Pyatachev E. G. Text Three From W. S. Leslie Poles Hartley (1895-1972), the son of a solicitor, was educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford and for more than twenty years from 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. His novel “Eustace and Hilda” (1947) was recognized immediately as a major contribution to English fiction; “The Go-Between” (1953) and “The Hireling” (1957) were later made into internationally successful films.
In 1967 he published “The Novelist’s Responsibility”, a collection of critical essays. L. P. Hartley was a highly skilled narrator and all his tales are admirably told. “W. S. ” comes from “The Complete Short Stories of L. P. Hartley” published posthumously in 1973. The content of the story tells for us about the writer-novelist who gets one after the other four postcards with messages from anonymous and starts thinking them over. Messages written on them start off friendly but gradually become more ominous. They are all signed W. S. nd originate from locations that are moving steadily closer to the recipient. Strange coincidences regarding these notes cause him to question his own sanity, as well as to ponder possible supernatural origins of its sender. The theme of the text – Spiritual crisis of strained main character, precipitated by mysterious postcards coming from unknown places The idea of the extract is that writer’s work and creation of images can often produce the doppelganger effect. The plot of the story can be expressed the following: the protagonist receives messages-cards from the fan.
It blows up his interest – Who could be there? Interest varies with panic mood and then the suspicion to psychological bifurcation is born. The hero searches the help with the friends, psychiatrist, police. In the conclusion search of the fan go to the deadlock and it is not a riddle as true as such riddles are not reveal. The atmosphere in this extract is gradually increasing and gets its top at the end of it. The text can be logically divided into only one part: the story itself. According to this kind of division the fragment has opened plot structure.
We can also divide the text into the following unities: 1. The postcards 2. Anonymous correspondent 3. Wondering 4. Difficulties 5. The woman 6. Piece of him 7. Panic 8. Police Chronotop (time and place). The events of the story take place in the middle of 20th century. Actions are happened in district of Coventry. Places are mentioned such as: Forfar; Berwick-on-Tweed; York Minster-Lincoln Cathedral. Compositional design. a) Plot structure The exposition starts from the very beginning of the text and ends with the words: Walter Streeter pondered over this and began to wander about the sender.
Was his correspondent a man or a woman? Then comes complication where we find out the gradation from: “And as the days passed he became uncomfortably aware of self-division, as though someone had taken hold of his personality and was pulling it apart. His work was no longer homogeneous, there were two strains in it, unreconciled and opposing, and it went much slower as he tried to resolve the discord. ” The climax of the story is similar to transit of transformation with phrases: For the fist time it struck him that, the initials were his own…His friend said: “The woman’s a lunatic.
I’m sure it’s a woman”…He tried to put the thought away from him; lie tried to destroy the postcard as lie had the others…A wave of panic surged up in Walter Streeter…Should he show the postcards to an alienist? …Better go to the police. The denouement in the selected story is absent. The plot structure of the text is opened. b) Form of the narration . The type of the narration is author’s narrative. The narration is interrupted by the elements of description; inner thoughts and feelings of the main character are imperceptibly interwoven with the narration. Images. a.
Characters: Walter Streeter – the protagonist; his friend; the police-employees. b. There is description of the natural phenomena in the text: “November fire”. There are no descriptions of the animals. c. There are a lot of non-living things, such as the postcards; the clock; the chimney-piece; the atlas. The emotional atmosphere of the extract is tense, interesting and intriguing. The context is colored by the use of expressive means and stylistic devices. Syntactic expressive means: Anaphora: “…I am interested in you. I have enjoyed all your books, but do you really get to grips with people? I doubt it. ; It was true that Walter Streeter was interested in cathedrals… And it was also true that he admired mere size and was inclined to under-value parish churches. “, “I hope this doesn’t sound rude. I don’t mean that you are a borderline case! You know how much I admire your stories. Some people call them other-worldly. I think you should…”; “They, too, took the view that rile writer was probably a woman. They told him not to worry but to let them know if further postcards came. ”, “And was it really a sign of megalomania? And who was W. S. anyhow? “, “They were Gilbert’s, they were Maugham’s, they were Shakespeare’s … Antithesis: “The Me and the Not Me”; “…making one paragraph languorous with semicolons and subordinate clauses, and another sharp and incisive with main verbs and full stops. ”; “lie would not know, what Walter wanted to know…”, “perfection of ordinariness” Repetition: “He tried to put the thought away from him; lie tried to destroy…” Anadiplosis: “…an ambiguous world, a world where the conscious…” Polysyndeton: “…a new area of thoughts and feelings and they were most unhelpful. ” Asyndeton: “Never mind, he thought; perhaps I was getting into a groove. ”; “I have been re-reading your novels, living in them, I might say. Rhetorical question: “Was his correspondent a man or a woman? ”; ”But did that matter? ” Parallelism: “Perhaps they didn’t have their feet firm on the ground. Perhaps he was too ready to escape…”; “If they laughed at him, so much the better. They did not laugh, however. ”; “…speculating about him, sizing him up. ” Lexical expressive means: Antonomasia : “Walter Streeter” Simile: “It looked like a man’s handwriting – commercial, unself-conscious – and the criticism was like a man’s. ” Attachment: “…but they were such commonplace initials they were Cilbert’s, they were Maughaim’s, they were Shakespeare’s – a common possession. Metonymy : “faint strings of curiosity” Synecdoche: “Better go to the police. The police were used to dealing with poison-pens. ” Allusion: “the antithesis of it”; “authority of logic”; “significant fact” Semantic expressive means: Epithet: “have their feet firm on the ground”; “his November fire”; “a little mouse-like creature”; “irresistible compulsion”; “A wave of panic surged up in Walter Streeter. ” Metaphor: “fruitful conflict”, “…but the words came haltingly, as though contending with an extra-strong barrier of self-criticism. ; “That sort of person is often a little psychic” Allegory: “Perhaps he was too ready to escape, as other novelists were nowadays into an ambiguous world, a world where the conscious mind did not have things too much its own way. But did that matter? He threw the picture of Berwick-on-Tweed into his November fire and tried to write: but the words came haltingly, as though contending with an extra-strong barrier of self-criticism. And as the days passed he became uncomfortably aware of self-division, as though someone had taken hold of his personality and was pulling it apart.
His work was no longer homogeneous, there were two strains in it, unreconciled and opposing, and it went much slower as he tried to resolve the discord. Never mind, he thought; perhaps I was getting into a groove. ” Talking about the author’s style we can say that the author’s style of writing is high-flown and elaborate. The sentences are not long. There are many interrogative sentences and that shows hesitation and anxiety of the character. The writer is very rich and full of various kinds of stylistic
