V. B.

SOSNOVSKAYA

ANALYTICAL
READING
 V. B.SOSNOVSKAYA

ANALYTICAL
READING
Допущено Министерством
высшего и среднего
специального образования СССР
в качестве учебного пособия
для студентов институтов и факультетов
иностранных языков

MOSCOW
<<HIGHER SCHOOL)> ·
PUBLISHING HOUSE
1974
 4И(Анrл)
С66

Пособие рецензировалось на кафедре английскогQ языка Пятигорского

педагогического институт<1 иностранных языков и профе..:соро\1 Ленинград ..
ского госуд~рст~енного педагогического института И. В. Арнольд,

Сосновекая В. Б.
С 66 Аналитическое чтение. Учеб. пособие для ин-тов и
фак. иностр. яз. М., «Высш. школа», 1974.
184 с. с рис.
На тит. л. загл.: V. В. Sosnovskaya. Analytical Reading.
Пособие состоит из 2-х частей: теоретичf:ской, в которой даны необхо ..
днмые студенту сведения по лексикологии, стилистике и теории литерату­

ры, и хрестоматии. В хрестоматии, состоящей из 2-х разделов, представ­

лены произведения современных английских и американских писателей.
В первом, основном раз;iеле хрестоматии, тексты сопрово:н(даются задани­
ями, направляющими работу студентоВ по тоJiкованию текстов. Во втором
разделе даются дополнительные тексты, углубляющие знакометво с авто­
рами, nредставленными в основных текстах.
В конце пособия даны краткие биографические справки о писателях,
отрывки из произведений которых включены в пособие, а также указатель
терминов.

70104-153
с 202-74 4И (Анrл)
001(01)-74
© Издательство «Высшая школа>, 1974 г,
 FOREWORD

Texts of imaginative literature are used at foreign language insti-

tutes during, almost the whole period of studies. They are employed
primarily as a source of linguistic information, as a store of everyday
topics for conversation, reproduction and the like. In short, literary
pieces (mostly works ol outstanding writers) are used, almost exclu-
sively, as an aid in learning the language. Little or no attention is
generally paid to the literary work as a work of verbai art, and its
main function, the aesthetic, is only casually referred to, if not alto-
gether ignored. Such practice, when cultiv-ated during the whole course
of studies, results in the students' developing an oversimplified atti-
tude to literature, an inability to grasp the thought that is imagina-
tively expressed.
Textbooks and manuals in practical English, though made up
of literary texts, do not, as a rule, cater for a poetic content approach
to the material under study. The situation is aggravated by the fact
that there is no theoretical course for students of foreign language insti-
tutes in which the properties of the literary work might be considered.
Neither are there any adequate sources (Russian or English) that would
give the student-reader a system of rudimentary concepts in the theory
of literature and in stylistics. The few books on the subject that are
available present either an inventory of linguo-stylistic and literary
terms (S. Mostkova, L Smikalova, S. Chernyavskaya. "English
Literary Terms". L., 1967) or are outlines and essays on English sty-
listics (H. p. f aJibnepHH. «0'1epK!1 liO CTHJIHCTHKe anr JIHHCKOfO 513hiKa».
M. 1958; M. 11. Ky3ner,, IO. M, CKpe6HeB. «CTilJIHCTI1Ka aHrnniicKoro
513biKa». Jl. 1960; I. R. Galperin. "Stylistics". M., 1971) or manuals
in practical stylistics (V. A. Kukharenko. "Seminars in Style". M.,
1971).
The first textbook we know of that has ever initiated the student
of English into the realm of the literary work is "Analytical Reading"
by I. Arnold and N. Diakonova containing literary-stylistic commen-
tary as well as questions and tasks on the content and style of the
s~lected pieces of English narrative prose. The book has proved of
great help to teachers and students. _
The present manual follows the principle of I. Arnold's and
N. Diakonova's book. But it differs from the latter by giving an out-
line of rudimentary concepts accepted in the study of literature and
style. Then, it does not ·offer a detailed literary:stylistic commentary
to each selected piece, providing, instead, a wider set of tasks with
the view to helping the student discover the content for himself. The
book, thus, consists of two parts. Part One: "A Reader's Guide to
Imaginative Literature". It, as has been mentioned, contains essen-
tials of the theory of literature and linguo-stylistics. It is believed
that an outline of these will help the student in his reading.
1* 3
 Part Two: "Analytical Reading" contains short stories and extracts
from novels by such writers asS. O'Casey, A. Coppard, C. P. Snow,
G. Greene, S. Lewis, W. Faulkner, E. Hemingway, and E. Caldwell.
With the exception of W. Faulkner, who is represented by one work
only, two works by each of the other seven writers are included. One-
for a thorough analysis of content and style; the oth_9r, supplemen-
tary, -for independent reading and a one-lesson, spontaneous ("what
the work impressed me by") disc_ussion. Each text of the first type
is supplied with a set of tasks. In each concrete case they are suggested
by the character of the selected work, the kernel being: 1) tasks aimed
at helping the students perceive and appreciate the poetic content of
the work; 2) tasks aimed at developing the student's ability of express-
ing that what he has perceived (giving summaries written/ora! of
the plot, of the author's message, giving sketches written/oral of the
characters, ctc).
The book is supplied with biographical notes as well as an index
of the terms that have been mentioned in the Guide. The index will
help the user find the information he may need when doing the tasks.
Proper understanding and acquisition of the vocabulary of the
selected piece is a prior condition Jo the effectiveness of the ensuing
discussion. In view of this, it is suggested that part of each first lesson
of the series should be devoted to vocabulary work.
The manual is designed for use in the senior years. The analytical
reading material contained in Part Two may be satisfactorily covered
on condition that the average of four hours a week during the whole ,
of the academic year is assigned to it.
Preceding analytical reading proper some seminar discussions of
the rudiments expounded in Part 1-- of the manual are recommended
to be held in class. Besides, references to these should be made each
time they are want~d in the course of reading and analysing the texts.
A c k n o w 1 e d g e me n t s. The author thanks Prof. I. V.
Arnold of the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute for her very useful
criticism, support and counsel. The author extends her thanks to the
colleagues at the Alma-Ata Foreign Language Institute for their help
and encouragement.
 PART ONE
A READER'S GUIDE
TO IMAGINATIVE
LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION

It is a well-known fact, that the reader's appreciation

of the book depends upon his personal experience. A lit-
erary work that represents the epoch and social/cultural
settings familiar to the reader will, no doubt, be more pro-
foundly perceived by him than that of an entirely alien
setting.
The reader's appreciation of the literary work also
depends upon his age and education, as well as upon his
intellectual and emotional impressionability, the tnnate
ability to share in the attitude of others. The gift of appre-
ciation develops when one gains experience in reading .
.But h~ who has, besides, some knowledge of the verbal art
laws will more subtly perceive the poetic content than
one who lacks such knowledge.
To give students of English some major concepts in
the theory of verbal art thus enabling them to derive
greater aesthetic pleasure out of reading imaginative
literature is the aim ·of Part One of this manual.

***
Any work of imaginative literature irrespective of its
genre (ppem, short story, novel, etc.), or its literary t1end
(realist.ic, naturalistic, romantic, etc.) is a unique and
complete world, created by the author in precisely the
way his imagination has urged him to create. Though it
is but a product of the author's imagination, it is always
based upon objective reality, for there is no source t_hat
feeds one's imagination other than objective reality.
5
A literary work is thus a fragment of objective reality
arranged in accordance with the vision of the author and
permeated by his idea of the world.
To show briefly how all these factors correlate, we must ·
touch upon the following.

1. The Reality- the Image - the Author

Relationship 1

Both science and the arts aim at cognizing and interpret-

ing 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 jn 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 essen-
tially 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 per-
son, 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 cate-
gories'" the former being reality itself, the latter a repre-
sentation of reality. Thus, a portrait is always a repre-
sentation of a certain person, never the person himself.
Turning now to the litirary work, we may say that,
regarded in terms of an object-image relationship, it is
always a representation of a life situation, whose image
it is. In other words, the literary work in its re-creation
of life gives images which are similar to but not identical
with life.
1 See for reference: IO. JI o T M a H. JleKUIIII no cTpyKrypaJibHoii
no3THKe. C6. «TpyJJ;bi no sHaKoBbiM CIICTeMaM», I, yH·T TapTy, 1964;
also: H. K. re ii. l1cKyccTBO CJIOBa. M., 1967.

