Analysis of texts
материал по английскому языку на тему

E.Valentina

The analysis of the excerpt from the novel “Dombey and Son” by Charles Dickens.

The fragment of emotive prose which has been chosen for a stylistic analysis is from “Dombey and Son” by Charles Dickens. The three paragraphs of the fragment are full of all kinds of stylistic devices which are easy to observe and as easy to understand from the point of view of their stylistic function.

On the whole the excerpt is devoted to the description of the room, in which Mr. Dombey was waiting for the rest of the guests. The excerpt is complete in itself. Let us begin our analysis by clearing up the idea as it comes to mind from the first uncritical reading. The first thing is to find out what the writer is driving at, what his idea is, what is the purpose. In trying to answer these questions one is sure to see that the writer has digressed from the topic he started with. At first we see the description of the main character Mr. Dombey. And at the middle and at the end of the text we see that writer shows his environment in this very time, exactly his library. I think, that the library is the sacred place. Library keeps all the secrets of the house, it is the heart of the house, I should say. And in this text we see the way how Dickens depicts this very place. We will step by step analyze each paragraph separately.

The first paragraph consists of 3 sentences. The first sentence tells us about the day. We see that it was a judgment day, day full of iron-grey impressions. We see that from the first sentence we begin to feel flash creep. It was very important day, we know it from the example of anadiplosis “autumnal day,… - a day in keeping with the proceedings”. One can guess, that it was significant day for Mr. Dombey, it was the christening of his son. Here one can notice the example of metaphor “Mr. Dombey represented in himself the wind, the shade, and the autumn of christening”. Also it is the example of gradation. Author employs these SD’s in order to show the condition of Mr. Dombey, his high emotions, which he hides in his soul. The last sentence of this paragraph fulls of similes. This sentence may also be regarded as the continuation of the first sentence. We see Dombey, how he stood in his library, as hard and cold as the weather. It shows that his mood and weather are the complement of each other. Also here is another example of disguised simile “their brown and yellow leaves came fluttering down, as if he blighted them”. From this very sentence we came to conclusion that his look was so powerful, so it can blighted the leaves from trees. We can say that his look was some kind of pistol. It shows the concentration of his thoughts.

The first sentence of the next paragraph under observation begins with the interjection “Ugh” and therefore colours the whole of the utterance. The class of words know as interjections are specially coined to express emotions. Any sentence that contains interjections will be marked as emotionally coloured. As we pointed out the preceding paragraph was written in almost dark colours. But Dickens cannot be impartial to his own creations. We know this only too well from his other stories and novels. He always paints his characters with only two colours: black and white. And the description of the library is covered with deep black colour. The paragraph now under observation is not purely colloquial. It is built on the principal device – it combines the elevated with the commonplace, the lofty and the common. Writer employs a lot of personifications and similes, which are the leading SD’s in this paragraph. In the first sentence author uses personification “rooms seemed to be in mourning”. We can do an extralinguistic supposition that Mrs. Dombey was dead, and it is as if the rooms were crying for Mrs. Dombey. In the next sentence we can notice the example of simile “like soldiers, looked in their cold, hard, slippery uniforms, as if they had but one idea among them, and that was a freezer” and also the personification “the bookcase repudiated all familiarities”. Even books show that that in this room there is no warmth, and they stood as if in the room was very cold. The next sentence also consists the personification and simile “Mr. Pitt, in bronze on the top, with no trace of his celestial origin about him, guarded the unattainable treasure like an enchanted Moor”. The fact that the bronze statuette has the proper name shows that it is the main object of the room, may be it is the family value or it is very expensive. The last sentence shows destruction of the family. Here we should notice personifications “a dusty urn at each high corner, dug up from an ancient tomb, preached desolation and decay” and “and the chimney-glass seemed fraught with melancholy meditations”. The first one tells that with the death of the hostess, the house begin to destroy, it shows “a dusty urn”. Here also the simile “as from two pulpits”. Desolation and decay will rule this home.

We are coming to the last paragraph which also continue the description of the library and there is the description of Mr. Dombey. Here one can notice the example of personification “The stiff and stark fire-irons appeared to claim a neare relationship than anything else there to Mr. Dombey”. From this example, we come to conclusion that Mr. Dombey stood stiff and stark for a long time.

