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Дополнительные
материалы (Материалы предоставлены Ириной, студенткой НГЛУ)
MAN AND WAR
Dead of a hero Well, I’d like to start my speaking on the story with saying a few words about the impression that the story has produced on me. Formulating it in the plain terms of good and bad, I’d say that the impression is rather positive though the emotion the story evoked is not so undoubtedly good. This extract is not one of these stories that involve the reader because of some peculiarities of the plot. It is not a detective story, it’s not a thriller. But nevertheless it is involving. It has a certain mood that is transferred to the reader. The events of this short extract strike by their simplicity and realism. And the problem the author touches upon is well-known to everybody. This story lets any reader understand feelings of people who are on the threshold of an impending catastrophe – war. All of us know what the war is. A war is a catastrophe, it’s awful, humiliating, it’s damaging. It renders people helpless, defenceless, exposing them to moral damage, let alone the psychological injury. Wars bring nothing but suffering, poverty, death, mutilation. As far as I can see it, the author wants us to understand how vain and insignificant our hopes are when they can be so unexpectedly ruined. The composition goes traditional: it starts with the exposition, proceeds with the climax and ends up with the outcome. This plays its certain positive role by means of involving the reader gradually as the plot is developing logically, step by step. The reader is smoothly sliding down into the content. What is distinctive about the composition is that the author, introducing his characters, gives some facts of their previous life, and some plans for the future. And it is done on purpose. The characters of the story seem familiar to the reader from the very beginning. It makes the reader take their feelings very close to heart. The language is rather simple but very expressive. Sometimes the vocabulary the author employs is everyday, ordinary; sometimes it is colloquial. The text is a good example of narrative and descriptive writing combined with dialogue. The flat narration of the first part of the text gives place to a tense dialogue of the second part. To express tension of the situation the author uses words selected with great care. So the actual narration starts with the introducing the characters: George, a painter, an artistic emotional nature, a creator of beautiful pictures, and his wife Elisabeth. As I’ve told already in the very beginning of the story the author gives us some facts of the personages’ previous life and some plans for the future, such as: George and Elisabeth’s moving to Chelsea, their way of spending their spare time, George’s plans concerning a small show in Paris and so on. But it so happens that one day on his way home, waiting for the bus, George came across an article in a newspaper that confused and even horrified him greatly. The man learnt that the situation in the world went in such a way that it could lead to a European war any moment. It was the event George had always declared impossible. He refused to believe it. A conversation was started between George and a man on the seat opposite who held the same newspaper in his hand. The man seemed to be very patriotic, zealous. What George thought to be an appalling catastrophe, he considered to be a revival. He thought that the situation of war would liven things up a bit. People were getting stale and they needed a bit of blood-letting. The man told that he was ready to take part in that coming war. But when he had learned that George was neutral on this account, his mood changed immediately. Now he looked at George as at “a bloody foreigner”. So, this text is a good example of narrative and descriptive writing combined with dialogue and it can be divided into two parts. The flat narration of the first part of the text gives place to a tense dialogue of the second part. We see that the main personage of the story is very far from war and brutality. Then the description of George and Elisabeth’s undisturbed and tranquil life. We read about their moving to a new place, George’s dreams about a small show in Paris in the autumn. We feel a peaceful atmosphere of a hot summer, a benign day “with fine white fleecy clouds suspended in a blue sky, and a light wind ruffling the darkened foliage of summer trees”. The author lets us feel the beauty of a summer day by describing a very nice and peaceful moment of his characters’ life. And it is made on purpose. We can understand George’s feelings after having read terrible news in a newspaper. We feel his shock, his fear, and our impression is intensified by the author’s splendid description of a peaceful benign (and, as we can see, pre-war) day. This contrast is reinforced by the increasing tenseness towards the second part of the story. The tenseness and the idea of that seriousness of the situation, the idea of coming war are reinforced by the use of short, terse, laconic, simple sentences when George tried to realise all he had read. And then, the author reaches a climax of the story by using the words “appalling catastrophe”. These words shock any reader especially after all previous descriptions. “Appalling catastrophe”. When we pronounce this phrase, we mean “a terrible disaster or accident, especially one that leads to a great loss of life”. Using this phrase creates a great contrast with the tranquil day that was described. To make us read this word is to make us feel all the depth and horror of an impending calamity, destroying human life and a comfortable world, full of love and dreams about peaceful future. And the author uses this combination of words as a synonym for the word “war”. Any war is a crushing national calamity. I compare it with some kind of a natural disaster. We cannot prevent a natural disaster, but we can, I should say, we MUST prevent wars – but wars still exist. This is what the author wanted us to understand. This was his message.
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