6
 If an image is not an identity of the object it repre-
sents, then the if)lage contains within itself not only fea-
tures similar to the object ·but also features dissimilar to
it, for the presence of the similar presupposes the presence
of the· dissimilar - the two constituting a dialectical
whole. The similarity of an image to its object is condi-
tioned by the object-image relationship. That which is
dissimilar to the object is conditioned by another factor.
An image is always somebody's creation, i. e. an image
has not only its object but also its creator, the author.
It implies that:
Firstly. 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).
In the second place. 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 re(}lity 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.

2. The Author- the Literary Work- the Reader

Relationship

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, aliter-
ary 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,
7
his attitude towards it, to someone, i. e. to an addressee
(a reader). His attitude may be quite obviously expressed,
or, on the contrary, be presented in a non-committal,
seemingly impersonal way. An author may have, each
time, a partiiular 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 talent-
ed work of imaginative literature always affects the
reader, reaches his intellect and emotions, in a way mould-
ing 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. The works
of Pushkin, Tolstoi, Chekhov, D'ickens, Twain, Heming-
way and others prove the truth of this statement.
Thus, the literary work is an ad of communication of
the author with the reader. But the existence of the rela-
tionship: the author- the liteni.ry 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 in-
volved interrelation of the objective and the subjective,
tlle real and the imagined, the direct and the implied, makes
the perception of it a creative effort.l He, who penetrates
into the subtleties of the literary work, is sharing the
author's aesthetic world. He becomes a sort of a eo-creator.
a fact, which alone makes reading an aesthetic pleasure.
While, on the other hand, one who does not see the in-
volved 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 con-
flicts as life individuals engaged in life conflicts. Need-
less it is to point out that in the latter case the reader
has not profited by the book as he otherwise might.

1 B. A c M y c. llTeHHe KaK TPYJl 'n TBop'Iecrao. «Bonpocbi JIHTe-

patypbi>). 1961, .N'2 2; H. B. A p H o JI h Jl. CtHJIHCTHKa nMy'IaTeJil!
pe'IH, 11JIH CTI!Jl!ICTHKa )leKO)l!IpOBaHIIl!. «Tipo(}JieMbl JlHHfBHCTH'IeCKOl!
CTHJ!HCTHKH». Hay'IH. ,KoH<P. MfTII1115I nM. M. Topesa, M., 1969;
also: TeMaTn'!ecKne c.~oaa xy)lolKeCTBeHHoro TeKcTa (3JieMeHTbi CTHJIH·
CTH'IeCKOfO .U.eKO,UHpOBaHHll). «l1HOCTpaHHbie l!3b!KH B UiKOJle», .N'9 2,
1971.
8
 We hope, that the ensuing discussion will help those
who are but vaguely aware of the intrinsic properties of
the literary work to develop a more appreciative approach
to reading.·

Chapter I
LANGUAGE, THE MEDIUM QF LITERATURE

THE PRELIMINARY

Each art has its own medium, i. e. its own material

substance.
Colours are the material substance of painting, sounEis -
the material substance of music. It is language that is the
material substance of literature.
Each art and its material substance constitute a unity
of content and form; indeed, the material substance is
inseparable from its content. This statement can be proved
by the fact that no art is adequately translatable into
another. A symphony cannot -be adequately rendered
into a piece of sculpture, a piece of sculpture- into
a literary work, etc.
Each kind of art presupposes its own material substance,
so that one and the same theme can constitute different
aesthetic realities when rendered in colours, sounds, stone,
or words. Consider, for instance, the theme of war in mu-
sic, sculpture, painting or literature. In short, the mate:
rial substance of one art differs from that of another and
it is this difference of material substance that makes one
art different from another. But the nature of material sub-
stance of literature, i. e. the nature of language, is such
that it is contrastable to all other material substances.
This radical "otherness" of language as compared to colours,
sounds, stone, etc. manifests itself both in its art functiJm
(i. e. in imaginative literature) and in life in general.
Language is capable of transmitting practically any
kind of information. It has names for all things, phenom-
ena and relations of objective reality. It is so close to
life that an illusion of their almost complete identity is
created, for man lives, works and thinks in the medium
of language; his behaviour_ finds an important means of
expression primarily in language.
9
 Further, language bears within itself national idiosyn-
crasies generally known as idiomaticity. These idiosyn-
crasies are clearly recognizable when one language is
compared with another, or when a person speaks a tongue
foreign to him. So indivisible is one's native language
from one's nationality (here we have in view the case
when one speaks his native tongue from childhood on into
maturity) that when a person speaks a language foreign
to him, though as well-mastered as it can be, his own
nationality, nevertheless, can be clearly identified.
Language is constantly changing. Changes in language
are brought about by external, i. e. social causes (for
language develops simultaneously with the culture of
the people that ·speaks it) as well as by internal causes.
The results of all these changes remain in the language.
(Consider, for example, the division of words and the mean-
ings of words into present, obsolete and archaic.)
None of those features pertain to the material substance
of other arts. They are peculiar to language alone.
Verbal art being the subject matter of the present dis-
course, the main functions of language will be further
discussed in the ensuing pages.

MEANINGS OF LINGUISTIC UNITS

a) Denotative meaning of the word. An act of verbal

communication between the speaker and the hearer is made
possible primarily due to the fact that units of communica-
tion (i. e. words) are referable to extralinguistic situa-
tions, things meant. The word .denotes a concrete thing
as well as a concept of a thing, the word has a denotative
meaning. 1 Thus, the word blue denotes an object that is
blue (a blue dress) and the respective concept: something
blue or blueness. The word table denotes any object that
is a table; it is the name of a whole class of objects that
are tables.

1 The terms "referential", "cognitive", "intellective" are some-

times used as equivalents of the term "denotational". See: 0. C. A x M a-
HoB a, Jl. H. H aT a H, A. 11. IT o JI Top auK H li, B. 11. <P a-
T !0 I1l e H K 0. 0 IlpHHl{HllaX H MeTO,UaX JIHHfBOCTllJIHCTllqecKOfO llCCJ!e·
,llOB8HHl!. MfY, 1966, CTp. 164.

10
 An isolated word table denotes the concept of the thing
that is a table. The word table within a certain context
denotes a definite thing, i. e. has a definite meaning
(He bought a deal table). The property of the word enabl-
ing it to denote a concrete thing as well as a generalized
concept of a thing is an objective feature which has been
worked out in the course of a people's history. The know!-
- edge of the word-denotation is shared by all those who
speak in the given language and this is what makes com-
munication possible. Denotative meaning is thus the
loading task of any notional word. 1
b) Connotative meaning of the word. The word besides
denoting a concrete thing, action, or concept, may also
carry a connotation, an overtone. These overtones or con-
notations vary in character. They may express the speak-
er's attitude to the thing spoken about (em o t i v e
c o m p o n e n t o f m e a n i n g), or indicate the so-
cial sphere in which the discourse takes place (s t y -
I is t i c reference). Both these components may be
part of the word's dictionary meaning, i. e. be present
in the word when it is taken in isolation. They may,
on the other hand, be part of the word's contextual mean-
ing, i. e. emerge in the word as a result of its correlation
with other words. Below we first consider connotation as
part of the word's dictionary meaning- it being essen-
tial for readers to see the inherent properties of words '-
only to dwell at length later~on the connotations words
acquire when they occur in texts.