In conclusion I’d like to say that even your library shows the loneliness and darkness of your soul, it shows that it is the very time when it will be better to clean your mind from negative thoughts and begin a new life.

Analysis of the text “The Escape”

E.Valentina

The text which I’m going to interpret is entitled “The Escape” by W.Somerset Maugham. William Maugham is one of the best known writers of the 20th century. He was not only a novelist, but also a one of the most successful dramatist and short-story writers. Many popular successes followed its publication: “Ashenden”, “Moon and Sixpence”, “Cakes and Ale” etc.

The composition of the story consists of the following components: exposition, the story-itself, climax and denoument.

The text is not homogeneous. The narration with the element of description and character’s dialogue.

The plot of the story is quite simple, though interesting. So this text is about a young man Roger Charing who fell in love with Ruth Barlow, an unfortunate woman who was twice a widow.

Now let’s make a structural and stylistic analysis to find out the main idea of the text. As far as structural analysis is concerned the text can be divided into 4 super-phrasal unities.

The exposition can be regarded as 1 SPU touches upon a microtopic dealing with the description of heroes. Thus, we may entitled this unity as “Acquaintance with the main characters”.

So in this unity one can observe the main characters of the text: Ruth Barlow and Roger Charing. Also the author who hides behind the narrator who is the secondary character. From the very beginning the author convinces us that if a woman once made up her mind to marry a man nothing but instant flight could save him. One of his friends seeing the unavoidable hazard before him, took ship and spent a year travelling round the world. He hoped the woman, who was considered to be his bride would forget him, being fickle, but he was mistaken; when he got back thinking himself safe, the woman, from whom he had fled, was waiting for him in the port. The epithets “instant flight”, “the inevitable loom”, “menancingly”, inversion “so conscious was he” show us that the inevitable loom of the marriage frightens some men and they try to evade it.

Roger was rich, proud convinced bachelor. He was a man any girl would marry. But then he met Ruth Barlow. He fell in love with her. Ruth twice a widow, she was quite good-looking and she had big, beautiful, dark eyes and she had the gift of pathos. The epithet “defenseless” close us feeling of pity to her. The metaphor “the gift of pathos”, the epithets “splendid dark eyes”, “the most moving eyes”, “big and lovely eyes” made Roger to fell in love Ruth. He didn’t let down and made a proposal of marriage to her. They were going to marry as soon as possible. But everyone had treated Mrs.Barlow very badly. She was apparently one of those unfortunate persons with whom nothing by any chance goes right. If she married a husband he beat her; if she employed a broker he cheated her; if she engaged a cook she drank. She never had a little lamb but it was sure to die. The epithets “life thing”, “rotten time”, “poor dear”, allusion “a little lamb”, parallel construction “if she married…” express unfortunate life of widow.

The next SPU is entitled “Love without future”. In this unity one can observe that Roger introduced Ruth to his friends. He gave her lovely jewels. The following stylistic device alliteration “He took her here, there and everywhere” shows us that Roger was in the seventh heaven from happy.

Then the 3d SPU comes which is called “Roger’s excellent scheme”. One can easily denote the shift of the topic. The 2nd unity was about strong love, but in the 3d SPU we notice the change of the set. Then, on a sudden, he fell out of love. This was the second part of their relations. He gave a solemn oath that nothing would induce him to marry Ruth. But he was in a quandary. He was aware that Ruth would assess her feelings at an immoderately high figure if he asked her to release him. Besides, he didn’t want people to say that he jilted a woman. The following stylistic devices epithets “acutely conscious”, “a solemn oath”, “an immoderately high figure” stress the importance, significance of his decision as to the epithet “pathetic look” and the metaphor “heart-string” they produce the humorous effect. Roger kept his own counsel, he remained attentive to all her wishes. It was decided that they would be married as soon as they found a suitable house. Roger applied to the agents and visited with Ruth house after house. It was very hard to find a satisfactory one. Parallel constructions “sometimes they were too large, sometimes they were too small, sometimes they were too expensive and sometimes they were too stuffy”, the metaphor “house hunting”, the epithet “innumerable kitchen” express the main idea of Roger’s scheme. At last Ruth revolted.

Step by step we come to the last super-phrasal unity and the same time it is a denoument of the text which conventionally entitled as “The effect of the scheme”. The episode when she asked Roger if he wanted to marry her can be regarded as climax of the story as it is the turning point of the moment at which the plot reaches its point of greatest emotional intensity. Here we see that Ruth tired and can’t look for house any more. There was an unaccustomed hardness in her voice, but it didn’t affect the gentleness of his reply. Roger persuaded her that they would be married the very moment they found a suitable house.

