasized through... - The opposition between ... is supported by... - The author pointedly stresses... - The author is lavish in the choice of stylistic devices. - The composition of the extract deserves special attention. - The epithets (metaphors, similes, etc.) speak volumes of ... - ... the author's attitude is always expressed (in)directly . - this device is much favoured by ... - it's a vivid contrast with ... - the author's own view is quite clearly voiced - the simplicity of the language - this idea finds a beautiful embodiment in the portrayal ... - the atmosphere of (gloom) is intensified by ... - the syntactical structure deserves special attention - this device focuses the reader's attention on ... - the author makes the reader understand ... - this device produces a definite effect of... - this impression is further enhanced by the choice of words ... 108

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- the whole manner is pointedly matter-of-fact and suggestive of... - these epithets convey most intimate feelings of... - the emotional quality of the text is conveyed through ... - there're masterly touches in rich and vivid epithets… - the richness of imagery is further developed in effective similes ... - the sharp contrasts and the emphasis are created by ... - the abrupt change of sentence length and rhythm contribute to the expressiveness of the passage ... - the abundance of verbs and verbals denoting fast and noisy action ...creates a threatening image of... - the paragraph is dominated by the sustained metaphor ... - the images are very rich and generous - the central idea is approached in an direct way ... - the portrait is drawn in a mildly ironical way (sarcastic, warm, friendly, cynical, etc) - this metaphor (epithet, metonymy) turns the text into a very awkward direction - all stylistic devices are of a definitely appraising character - the perfect harmony between content and style makes this text a landmark in English literature - the language of emotion prevails over the language of reflection ... - the dialogue is vivid, dynamic, full of humor and fun ... - this method of portrayal is very typical of... and deserves special attention - the author reveals his character's mentality by allowing the reader a glimpse into the inner processes of his thoughts and feelings - his (her) style is deliberately dry and dispassionate -

the emotional colouring is made definite by words naming or expressing

emotions - the richness of imagery is further developed in effective similes (metaphors, epithets) ...

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Учебное пособие Ольга Вячеславовна Евстафиади

FROM A WORD TO AN IDEA. PART 1

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