CONNOTATION IN THE WORD'S DICTIONARY

MEANING

An emotive component· of meaning may have linguistic

expression with the help of suffixes; for example, the suffix
ie!y in such words as birdie, or Freddy serves to express
the diminutive/the hypocoristic. The emotive component
of meaning may have no specific linguistic form but be
contained in the concept the given word denotes, as for
example, in the words horrid, terrifying, lovely, etc. There

1 See for detail: I. Arnold. The English Word. L., 1965, pp. 166-
167; R. S. Ginzburg, S. S. ·Khidekel, G. Y. Knyazeva, A. A. Sankin.
A Course in Modern English Lexicology, M., 1966, pp. 23-34.
11
 are words of purely emotive meaning. These are interjec-
tions which differ from words with clenotative meanings
(i. e. ·notional words) by their peculiar sound pattern:
·oh, ouch, alas, hm, etc. They also differ by their syntactic
role in,an utterance: they are not components but equiv-
alents of sentences. ·
Stylistic reference. Verbal communication takes place
in different spheres of human activity, such as everyday
life, business, science, etc. Each of these spheres has
a peculiar mode of linguistic expression which _is gener-
ally known as a functional style. Words that are prefer-
.ably used in one functional style ate said to have a
stylistic reference conditioned by the respective
sphere. · · .
The overtone of stylistic reference is always present
in the word alongside its denotative meaning. This can
well be illustrated by sets of words with similar denota-
tive meanings: get - obtain - procure,· dismiSs - dis-
charge- sack; follow- pursue- go after. Wor~s may be
grouped together on the basis of their common stylistic
reference. Consider, for example, the following groups of
words:
1) inquire 2) ask
obtain get
proceed go
pursue run after
seek look for
Each of these two groups represents a diffe(ent stylistic
layer: the first group contains words of a literary-bookish
layer, the second_- stylistically neutral words. .
While speaking about stylistic reference, the following
factor should be emphasized: stylistic reference can be
recognized only when there is some common element to
refer to. This common element is the similarity of deno-
tation, or, in other words, synonymity of words. Where
there is just one word to denote a certain concept or object
of reality there would be no question of stylistic reference.
Thus, the major dichotomy is to be found ' between sty-
listically neutral vs. stylistically marked words.
Subdivisions within the class of stylistically marked
words are numerous. But the main opposition lies between
words of 1 i t e r a r y s t y l i s t i c 1 a y e r (words
of Standard English) and those · of n o n - 1 i t e r a r y
12
sty 1 i s t i c 1 a y e r 1 (words of Sub-Standard Eng-
lish). .
, Words of literary stylistic layer (Standard English).
They are in their turn divided into l i t er a r y -col -
1 o q u i a I and 1 i t e r a r y - b o o k i s h.
Literary-colloquial are words denoting everyday con-
cepts, they constitute the core of the wordstock (see, cotne,
home, right). ·
Literary-bookish include:
a) Terms, subdivided into: 1). popular terms of
some special spheres of human knowledge known to the
public at large (typhoid, pneumonia); 2) terms used exc
elusively within a profession (phoneme, micro-linguistics);
b) Poet i c is m s, words used exclusively in poetry
and the like. Many of these words are archaic or obsolete,
suc:b as whilome (sometimes), aught (anything), ne (no,
not), haply (may be); for ay (for ever), I ween (I suppose),
he kens (he knows); childe (a nobleman's son);
c) F o r e i g n w o r d s a n d b a r b a r i s m s (ban
mat, neglige, au revoir; ad absurdum, Bundeswehr). A dis-
tinction is made between the two. Barbarisms are consid-
ered to be part of the vocabulary of the given language
constituting its peripheral layer. They are usually regis-
tered in dictionaries (a propos, vis-a-vis, etc.) while for-
eign words are, as a rule, not found in dictionaries. In
literature barbarisms are generally used to lend local
colour: pied-a-terre (a small flat), croissants (breakfast,
bread), etc. But it would also be true to say that no straight
line of demarcation can be drawn between the two groups.-
Words of non-Ii terary stylistic layer (Sub-standard
English). This' layer also includes several subgroups:
a) C o 11 o q u i a 1 i s m s. Words that occupy an
intermediate position between literary and non-literary
stylistic layers and are used in conversational type of
everyday speech. (awfully sorry, a pretty little thing, etc.)
b) S 1 an g is m s. · Words that have originated in
everyday speech and exist on the periphery of the lexical
system~of the given language: go crackers (go mad); garr
(god); belt up (keep silence); big-head (a boaster);
c) Profess i on a 1 1 s m s. Words characteristic of
the conversational variant of professional speech. Contrary

. 1 See for detail: 11. P. r a JI b ll e p ll H. QqepKll no CTI!JIIICTI!Ke

aHrJII!iicKoro ll3biKa, M., 1958. ·
13
to terms, professionalisms are the result of metonymic
or metaphoric transference of some everyday words: bull
(one who buys shares at the stock-exchange); bear (one ,who
sells shares); sparks (a radio-operator); tin-hat (helmet), etc.
d) V u 1 g a r i s m s. Rude words or expressions used
mostly in the speech of the uncultured and the uneducat-
ed, e. g. missus (wife), son of a bitch (a bad person), etc.
The border-! ine between colloquialisms, slangisms and
vulgarisms is often hard to draw for there are hardly any
linguistic criteria of discrimination. This explains why
one finds so many discrepancies in how these stylistic sub-
groups are labelled in various dictionaries.
Two more subgroups of the non-literary stylistic layer
should be mentioned.
e) J argon i s m s (cantisms). Words used within
certain social and professional groups.
f) R e g i on a 1 d i a 1 e c t i s m s. Words and ex-
pressions used by peasants and others in certain regions
of the country: baccy (tobacco), unbeknown (unknown),
winder (window), etc.
* * *
Stylistic reference and emotive charge are inherent
connotative features of lexical units. They should not be
confused with those connotative effects which practically
any word may acquire in speech (text). What specific
connotative effects words with different stylistic reference
and emotive charge may acquire in texts will be shown below.
It should also be mentioned here, that although we
have been speaking exclusively about connotations of
lexical units, the word "connotation" is applicable not
only to words. Elements smaller than words, such as
certain speech sound clusters may also be carriers of some
implied (indirectly expressed) idea or attitude. This we
shall also dwell on below.

DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION

IN VERBAL COMMUNICATION
OTHER THAN IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE

Linguistic elements in an act of speech constitute an

interrelation of their denotative and connotative mean-
ings. The prevalence of one or the other depends prima-
rily upon the sphere of human activity in which commu-
14
nication takes place. Each sphere (science, business, ·
every day life, etc.) has its own mode of expression, though
the linguistic elements used in all of them may be more
or less the same. What is different is the selection and
combination of linguistic elements. Selection and combi-
nation of linguistic elements are conditioned mainly by
the aim and content of communication. Thus, in science,
for instance, the aim and content is observation. and
description of natural and social phenomena, their cogni-
tion and interpretation. The character of the content in
the sphere of science communication conditions a specific
mode of linguistic selection and combination. Words here
are used in their sh ictly denotational (referential) mean-
ings free from hidden suggestiveness and implication,
which does not at all preclude, however, the employment
of words with emotive charge. The latter are, in fact,
quite frequent in scientific texts. The following passage
from C. F. Prutton and S. H. Maron's "Fundamental
Principles of Physical Chemistry" (N. Y. 1944) may very
well serve to illustrate the pattern: "Science is organized
and systematized knowledge relating to our physical
world. This knowledge did not spring into being full-
blown, but has been accumulated painstakingly through
the efforts of many researchers and observers. In its incep-
tion this cumulative process was quite simple. It involved
merely the observation of phenomena as they occur in
nature and their faithful recording. As the facts and ob-
servations multiplied, regularities were sought and dis-
covered in them which then formulated into laws. Each
law was capable of embracing a number of facts and of
summarizing them in succinct form." 1 The words scien9e,
observers, inception, phenomena, nature, etc. may be used
in any other text where they may express different conno-
tations; but in the given text, i. e. in the given pattern of
arrangement, they are used in their direct referential
meanings. The words full-blown, painstakingly, faithful
possess, besides, an emotive element of meaning; they
intensify the expressed thought: faithful recording=careful,
exact recording; painstakingly=with great care and preci-
sion. The two types of words in their specific combinations
make the quoted passage clear, exact and unambiguous.