Ruth took to her to bed. She didn’t want to see Roger, but he was ever assiduous and gallant. Every day he sent her flowers, wrote that he had some more houses to look at. From following stylistic device epithet “assiduous”, “gallant” one can note his hypocrisy.

At the end of this unit, one should notice the letter where Ruth let Roger know that she was going to get married and claimed that Roger didn’t love her. He answered that her news shattered him. He sent Ruth 7orders to view. He was quite sure she would find among them a house that would exactly suit her.

The text has independent semantic and syntactic structure, which is supported by the following cross-referential links, for example, as far as semantic style, during the whole text one can obviously observe abundant usage of antonyms such as “ask-answear, open-close, large-small, suit-unsuit”, root-related words “to marry” “marriage”, pronominal substitution of words: Roger\he, Ruth\she\poor dear. It shows us relationship between Roger and Ruth that they are absolutely different people.

As far as the problem of the text is concerned, we clearly see that it is devoted to the problem of relationship between man and woman, in the way they treat each other. Nowadays there are a lot of families divorce because they don’t know how to overcome difficulties of life, misunderstanding each other.

To my mind the main idea of the text is that one should control his action, act very carefully, as according to Russian proverb “Haste makes waste”. Sometimes postponement give a better result than haste.

                      Analysis of the text “Art for Heart’s Sake”

                                     by Reuben Goldberg

E.Valentina

The text I’m going to analyze is entitled “Art for Heart’s Sake” and it is written by an American sculptor, cartoonist and writer Reuben Lucius Goldberg. Also he is most widely known for his works as “Is There a Doctor in the House?” (1929) and “Rube Goldberg’s Guide to Europe” (1954).

Let’s consider the title of the text. The title “Art for Heart’s Sake” is quite short, but excites many associations. In different cases it is going to be about Art as the way to satisfy smb’s spiritual demands or meet smb’s wishes. On the other hand, from the title, one can recognize a well-known statement “Art for art’s sake”, which means pricelessness of art, as art is everlasting. So, we can say that the title overshadows the events going to be considered in the text in its entirety.

The type of narration is narrative, with some elements of description. The story centers round an old man Collis P. Ellsworth who has troubles with his heart when his financial transactions, if to be more precise his disastrous purchases of that jerkwater railroad which turned out an enterprise of doubtful solvency, end in failure. In order to find for him a new interest Doctor Caswell offers him to take up painting, just for pleasure. Doctor gets a student from one of the art schools to come here once a week and teach him. And it was great surprise when Ellsworth’s, as the author says “a gob of salad dressing thrown violently up against the side of a house”, was not only accepted for the show at the Lathrop Gallery, but took the first Prize. In conclusion, the protagonist says that art is nothing, that he bought the Lathrop Gallery last month.

The main character is an old man Collis P. Ellsworth, and the secondary one are Doctor Caswell, Frank Swain and Koppel. In the whole the author uses both methods of character drawing, but mostly indirect one. To make the language more expressive, vivid and true to life, to make the gist of the story clear for readers, the author also employs extensive use of stylistic devices.

The main character Collis Ellsworth is an old man who is in a pretty good shape for a man of seventy-six. He is in the habit of buying small and medium enterprises, no matter is it prospective or not. And the consequences of his whims are the problems with his health, in other words at times he has heart attacks. In spite of this, he looks very well beyond his years, a spry man of a good cheer. From the very beginning we see him to be ill-bred, rude, as a spoilt child with respect to a servant and it is quite obvious from his short and rude answer “Nope!” that is repeated several times, and it shows how tired and annoyed he is by the servant’s presence. In that way Ellsworth shows his slighting and contemptuous attitude to a male nurse. And we are convinced of it by the sentence:”Collis Ellsworth looked at him appraisingly”. Moreover we see his bad manners in use of informal slang words as “Bosh!” “Rot” “gob”. But the most distinctive feature of his is inability to appreciate an art, as he considers it useless and unserious occupation. One can observe it in the following expression:”Art is nothing”. He is convinced that everything can be bought, that if you are wealthy you can afford everything you want, denying yourself nothing.

The next character is a Doctor Caswell. We see him to be very calm and wise man, who is ready to help an old man at any price. He suggests him to take up an art just for pleasure, as he considers it a good way to draw his attention away from buying of doubtful enterprises.

And the third character is an eighteen years old promising student of the Atlantic Art Institute Frank Swain. He was offered by the doctor to come here twice a week and teach him painting. Frank needed money, he earns his living working an elevator at night to pay tuition. He fully realized that an old Ellsworth absolutely has no talent for painting, but at the same time he was aware that he shouldn’t criticize his work, as he is just a servant and he is to pretend and say “yes, it’s good work”, and one can observe it in the following way: “Frank Swain was patient. He needed the five dollars”. Moreover, when old man asks him about awful creation of his, he answers “Not bad, sir”.

And now let’s speak about the plot. The plot can be logically divided into four parts: exposition, story itself, climax and denouement. So the story has a closed plot structure. The exposition begins with the dialogue between an old man and his male nurse Koppel. Koppel tries to give him doctor’s orders, but the latter refuses with the short and sharp answer “Nope!” and here in complaints of servant, in one sentence one can notice three stylistic devices as parallelism, anaphora and gradation: “He won’t take his pineapple juice. He doesn’t want me to read to him. He hates the radio. He doesn’t want anything!”. Such use of several SD in one sentence is called convergence. Use of parallelism and anaphora contribute to the expressiveness of the passage. Also here the author makes extensive use of gradation in order to render the story more vivid, convincing and emotional. It shows us Koppel’s real tiredness and annoyance of Ellsworth. Further one can observe one more SD as zeugma in the following way: “All these purchases of recent years had to be liquidated at a great sacrifice both to his health and his pocketbook”. Zeugma is used to create a humorous effect with ironical colour and to make an atmosphere free and easy. In the complication we came to know about doctor’s suggestion and accomplishment of teamwork of an old man and a young student. Here in the speech of Ellsworth we see use of informal slang words as “Bosh” “Rot”, by means of such words, the author gives a comprehensive, vivid and true-to-life picture, such expressions make this situation close to the reader. At first an old man seems to be interested and involved into the creative work, and here one can notice a simile “He added a few lines with a palsied hand and colored the open spaces blue like a child playing with a picture book” and by this SD we see him to be ignorant but on the same time carried away by the painting. Further, by the calling Koppel “an old pineapple juice” Ellsworth used next SD which is antonomasia. One may suppose that old Ellsworth even doesn’t remember nurse’s name, and he memorized him to be only as a servant who always offers him a pineapple juice. And the passage when doctor and Ellsworth are talking about graceful lines of the andirons ['ændaɪəns], variegated ['vɛərɪgeɪtɪd] smears of paint on Ellsworth’s heavy silk gown, at first sight seems to be ran through by the irony, but at the same time we can notice some progress in his work. And this part of the story represents the beginning of the collision. The episode when Ellsworth makes a startling announcement to exhibit his picture in the Summer show at the Lathrop Gallery, can be regarded as climax of the story, as it is the turning point of the plot. Here one can observe one more SD an oxymoron in the following sentence: “Ellsworth executed a god-awful smudge which he called “Trees Dressed in White”. By means of it the author creates an emotive atmosphere of disgust for the picture. Also, personification can be seen in this very sentence: “When the late spring sun began to cloak the fields and gardens with color…”it is used in order to show expressiveness, brightness and vividness of a beautiful nature. And in this sentence we also can see a convergence. Then we see that the picture “Trees Dressed in White” was not only accepted for the show, but also, to the utter astonishment of all three, took the First Prize. And this is a moment at which the plot reaches its point of emotional intensity. So, the denouement brings action to an end. Here we see Ellsworth’s statement that art is nothing and he confesses to buying the Lathrop Gallery last month.

The language of the story is very rich, expressive and various. The author employs great number of expressive means and stylistic devices to reveal the characters’ inner world and feelings as well as the author’s treatment of them and situation. The choice of vocabulary and stylistic devices is admirable. Owing to it the reader can easily understand the author’s own attitude towards his characters. There is no a character in the story that is not worth studying, nor a scene that is not life-like, not a reflection that hasn’t a deep meaning. The charm of the story lies in a realistic portrayal of the characters and a truthful description of those very canvases.