1 Quoted from: C6. «0co6eHHOCTH H3hiKa HayqHoil JIHTeparyphl (Po-

MaHo-repMaHcKaH 4JHJIOJJOrHH)», M., 1965, p. 61.

l5
The predominance of words with exact denotations is a
general pattern in scientific prose.
In advertising, on the other hand, the pattern is dif-
ferent due to the difference in the aim pursu~d, which in
advertising is to attract attention, to impress an individ"
ual into buying. Most advertisements do not say much
about the goods as such, but just form,puzzling and appeal-
ing word-sequences: "Legs on the ladder, but no ladder
on the legs"; 1 "Are you a 100 per center or a 10 per cen-
ter?" (an ad. for a short-cut course in public-speaking). "Can·
you play a man's part?" (a boxingcorrespondencecourse ad.) 2 •
The first of the quoted examples is a part of a stockings
advertisement. The referent, stockings, is not denoted
monolexemically. It is to be inferred from the given state-
ment plus a picture for which the statemefil;_ is a caption.
And the gist of the statement is to suggest in an implied
way the high quality and the attractiveness of the adver-
tised goods. It is achieved by a specific arrangement of the
words legs and ladder (which in isolation are emotionally
and styJAstically neutral), namely, by an antithesis of
... on the ladder but no ladder on ... , a play on the two
meanings of the word ladder (1. JieCTHHUa 2. cTpeJIKa Ha
liYJIKax), also by the alliterati,on legs - ladder. Thus,
as far as denotations and connotations are concerned, the
pattern in advertising differs radically from that of scien-
tific writing in that connotation here prevails over deno-
tation. In each of the other types of communication (busi-
ness correspondence, newspaper writing, oratory, etc.) the
interrelation between the two meanings manifests itself
in a peculiar way.
- The interrelation of the two meanings in imaginative
literature is of a special nature. We now proceed to dis-
cuss it.

DEN.OTATION AND CONNOTATION

IN IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE

A linguistic element is ambiguous within the text of

imaginative literature. It is ambiguous in that it occurs
in two types of contexts at once. It occurs in a linguistic
context, i. e. in a certain sequence of words which condi-
1 Borrowed from R. Jacobson. Unguistics and Poetics, in: "Style
in Language". ed, by Th. A. Sebeok. N. Y., 1960. ·
2 The last two examples are taken frofll S. Lewis. Babbift. M., 1959.

16
 tion, first and foremost, the realisation of its denotative
meaning; and, then, it occurs in an aesthetic context,
i. e. in the context of the given literary work which con-
ditions the realisation of its connotative meaning. Thus,
the verb to rob within the following word sequence "Mrs.
John Dashwood did not approve of ,what her husband
intended to do for his sisters. To take three thousand
pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy would
be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree ... How
could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his
only child too, of so large a sum?", taken asa mere linguistic
context, has the denotative meaning of "to deprive
a person of what is due to him". But the verb to rob acquires
a specific .connotation when we view the above-cited word
sequence within the aesthetic. reality of J ane Austen's
"Sense and Sensibility" from which it' is taken. The au-
thor's attitude of ridicule and disapproval of Mrs. John
Dashwood imbues the verb rob with the connotation of
irony if not that of sarcasm. The example, short as it is,
may nevertheless illustrate the fact that the involved
nature of the phenomenon called literary work manifests
itself in an involved interplay of denotative and connotative
meanings within the linguistic unit.
The function of connotation in creative literature can
be illustrated by a paraphrase. The paraphrase may closely
reproduce the denotations contained in the original - it
means the same. But the emotive qualities supplied by
words of the original in their specific combination com-
pletely evaporate. Take this from Shelley: "My soul is an
enchanted Boat". The paraphrase: "My inner self resembles
a vessel under a spell" 1 does not possess in the least
the connotative qualities of the original.
Generally speaking, the obvious plane of the literary
work (its theme and its plot) is usually expressed in word
denotations, while the implied plane (the author's atti-
tude, the author's message) are found in word connota-
tions. ,
Connotations materialize in linguistic elements of
different layers: p h o n e t i c (speech-sound clusters),
g r a m m a t i c a I (grammat categories, grammar con-

1 Borrowed from the book: R. Altick. Preface to Critical Reading.

N. Y., .p. 31..
17
structions) and 1 ex i c a 1 (polysemantic lexemes, ·etc.).
As a rule, all these elements interact in the text. But we
shall treat them separately for the sake of consistency
of analysis.
Connotative Function
of Speech-Sound Clusters

Connotativeness of speech-sound clusters 1 manifests

itself in all genres of imaginative literature. But it is in
poetry that its manifestation is especially palpable.
A superaverage accumulation of a certain class of pho-
nemes or a contrastive assemblage of two opposite classes
in the sound texture of a line or stanza may create a cer-
tain undercurrent of meaning, 2 such as, for instance,
a sound image of running water in "The Brook", by Ten-
nyson.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little tow11,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go
But I go on for ever ...
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

In this and other poems of the kind (such as "The

Bells" by E. A. Poe, R. Southey's "How Does the Water
Come Down at Lodore", and others) words are almost
unperceiyed as carriers of certain denotations; they seem
to be dissected and put together anew to express a desired
meaning (B. Eichenbaum). The last stanza of the cited
poem with its superaverage accumulation of [t], [bl],
[pb] phoneme clusters is quite expressive in this respect.
1 This is part of the problem of sound-meaning relationship,
known in linguistics by a variety of terms such as "inner form" (W. Gum-
bo!dt, A. Potebnja), "symbolic form" (L. Bloomfield), "sound symbol-
ism" (R. J acobsoc1).
2 I(. Jacobson, op. cit., p. 373.

18
 Sound connotations are, no doubt, more palpable in
poetry due to the role that rhythm (the regular recurrence
of accented syllables) plays in it.
But in narrative prose, too, recurrent sound-clusters
may create an undercurrent meaning.
Take, for instance, the introductory passage to E. Cald-
well's "Wild Flowers".
"The mockingbird that had perched on the roof top all
night, filling the clear cool air with its music, had flown
away when the sun rose. There was silence as deep and
mysterious as the flat sandy country that extended mile
after mile in every direction. Yesterday's shadows on the
white sand began to reassemble under the trees and around
the fence posts, spreading on the ground the lacy foliage
of the branches and the fuzzy slabs of the wooden fence".
A superaverage assemblage of the recurrent [f], [!],
[m], [n] (filling, clear, cool, flown, mile, foliage, fence,
etc.) contrasted to the [s], [t], [d], [p] (top, deep, mysterious,
extended, direction, reassemble, post, spreading) seem to cut
through the words, rearranging them into new units.
These and the palpably measured rhythm they create
are suggestive of the passage's atmosphere: a mysterious
hush descended, with the rising of the sun, upon the great
· vastness of the flat, sandy country.
The sound form of literary characters may also be sugges-
tive (Gogol 'sAkkaki i Akkakievich, or Dickens' Mr. Pickwick).
In short, the latent connotative potentialities of
speech-sound clusters are widely exploited not only in
poetry, but in prose as well.

Connotative Function
of Grammar Categories

In a literary text grammar forms and categories, let

alone grammar constructions, can be imbued with very
subtle poetic implications. The best way to prove this
is to refer to an illustration. We have chosen for this
purpose Antony's famous speech (from W. Shakespeare's
"J ulius Caesar"). Here is a resume of the scene preceding
Antony's speech:
CaesaF is assassinated. Citizens of Rome gather in the Forum to
hear Brutus give public reasons of Caesar's death. Brutus begins by
19
 bidding them to believe him for his honour and to have respect for
his honour so that they may believe." He pleads love for Caesar, he
says he honours Caesar and weeps for him. He rose against Caesar
not because he loved him less, but because he loved Rome more and
wanted its citizens to live free men. He slew Caesar, he says, because
Caesar was ambitious. ·
The body Gf Caesar is brought to the Forum and Antony, Caesar's
steadfast friend, by the permission of Brutus speaks in glory of the
deceased ..
In his skilful harangue, Antony does not directly condemn Brutus
and his men for their violent deed. He merely paraphrases Brutus'
speech but in such a way that the alleged reasons for Caesar's assassi-
nation change into fiction.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise. him.
Thi evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was I ambitious:·
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievqusly hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, ~
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men, -
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
·He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: .
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did, thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
In the cited piece of Antony's oratioh the main dramat-
ic force is achieved by Shakespeare's playing on grammar
categories and constructions.'1 Brutus' accusation of Caesar
("as he was ambitious, I slew him") undergoes, in Antony's
reply, transformation.
First, Antoriy reduces these words of Brutus to a mere
quotation: "The noble Brutus hath told you:', by which
. __ ~ The analysis that follows has been borrowed, to a great extent,
from R. Jacobson, op. cit. p. 375.
20 -
he implies that "ambitious" is Brutus' word, not his. When
repeated ("But ffrutus says he was ambitious") these
words of Brutus are placed in opposition to Antony's
own assertions by an adversative conjunction "but" and
further made ever more doubtful by a concessive conjunc-
tion "yet". Antony's reference to Brutus' honour ("The
noble Brutus hath ... ") gradually makes one suspect a trick
when it is repeated, first with a copulative conjunction "and"
("And Brutus is an honourable man") and then with a mod-
al "sure" ("And, sure, he. is an honourable man"). The
opposition of grammar categories in:
"I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what t do know" ·

is the opposition of the direct ("I speak") to the reported

("What Brutus spoke") which when added to the emphatic
("But here I am to speak what I do know") makes Brutu.s'
allegation ("Caesar was ambitious") a mere fiction.
Thus, Shakespeare has constructed Antony's speech in
such a way that the latent connotations of the conjunctions
for, but, and, yet as well as those of grammar categories in
speak, spoke, am to speak become palpable. In other words,
he has made morphological and syntactic categories acquire
a special, poetic, meaningfulness.
Poetic resources concealed in grammar are great indeed.
And truly talented writers know how to put them to use.
Thus, W. Scott, a great master of the so-called imitation
style, by the employment of obSolete forms of personal
pronouns and obsolete inflections of verbs, as well as
specific syntactic constructions has managed to convey
. the flavour of the epoch he writes about. Consider, for
instance, the following extract from the novel "Castle
Dangerous" which tells of the times of Robert Bruce,
the brave fighter for Scotland's independence.

"'I advise thee,' said the minstrel, 'for thine own

sake, Sir John de Wal ton do beware how thou dost insist
on thy present purpose, by which thou thyself alone, of
all men living, will most severely suffer. If thou harmest
a hair of that young man's head, -nay, if thou permit-
test him to undergo any privation which it is in thy power
to prevent, thou wilt, in doing so, prepare for thine own
suffering a degree of agony more acute than anything else
in this mortal world could cause thee.'"
21
 Connotative Function
of Word Stylistic Reference

Within a literary text the word, as a carrier of a certain

stylistic reference, may acquire a variety of connotative
effects. Thus, for instance, a bias towards a certain sty-
listic reference may suggest the character's social, educa-
tional, cultural, professional, territorial, etc. back-
ground.
Speech characterization may be d i r e c t; this occurs
when the author makes the personage speak for himself,
as, in the following from E. Caldwell's story "The Cor-
duroy Pants":

"'How be you, Abe?' he inquired cautiously.

'Hell, I'm always well,' Abe said, without looking up
· from the step ...
'I'm mighty much obliged for the ride,' he said. 'I been
wanting to take a trip over Skowhegan way for a year or
more.'" ·

Or this from J. Galsworthy's '.'To !_,et":

"'Epatant!' ... The other boyish voice replied: 'Missed

it, old bean; he's P.Ulling your leg. When Jove and Juno
created he them, he was saying: "I'll see how much these
fools will swallow. And they've lapped up the lot!'" 'You
young duffer! Vospovitch is an innovator. Don't you see
that he's brought satire into sculpture? The future of
plastic art, of music, painting and even architecture, has
set in satire! ... "' ,

In the first of the quoted examples the dialectal "How

be you", "I been wanting", the vulgar "hell", the slangy
"mighty much" characterize the speakers as uncultured
and uneducated. The second example presents a more
involved case of speech characterization. A combination
of the slangy "missed it", "old bean", "young duffer" with
the barbarism "epatant" and the literary-bookish "inno-
vator", "brought satire into sculpture", etc. is suggestive
of the speakers' social status as well as of their state of
~mind. The attentive reader will see by these shifts that
the slanginess of the speakers is not that of the uneducated
and the uncultured, that it is all assumed and that its
22
crudeness is intentional. These features, in their own
way, suggest an image of the English post-war, middle-
class generation.
· Direct speech characterization in which words of
different stylistic layers eo-occur is often a means of cre-
ating humorous effects. In R. Kipling's "Just So Stories"
the elephant's child, along with nursery forms of everyday
words, uses very learned words which are often out of
place. '"Scuse me (excuse me), but have you seen such
a thing as Crocodile in these promiscuous parts?'" The
dictionary meaning of the word promiscuous is "disorderly,
confused", but to the elephant's child, it may possibly
mean "in this vicinity" on the sound association with
proximate, vicinity.
Speech characterization may ·be i n d i r e c t (report-
ed). This is when the words, which definitely bear an
imprint of the character's manner of speaking, occur within
the author's narration. For instance, in G. Greene's story
"Special Duties" the author's narration is permeated
with words and phrases whose ponderous literary-bookish
tint betray them as belonging to the protagonist, Mr.
Ferraro: "dreary banners", "dubious girls", "inefficiently
clothed", "the warmth of the day caused her to appear ... ",
etc. The stylistic tint of these words coit'lcides with
that of Mr. Ferraro's direct speech (cf. "My only point
of superstition"; "It has no basis, of course, in the teach-
ing of the Church"; "We are taught... to pay first
attention to our own souls"; etc.) and harmonizes with
the image of this impregnably self-contained business-
man.
A bias in stylistic reference can be a means of e p o c h
c h a r a c t er i z a t i o n. The author then writes in
the style of another period using obsolete or archaic words
and constructions. True, to write completely in the idiom
of old times is both difficult and risky: the author must
be absolutely sure of the correct usage of words and con-
structions. He must also regard the reader for whom an
exactly reproduced language of the past may prove tiresome
and difficult to follow.
Much more impressive is the so-called imitation style
based on a sparing use of obsolete and archaic words and
constructions and the avoidance of anything obviously
modern. (See the example from W. Scott's novel on
page 21).
23
· A bias in stylistic reference can be a means of rendering
1 o c .a 1 c o 1 our. Thus, French words used in G.
Greene's "The Quiet American" render something of the
Saigon atmosphere, the then capital of France's colony,
e. g. "It was the Saigon pied-a-terre (a flat) 'of a rubber
planter", "The hot wet crachin (rain) had settled on the
north". "How much you pride yourself on being degage
(uninvolved)". "There was a big man who I think was
a hotelier (a hotelkeeper) from Pnom Penh".
What we have mentioned above are just some of the
numerous effects which the category of stylistic reference•
may convey. Here is one other connotation: a bias in the
stylistic reference of the word-choice can suggest the
image of the author himself. Take Hemingway. The words
this author chooses to convey his message in are for the
most part common Anglo-Saxon words.

"I would come back to Africa but not to make a living

from it. I could do that with two pencils and a few hundred
sheets of the cheapest paper. But I would come back to
where it pleased me to live, to really live. Not just let my
life pass. Our people went to America because that was
the place to go then. It had been a good country and we
made a bloody mess of it. Our people hail seen it at its
best and fought for it when it was worth fighting for.
Now I would go somewhere else. We always went in the
old days and there were still good places to go." ·

This tendency in word-choice as manifested in the

above-quoted passage from "Green Hills of Africa" is pri-
marily an expression of the author's stand in art.
I. Kashkin, the Soviet literary critic and translator,
the man who. did inuch to make the works of Hemingway
known to the Russian reader, used to say that Hemin_g-
way's search for the truth in art, his moral and ethical
honesty have found their expression in the very character
of the words which constitute the core of his vocabulary:
they are common, simple and strikingly exact.
It should be stated in conclusion that the. tendencies
in word-choice as far as stylistic reference is concerned
tint the writing as conversational or, on the contrary,
ponderous; plain (undecorated) or, on the contrary,
embellished, flowery, etc.
 Chapter II
LITERARY TEXT
AS POETIC STRUCTURE