The story is full of problems, but they emerge as part of life which is so energetically, vividly and frankly offered for our inspection. The gist of the problem raised in the story is urgent nowadays, and the main idea of the story can be formulated like this – money can buy everything, art is eternal, but everybody values it from one’s own point of view. But at the same time not everyone is allowed to realize what real art is. Art needs no justification; it is created with no purpose. In this story the author’s irony exposes money worship, power of rich, vise of such society, that money becomes the prime object of their worship and respect. This story proves that everything in this world can be bought and sold, that money decides everything, and it even concerns people’s relationships. Lately, people are getting used to money; they are becoming dependent on money, and the author wanted to open our eyes to this problem, that not everything in this world is bought. They say that we can buy everything, but it is not true. We can buy food but not appetite, medicines but not health, knowledge but not wisdom, appearance but not beauty, fun but not joy, familiars but not friends, for money we can buy the cover of everything but not the core.

On the whole I can say that the charm of this story lies in its interesting plot and exiting situation. At the same time it conveys deep thought, keen observation and sharpness of characterization. These very qualities assure the author of an outstanding place in the annals of literature and in the hearts of all who love good stories.                                          

From W. S

E.Valentina

        The sample of emotive prose which has been chosen for stylistic and structural analysis is the story “From W. S” by Leslie Hartley.

Leslie Poles Hartley (1895-1972), the son of a solicitor, was educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford and for more than twenty years form 1932 was a fiction reviewer for such periodicals as the Spectator, Sketch, Observer and Time and Tide. He published his first book, a collection of short stories entitled “Night Fears” in 1924. He wrote such famous novels as “Eustace and Hilda”, “The Go-Between”, “The Hireling”, “The Novelist’s Responsibility” etc.

         The title of the story “From W. S” is rather short but it is excites our thoughts many associations. When I first red the title of this story I thought that this text would be about big and real love of  one person, who writes the love letter to his or her object of adoration.

        But when I completely red this story I discovered that the plot of the story is rather complicated. In this extract the author introduces us Walter Streeter, the novelist who gets post cards from the anonymous correspondent W. S, who sends his cards from places geographically closer to the novelist in order to come nearer to him.

          The composition of the story consists of the following components: exposition, main part, climax and denouement.  

        The text of the story is not homogenous. It is not only the narration with the elements of descriptions it is also interrupted with the character’s dialogues.

        In the exposition, at the very beginning, the reader comes across postcard from Forfar. From the sentence “I have enjoyed all your books, but do you really get to grips with people? I doubt it” one can guess that this postcard is sent to the writer or to the person who is fond of writing. And the next sentence, gives us little information about the sender: “try to think of this as a handshake from your devoted admirer, W. S.”. Here one has an idea that the sender is well-acquainted with works of the writer, that he or she enjoys reading his books that is why he or she is his devoted admirer. The sentence “you have always been so interested in Scotland, and that is one reason why I am interested in you” immediately strikes us, because the curious reader can ask himself a guest ion: “what the author is driving at by this expression?”  

        Here we come to know that writer is interested in Scotland, probably, he writes some notes about this country in his books or maybe he even dedicates the whole book to this country. So, we see that the sender is interested in Scotland as well as the writer; probably he likes his books about this country that is why he is interested in him.  

        Further, the author introduces us the writer himself. We come to know that he is the novelist and his name is Walter Streeter. So, from the sentence “he was rather relieved that W. S. had given no address” we understand that in spite of that fact that Walter Streeter is very conscientious person, that he always tries to answer letters, he feels relieve that his anonymous correspondent doesn’t give his address because answering him will take up time and energy Walter Streeter needs for his writing. Moreover, a question arises “why the sender doesn’t give his address?”. We know that, usually, people who write the letters to their idols specify their addresses, because they want their idols to know about their existence, but in this case we don’t see his address and he even doesn’t write his full name, he just gives his initial which is more like the initials of the writer. We can only guess that the sender wants to be interesting for the writer that is why, he gives no address, no full name. And he manages to get what he wants, because his letter lingers in the writer’s mind.