VERBAL AND SUPRAVERBAL I,A YERS

OF THE LITERARY TEXT

While reading a literary text one gr~dually moves from

the first word of it on to the last. The words one reads
combine into phrases, phrases into sentences, sentences
into paragraphs, paragraphs making up larger passages:
chapters, sections, and parts. All these represent the ver-
bal layer of the literary text.
At the same time when one reads a text of imaginative
literature one cannot but see another layer gradually
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. ·
One sees that all these word-sequences make a composi-
tion, a plot, a genre, and a style, that they all go to create
an image of reality and that through this image the au-thor
conveys his message, his vision of the world.
Plot, theme, composition, genre; style, image and the
like make the supra verbal (poetic) layer which~ is, never-
theless, entirely revealed in verbal sequences. The supra-
verbal and the verbal layers of the text are thus insepa-
rable from each other. The fact that all the elements of
the literary text,. such as those mentioned above, mate-
rialize in word sequences makes the latter acquire a mean-
ing that is superimposed by the whole of the literary text.
Thus, the text of a literary work 6r any part of such
is not a mere linguistic entity, it is something more in-
volved. The involved nature of the literary text makes it
entirely individual (unique), makes it essentially unsub-
stitutable for any other word sequences. When we substi-
tute 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 indi-
visible from its text. (It should be mentioned here that
it is in the literary text that the etymological meaning
of the word text/from the Latin textum, texo- to weave/is
completely motivated.) A linguistic text, on the contrary,
25
allows of substitution; one verbal sequence may have
a sense similar to that of another verbal sequence, conse·
quently, one verbal sequence may stand for another, e. g.
the sentence: "He was one of the most inefficient liars
I have ever known" when viewed just as a linguistic entity
allows of a· number of substitutions, such as: "one could
easily see when he told a lie", or "he didn't know how to
tell a lie", etc. When this sentence is 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 "an inefficient liar" means 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 Quiet American" from which
the sentence is taken.
The cohesion (cuenJiemie) 1 of the two layers, i. e. of the
strictly verbal and the supra verbal constitutes what is known
as the poet it s t r u c tu re of the literary text. There is
nothing in the literary work that is not expressed in its
poetic structure. It is the whole of the poetic structure
that conveys the author's message. One element (or com-
ponent) of the poetic structure .is as important as any
other, for through them all the author's message is con-
veyed. All the.components of the poetic structure compose
a hierarchy, an organization of interdependent layers.
The basic unit of the poetic structure is the word. All
the various layers of the structure, i. e. the syntactic,
the semantic, the rhythmical, the compositional, the sty-
listic are expressed in words.
The concept of unity and interdependence of elements
in the poetic structure may be illustrated by the following
example. The simile "he watched me intently like a prize-
pupil" when taken by itself is nothing other than just
a play on words, a word-image. But within a literary
text (in this case - "The Quiet American") 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
image of Pyle. The image of Pyle in its turn, as one of
1 See for detail: IO. J1 o T M a H. JleKI.Ulll IJO cTpyKTypaJJbHoil TI03-
T!!Ke. C6. «Tpy.l(bl no sHaKOBbiM ClfCTeMaM», I, yH-T TapTy, 1964; also by
the same author: CTpyKTypa xy.l(o}KeCTBCHHoro TeKcTa, M., 1970.

26
the character-images together with all the other ones in
the novel, goes to convey the author's message.
Representation of the literary work in terms of a struc-
ture or a hierarchy of layers presupposes the concept of
macro- and micro-elements (components) and bears upon
form-content relationship.
Macro- and micro-elements is a functional, not an ab-
solute category. Within a literary work a simile, for in-
stance, is a micro-element in relation to a macro-element
which may be the image of a character, and the latter, in
its turn, is a micro-element in relation to the macro-
element which is the literary work itself, understood as an
image of reality.
The fact that macro-elements of a literary work are
made out of micro-elements means in the final analysis
that micro-elements are form in relation to macro-ele-
ments which are content.
An isolated simile taken by itself as any other ·verbal
entity is a unity of content and form. The same simile
within a literary work is either form or content depending
upon the element in relation to which it is taken. Thus,
the simile he watched me intently like a prize-fighter is form
in relation to the macro-element, the image of Pyle, which
this simile goes to build up. On the other hand, the quot-
ed simile is content in relation to the form, the elements
which it is made up of: watched, intently, prize-fighter.
The following should be emphasized in connection with
what has just been stated: an analysis in which the idea of
the literary work is considered separate from its verbal
materialization is an erroneous and harmful practice. It is
harmful in that it leads the reader away from the appre-
ciation of the essence of verbal art. Also it indirectly incul-
cates in the reader a view that literature is an unneces-
sarily long and circumlocutious way of expressing an idea
which could otherwise be expressed in a much shorter
and simpler manner. Unfortunately this erroneous practice
is often followed in cbssroom discussions of literary works.
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 prin-
ciples) which cohere all elements of the literary text and
27
render it possible for the latter to constitute a world com-
plete in itself. These principles are common to all literary
works.
We now proceed to discuss some of these principles.

Principle of Incomplete Representation 1

Wholeness in art is different fromwholene~s in actual

reality. We have already sh._own (see Introduction) that an
author in re-creating an object or phenomenon of reality
selects out of an infinity of features pertaining to the
object -only those which are most characteristic. In other
words, a literary image represents features that are most
characteristic of an object, or which at least, seem such
to the author. For instance, in the description of a farm-
house (J. Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums") the follow-
ing features are singled out: "It was a hard-swept looking
house, with hard-polished windows, and a clean mudmat
on the front steps." The farm-house had many other pecu-
liarities, no doubt. But those selected very well convey
the image of the place. Moreover, they indirectly suggest
the image of its owner, the vigorous, beauty-seeking
Eliza. Thus, the author, in depicting an image, makes
a selection: he picks out 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 rep-
resented. At least two factors seem to condition this.
First, 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 which the image itself would inva-
riably be dissolved, for there is a considerable dispropor-
tion between linguistic means of representation and the
reality which is to be represented. The second, and the
main, is the .aesthetic factor. Literature, as we know,
transmits aesthetic information. To achieve this aim lit-
erature 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,

1 See for reference: P. I1 H r a p T e 11. I1ccJJe.D:oBallHH no scTeTHKe.

M., 1962.
28
 whole which have been gapped or, as we have termed it,
incompletely represented, that, is, represented throt~gh
a part. The part selected to fulfil 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 trick of conveying much through little is one
of the greatest secretS' of imaginative literature. An achieved
harmony of the whole and the part is a sign of a truly
talented work.
The degree of incompleteness of representation depends
upon the genre. of the literary work as well as unon the
individual manner of the writer. The degree of incom-
pleteness is greater in lyrical poems and smaller in epic
works. But even in large works of narrative prose
the degree of incompleteness (or gap ping) is consider-·
able.
Poetic detail. The part selected to represent the whole
is a poetic detail. The term "poetic detail" defies a rigor--
ous definition for as any other element of poetic structure
it is a functional category. It emerges as a result of cor-
relation with other eleme~ts of- the text and can be eval-
uated only against the background of all of these. Take,
for instance, the following extract from W. Faulkner's
story "That Evening Sun" in which Nancy, the main char-
acter of the story, a Negro washer-woman, is first intro-
duced: "Nancy would set her bundle (of washing) on the
top of her head, then upon the bundle in turn ·she would
set the black straw sailor hat which she wore winter and
summer. She was tall, with a high, sad face sunken a little
where her teeth were missing. Sometimes we would go
a part of the way down the lane and across the pasture
· with her, to watch the balanced bundle and the hat that
never bobbed nor wavered, even when she walked down
into the ditch and up the other side and stooped through
the fence." Nancy is described by a number of features: the
way she set and carried her bundle of washing, her height,
her face, her missing teeth. But some of these features
stand out more prominent than the other: her "black straw
sailor hat which she wore winter and summer" and "her
missing teeth". These are the details which suggest the
image of Nancy. Not that the reader becomes c;onscious
of their suggestiveness at once. Their full impact may get
home to him on recurrence or after he has read more about
Nancy and her life.
29
 One way or another, in his appreciation of an image the
reader will be guided by detail, for it is by carefully se-
lected details that the author depicts his image.
It would be true to say, that the more vivid the detail
the greater is the impetus the reader's imagination receives
and, accordingly, the greater is his aesthetic pleasure.
There are details of landscapes, of events, etc. The
central image of any literary work, that of a character
is manifold, so are the details that represent it. These
may be the details of: action, speech, physical portrait,
ethical, political views, etc. Here is a detail of Babbitt's ·
speech (S. Lewis, "Babbitt"). Mr. Babbitt and his best friend
Paul, greet each other over the telephone.
'"How's the old horse-thief?'
'All right, I guess. How're you, you poor shrimp?'
'I'm first-rate, you second-hand hunk o'cheese. "'
The author then remarks "Reassured thus of their high
fondness, Babbitt grunted ... "
Another detail from the same novel gives the reader an
idea of Babbitt's (the owner of a real-estate firm) attitude
to common workman. "He almost liked common people.
He wanted them well paid and able to afford high-rents-
though, naturally, they must not interfere with the rea-
sonable profits of stockholders."
A poetic detail may be some directly observed and
directly expressed feature of an image. Thus, the image
of cold autumn ("In Another Country", by E. Heming-
way) is conveyed in ·such details of simple and direct
· perceptions which may be described as verbal photography:
" .. , small birds blew in the wind and the wind turned
their feathers." ... "On one of them (bridges) a woman
sold roasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of
her charcoal fire, and the chestnuts were warm afterward
· in your pocket."
A detail of the depicted image, on the other hand, may
be represented in an association with some other phenom-
enon. In such a case it usually takes the form of a trope
as in the following detail of the winter-in-Salinas-valley
description from J. Steinbeck's story "The Chrysanthe-
mums": "(the fog) sat like a lid on the mountains and
made of a great valley a closed pot."
The nature of a truly poetic detail is such that it both
typifies and individualizes the image.
30
 Principle of Analogy and Contrast

Analogy and contrast are known to be universal prin-

ciples of cognition. It is by analogy that the essence of
a phenomenon is revealed, the similar and the contrastive
in different phenomena discovered.
In the arts and especially in literature analogy/contrast
is a way 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 compo-
nents, both macro- and micro-: the character and the
event representation, the imagery, etc. G. Greene's novel
"The Quiet American" may very well serve as an illustra-
tion. The author's ethical message, that of the man's
respol).sibility in the modern world, is conveyed by a con-
trast of the two main characters: Fowler and Pyle. The
author depicts them as antipodes in everything: in their
physical appearances, in their spiritual and mental make-up,
in the stand they take on all essential issues of life. Pyle
is young and quiet. With his "unused face, with his gangly
legs and his crew-cut, his wide campus gaze" he seemed,
at first sight, "incapable of harm". He came to the East
full of York Harding's ideas about the Third Force, eager
to help them materialize.
Fowler, on the contrary, is an aging man, cynical and
sofisticated. He prides himself on detachment, on being
uninvolved, on not belonging to this war. Step by step
showing Pyle's activity in Viet-Nam the author makes the
reader see that in the tragic world of that country it is
the quiet, earnest Pyle that turns out to be cold, cruel
and menace-carrying. He is impregnably armoured by
York Harding's teaching and his own ignorance. His
innocence, the author says, is a kind of insanity.
The cynical Fowler, the man who had prided himself
on not being involved, on the contrary, comes to realize
that he is responsible for the war "as though those wounds
had been inflicted by him." Pyle did not abandon his
stand, York Harding and his teach.ing. Civilians killed in
the street are just mere war casualties for him. To Fowler
their deaths cannot be "justified by any amount of killed
soldiers".
'31
 Thus, it is through the antithesis of Pyle- Fowler and
the spiritual and ethical worlds they represent that the
author conveys his idea of what man's true responsibility
is, of what man should do in the world torn by enmity and
conflict.
The principle of analogy and contrast may not be so
explicit in some works as it is in the work we have men-
tioned above, but it infallibly finds a manifestation in any
literary work. •
As will be shown below, analogy and contrast underlie
quite a number of such elements of poetic structure as
tropes and figures of speech.

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 as we ..have shown above
(see pp. 25-27) represents a 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 abook we do not yet perceive
the complexity of the content contained in the whole of
it, though the text (considering that it is written in the
language we know) is well understood by us. The covered
portion of the text is part of the literary work and as such
it gives us but a rough approximation of the meaning of
tlre whole work. This part, however, deepens our under-
standing 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 S!Jiral-like
manner we gather the content of the literary Work as a
whole. 1
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
1 IO. M. JI or M a H. 0 pasrpaHHileHHH JIHHrBHCTH'lecKoro n-
JIHreparypose.L{tJecKoro TIOHllTHll crpyKryphL«Bonpochi ll3hiK03HaHHll»,
1963, J'J'g 3.
32
 elements may be a poetic detail, an· image, a phrase,
a word. ·
The recurrence of an element may have several functions,
i. e. be meaningful in a variety of ways. One of these func-
tions is that of organizing the subject matter, giving it
a dynamic flow. Consider, for instance, the following expo-
sitory passage from E. Hemingway's "Old Man at the
Bridge' and see how the recurrent phrase "old man" organ-
izes and frames it up. "An old man with steel-rimmed spec-
tacles and very dusty clothes sat by the side of the road.
There was a pontoon bridge across the river and carts,
trucks, 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 m~ssage 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 con-
flicts, 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. 1 ·
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
were determined to lay on him"; "he surrendered responsi-
bility once and for all." These two recurrent sets of phrases
2 B, B, COCHOBCKall 33
run as the leit-motif of the story: living means having
responsibi!Jties, asserts the author; when one surrenders
responsibilities one retreats from life.
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 variation.
Quite a number of figures of speech are based upon the
principle of recurrence.

COMPONENTS
OF POETIC STRUCTURE
MACRO-COMPONENTS
OF POETIC STRUCTURE

Poetic structure of the literary work involves _such

entities as image, theme, idea, composition, plot, genre
and style. As components of poetic structure they are
essentially inseparable from each other, but as basic
categories of the theory of literature they may be treated
in isolation.
Literary Image. The world of a literary work is the
world of its characters, situations, events, etc. similar
to those of real life. Characters and the situations they
are engaged in may be entirely phimtastic, nevertheless,
they, too, are inspired by objective reality. Here is how
H. W. Longfellow has poetically expressed this idea in
his "Song of Hiawatha".
Should you ask where Nawadaha
Found these songs, so wild and wayward,
Found these legends and traditions,
I should answer, I should tell you,
"In the bird's nests of the forest,
In the lodges of the beaver,
In the foot-prints of the bison,
In the eyry of the eagle!"
The fact that literary images are similar to life breeds
a belief in an untrained reader that literary characters
are people of real life and not imaginative representation
of the author's perception of life. This is an erroneous
belief, stemming from one's ignorance of the intrinsic prop-
erties of literature.
34
 Literature cognizes and interprets life by re-creating
life in the form of images inspired by life and in accord-
ance with the author's vision (see Introduction). It means
that, for instance, Soames 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.
Literary image is thus the "language" of literature,
the form of its existence.
The term "image" refers not only to the whole of the
literary work or to such of its main elements as char-
acters or personages but to any of its meaningful units
such as detail, phrase, etc. 1
Literature being a verbal art, it is out of word sequences
that literary images emerge, although images as such
are supraverbal entities. Consider, for instance, the fol-
lowing word sequertces from E. Caldwell's short story
"Wild Flowers" that build up an image of nature. "The
mocking-bird that had perched on the rqof top all night,
filling the clear cool air with its music, bad flown away
when the sun rose. There was silence as deep and myste-
rious as the flat sandy country that extended mile after
mile in every direction. Yesterday's shadows on the white
sand began to reassemble· under the trees and around
the fence posts, spreading on the ground the lacy fo-
liage of the branches and fuzzy slabs of the wooden
fence."
All images in the literary work constitute a hierarchial
interrelation. The top of this hierarchy is the macro-image,
the literary work itself, understood as an image of life
visioned and depicted by the author. Say, "The Forsyte
Saga" by J. Galsworthy, or "An American Tragedy" by
Th. Dreiser taken as a whole. Within the literary work
it is the image of the character or characters that top the
hierarchy of images. Say, the images of Old Jolion, Soames,
Irene, Fleur in "The Forsyte Saga", or t~e images of
Clyde, Roberta in "An American Tragedy".

1 See for reference: KpaTK35! JIHTepaTypHa5! 9H~llKJione,!lllll. 06pa3

xy,!lolKeCTBeHHbiH, T. 5, M., 1968, cTp. 364.