        Then the author smoothly passes to the main part of the story. The main part begins from the episode when Walter Streeter gets another postcard, at this time from Berwick – on – Tweed. From this letter we understand that the sender criticizes the writer.  The sentence “like you, it’s on the Border. I hope this doesn’t sound rude. I don’t mean that you a borderline case.” is interesting in itself. Here one can note such stylistic devices like: Pun “like you it on the border”, and epithet “borderline case”. The author uses these both stylistic devices in order to bring home to the reader that the works of the writer is enough contradictory. Moreover, here we see sharp criticism of the sender to the works of the writer. Also, the sender gives an advice to Walter Streeter. We see it in the sentence “I think you should plump for one world or the other”. Dew to this sentence one can guess that the writer contradicts himself, because he doesn’t decide what world he will plump for.    

        As far as structural analysis is concerned we can subdivide this story into 4 supra-phrasal unities (SPU). Let's now pay our attention to the one SPU & comment of its logical structure in order to understand what role this SPU plays in this text. So, one can think that the most interesting SPU is the second, which is titled as “postcard’s influence on the writer”. From the given title of this SPU of the text the reader can immediately understand about what will be this topic. Now, let’s consider the upper and lower borderlines of SPU. If we consider its first sentence (About ten days later arrived another postcard, this time from Berwick – on- Tweed.) in connection with previous passage, we will not fail to state that there is a change of thoughts. In previous passage the author tells us about the postcard from Forfar. And in the next, the author speaks about the postcard from Berwick – on –Tweed. Of’ course it is obvious, that one can suppose this sentence to be a continuation of the previous topic, because here we again deal with postcard. But the sentence “About ten days later arrived another postcard, this time from Berwick – on – Tweed.” stands for the conception of a new thought, which is further develops in this very passage. The reader can easily feel this smooth passing of the author from on theme to another.    

 Now let’s have a look at the last sentence of the given SPU, which is sound as “The third postcard showed a picture of York Minster”. In the following passage we can see that the author switches our attention to the new topic, due to the definite article- “the”: “The third postcard”. Here we see that author dwells on the description of Walter Streeter’s reaction from the third postcard.  .

So coming back to the chosen SPU, one can think that it consists of 3 LTC. The thematic chain 1, which is titled “criticism” contains 8 items (they are: Berwick – on – Tweed, Border, borderline case, admire you stories, otherworldly, plump for one world or the other, firm handshake, from W. S.), the 2 thematic chain “pondering over the sender” contains 18 items (ponder over, wonder about the sender, correspondent, man or woman, man’s writing, commercial, unselfconscious, criticism was like a man’s, like a woman, to probe, to fell flattered and unsure of himself, faint stirrings of curiosity, dismissed, to experiment with acquaintances, unknown person, speculating about, sizing up, other-worldly indeed!) and the last “difficulties with work” contains 22 items (re-read last two chapters, didn’t have their feet firm on the ground, too ready to escape, other novelists, an ambiguous world, conscious mind, picture of Berwick – on – Tweed, November fire, words came haltingly, extra-strong barrier of self-criticism, aware of self-division, someone had taken hold of his personality, pulling it apart, work was no longer homogeneous, two strains in it, unreconciled and opposing, to resolve the discord, getting into a groove, growing pains, new source of supply, correlate the two, make conflict fruitful as many artist have.). One should note that the LTC which has largest number of components is “difficulties with work”, it consists of  22 elements, that is why one can surely say that that the author pays much attention to that fact that the criticism of the anonymous correspondent, first of all, influence on his work. The author begins to doubt of his own works. It should seem that the sender knows the work of the writer much better that writer himself. And Walter Streeter begins to yield to criticism, without realizing it. He even tries to write, but the “words came haltingly, as though contending with an extra –strong barrier of self-criticism” In this sentence one can note personification, dew to which on can see how much effort it takes Walter Streeter to write something, but he can’t because he still thinks about the sender’s criticism.    

   The structural or logical unity of SPU is supported by the following textual connection signals –lexical connection signals like: generalization (usage of the word this “Walter Streeter pondered over this”) also, root-related words (border - borderline, criticism – self-criticism), synonymic repetition (sender – correspondent,) also, it is necessary to point out that the uniformity of present tense makes the sentence logically connected.

The key sentence of this SPU will be sound like this “And as the day passed he became uncomfortably aware of self-division, as though someone had taken hold of his personality and was pulling it apart”. And consequently this sentence shows the main idea of the chosen SPU. Due to this very sentence and this SPU unity the reader understands that the sender manipulates the writer. He criticizes his work, sizes him up, gives him advice and rules over him. Dew to this very sentence we see how the writer doubts of his own works. So, the text has the inductive type, because the key sentence is located at the bottom of the SPU.

So, coming back to the main part of the story the reader comes across another postcard, now from York Minister. Here we again see the behavior of a writer. This tame, we feel that he is getting mad. First of all he notes that the initials are his own and he thinks that he sends these postcards for himself. The sentence “he had notice it before, but they were such commonplace initials; they were Gilbert’s they were Maugham’s, they were Shakespeare’s – common possession” immediately attracts our attention, because here one can note allusions like: Gilbert, Maugham, Shakespeare. One can say that the author resorts to this s/d in order to show us that these famous writers have the initials W. S. So, here we see another stylistic device which immediately attracts our attention. They are epithets: “commonplace initials and common possession”. One can not say about Gilbert’s, Maugham’s, Shakespeare’s initials – commonplace initials or common possession. They were very famous people and very talented writers. One can guess that the author specially makes his character say such words about the initials of great people, in order to emphasis his character. So, we understand that Walter Streeter is self-confident person, may be he even thinks that as the owner of the same initials of famous writer, he is much better than they. Than we see another action, he doesn’t tear this postcard up, and doesn’t even throw it into fire, as he has done it with two –first. He goes to his friend and shows him third postcard. His friend says that it is a woman and she is lunatic. So, Walter Streeter begins to think about this woman. In the sentence “A woman mouse-like creature, who had somehow taken a fancy to him! ” one can note the simile. The author uses this s/d in order to emphasize at that fact that all woman are weak, that they can’t do any harm. So, Walter Streeter feels reassured and at the same time calm ,from the thought that this mouse – like creature is incapable to do him any harm. Moreover it is really sweet and touching to know that somebody takes a fancy to you. So, he begins to think about this woman, about her appearance, but soon he, again, begins getting mad. So, he thinks that he writes postcard for himself and consequently he is lunatic. Also, we understand that postcard business becomes a leading factor in his life. So, we see that each postcard greatly influence on him, and he becomes crazy. During the main part of the story we see everything which happens with the main character. So, I would like to draw a character sketch on him, but I can’t describe his appearance. The author doesn’t speak about his appearance straightforwardly, but the reader can imagine him with the help of use of indirect characterization, through his thoughts, actions and speech. So, during all this text we understand that Walter Streeter, the main character of the story, is very touching and sensitive person, moreover one can guess that he is a religious person, because he is interested in cathedrals. Lincoln Cathedral is the subject of one of his youthful fantasies and he had written about it in a travel book. Also, we can say that he is easy influenced person, because the postcards drive him mad and he even begins to doubt about himself. Also, it’s clear to state that the main character of the story is the sender. So, we know about him nothing. We even don’t know who is he, woman or man. But behavior of the writer helps us to come to conclusion about the sender. One can guess that he knows a lot of things about his object of adoration. He is not just a fan of the writer, one can think that he is maniac, that he knows in detail everything about writer, about his writings and his personality. His words influence on Walter Streeter that the writer even begins to think about himself as a split personality.

So, the last postcard comes from Coventry. Here one can note the climax. So, we see that after coming of last postcard, a wave of panic surges up in him. In this climax one can note bright example of the pun: “I hope you are well and would like a postcard from the Coventry, he read, have you ever been sent to the Coventry? I have in fact you sent me there”. The author resorts to this s/d in order to bring home to the reader, that the writer doesn’t answer his anonymous correspondent that is why he sends him to Coventry. And the sender doesn’t like such treatment that is why he threatens him that he becomes nearer to him. So, Walter Streeter begins to panic at that fact that all this time he doesn’t notice the most significant fact about postcards – that each one comes from a place geographically closer to him, than the last. So, the reader understands that the sender is nearer to him, because Walter Streeter lives in a large West Country town about ninety miles from Coventry.

Than the denouement comes. Here we understand that Walter Streeter goes to police. But police does nothing, they just ask him has he anyone who has a grudge against him and they say to let them know if further postcard comes. Here we see that it is not the end.

   The language of the story clearly shows, that Leslie Hartley uses formal style. On the whole text is full of stylistics device which help to make the story vivid and bright.

I found the story very interesting, because here the author says about the personality of a writer. So, we know that writers are a bit crazy people. But this image is a split personality. Here we see the problem of Walter Streeter himself. The main idea of the story is writer himself.