35
 At the bottom of the hierarchy there is the word-irnage,
or a micro-image: simile, epithet, metaphor, etc. They
together with other elements build up character-images,
event-images, landscape-images, etc. E. g. "The thr~e with
the medals were like hunting-hawks." (E. Hemingway)
"The rain hissed on the live-oak and magnolia trees."
(R. P. Warren). .
Each such micro-image, when in isolation, is just a
hope, but within the poetic structure it is an element
which, equally with others, shares in the expression of
the content. Its meaningfulness becomes apparent when
such a word-image or its synonymic variant is found to
recur in the text. A. Huxley's story "The Gioconda Smile"
is a good example in this respect. Here is its plot: A cer-
tain Miss Spence had poisoned the wife of her neighbour,
Mr. Hutton, a country gentleman. She had done that in
the hope that Mr. Hutton would eventually marry her.
But when it became obvious that the gentleman was not
in the least inclined to propose to her, she spread rumours
accusing Mr. Hutton of the murder. The man was tried
·and condemned to capital punishment.
The surface layer of the story contains no direct hint
of the true nature of Miss Spence. That she is the murder-
ess is revealed to the reader only at the very end. It is
the layer of word-images superimposed upon the simple
story layer that is suggestive in this respect. It begins
with the title: "The Gioconda Smile". The allusive epithet
"Gioconda", that describes Miss Spence's smile, later
recurs in a number of its variants such as: "her queer· face";
"there was something enigmatic about her"; "the myste-
rious Gioconda"; "there was some kind of a queer face behind
the Gioconda smile"; "every woman's small talk was like
a vapour hanging over mysterious gulfs"; "a pale mask",
etc. Such words as "mysterious", "enigmatic", etc. inter-
play with another set of phrases suggestive of the nature
of the "enigma", e. g. "She leaned forward aimed so to
speak, like a gun, and fired her word"; "She was a machine-
gun riddling her hostess with sympathy"; "Today the mis-
siles were medical"; "•Your wife is dreadfully ill,' she fired
off at him"; "She shot a Gioconda in his direction" and at
last: "Her eyes were two profound and menacing gun-
barrels". It remains with the reader to put all these sug-
gestive metaphors together and decipher their meaning-
fulness, the· simple story layer being his guide.
36
 Theme and Idea
The theme of a literary work is the represented aspect
of life. As literary works commonly have human chara:c-·
ters. 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 dis~
crimination, a clash of ideologies, and the like). A writer
may depict the same theme, say, the theme of war, from
different angles. The same theme may, on the other 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 very 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 Victo-
rian epoch. This basic theme is disclosed mainly in the
representation of the Forsyte family, specifically in its
Jolion- Soames lines. The by-themes in this comprehen-
sive trilogy are numerous: the Boer and the First World
war, the first Labour government, the post-war genera-
tion, 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 th~ plot (the surface layer) of the work: it allows of
a schematic formulation, such, for instance, as: "this
is a story of race·_ discrimination in the USA", and
·the like.
The idea of a literary work are the underlying thought
and emotional attitude transmitted to the reader by the
whole poetic structure of the literary text. Poetic struc-
ture being a multi-layeredentity, all of its layers pertain
to the expression of the idea.
-We shall try to illustrate this by E. Caldwell's seven-
page story "Wild Flowers". The story .has the direct,
metaphorical, and symbolic layers. It is out of an interplay
of all these that the poetic idea emerges.
The plot of the story (the direct, surface layer) is aus-
terely simple. Somewhere deep in the South of the USA
a young tenant and his wife (an expectant mother) are
37
ordered to leave the dilapidated house they live in. The
two set out on a long and exhaustive tramp. across the
lonely country of sand and pines in search of a shelter.
Exhaustion precipitates that what otherwise would have
come about in another week or two. The husband runs for
help which is not easy to find in that country of a few
isolated homesteads. When, at length, he returns with
two Negroes, who have agreed to help, he finds his wife
dead. She has died in childbirth, alone amidst beautiful
but indifferent Nature. Such is the surface plqt of the
story. It tells the tragedy of a young couple, denied a home,
and evicted in spite of the condition the woman was in.
This idea, which is easily gathered from the surface
layer, is made more profound by a metaphor, a pronounced
analogy between the young couple and wild flowers that
grow hidden by weeds and scrubs near the road the two
trudge by. The metaphor clearly indicated in the title "Wild
Flowers", adds a nuance to the idea, expressed in the
plot. It ever so imaginatively suggests the frailty of the
protagonists' existence, their insecurity in the face of a
cruel and indifferent world. The world of those who give
orders and evict is not directly shown in the story, it is
obliquely represented by a "he", who, the reader finds
out, had been pleaded with by Vern, the hJlsband, to be
allowed to stay, but remained adamant. "Doesn't he care,
V ern?" asks Nelly, alluding to the state she is in. "I guess,
he doesn't," answers Vern.
The story is set amidst Nature. There are just Vern and
Nelly and the flat sandy country that extends mile after
mile in every direction. In that country of pine and sand
the farms and houses are sometimes ten or fifteen miles
apart. Silence, deep and mysterious, hangs over the land.
The recurrent image of- the vast and silent country is not
a mere setting of the story. It has an impact more profound,
symbolizing the solitude of Vern and Nelly, complete indif-
ference of the vast world to their existence. The image
of Nature thus constitutes the symbolic layer of the
story.
The reader's discovery of all these layers deepens his
perception of the poetic idea, and, as a result, affords him
greater aesthetic pleasure.
There are no two works that have exactly the same poet-
ic idea, there are no two works that have exactly the same
mode of representation. The poetic idea and its mode
38
of representation form a unity, a unity of content and
form.
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. Thus, for example, in "The Quiet Ameri-
can" the events of the war in Viet-Nam are built up out
of a series of episodes, such as Fowler's visit to the front-
line, his flight, in a French plane, over the front-line vil-
lages, his crossing of the river full of dead bodies, etc.
The event of Pyle's assassination is prepared and developed
in such episodes as Fowler's visit to the lumber-shop in
which he finds evidence of Pyle's criminal activity, in
the episode of an explosion in the square, instigated by
Pyle and others.
Each and every event that represents a conflict (the
gist of the plot) has a beginning, a development and an
gnd. The plot, accordingly, consists of exposition, story,
climax and denouement.
In the exposition the necessary preliminaries to the
action are laid out, such as the time, the place, and the
subject of the action. Also some light may be cast on the
circumstances that will influence the development of the
action. Here is the exposition from L. Hughes's story "Cora
Unashamed" that may well illustrate the pattern. "Mel-
ton was one of those miserable in-between little places,
not large enough to be a town, nor small enough to be a vil-
lage - that is, a village in the rural, charming sense of
the word. Melton had no charm about it. It was merely
a non-descript collection of houses and buildings in a re-
gion of farms - one of those sad American places with
sidewalks, but no paved streets; electric-lights, but no
sewage; a station but no trains ... Cor a J enkins was one
of the least of the citizens of Melton. She was what the
people referred to when they wanted to be polite, as a Ne-
gress, and when they wanted to be rude, as a nigger -
sometimes adding the word "wench" for no good reason, for
Cora was usually an inoffensive soul, except that she-
sometimes cussed."
Story is that part of the plot which represents the begin-
ning of the collision and the collision iitself. In L. Hugh-
es's "Cora Unashamed" (Part I) it is the arrival at Mel-
ton of a white boy, J oe, Cor a's short love, and the birth
of her ,baby.
39
 Climax is the highest point of the action. In "Cora
Unashamed" .it is the death and burial of Cora's baby.
Denouement is the event or events that bring the action
to an end. The story referred to (Part I) ends with Cora
returning after the burial of her baby to work for the family
of white folks: to nurse their baby.
There is no uniformity as far as. the above mentioned
elements of the ploLand their sequence in the text are
concerned. Thus, among short stories, there are such
which begin straight with the action (the conflict) without
any exposition. Here is how Ring Lardner's story "Hair-
cut" begins "I got another barber that comes from Carter-
ville and helps me out Saturdays, but the rest of the time
I can get 'along all right alone", while others have no de-
nouement in the conventional sense of the word (most of
E. Hemingway's stories may serve as an example). A work
of narrative prose that has all the elements mentioned
above: exposition, story, climax, denouement as· clearly
discernable parts, is said to have a c 1os e d p 1o t s true-
t u r e. This type of writing was most consistently cul-
tivated by such American short story writers as W. lr-
ving, E. Poe, N. Hawthorn, Bret Hart, H. James, 0. Henry
and others.
A literary work in which the action is represented with-
out an obvious culmination, which does not contain all
the above mentioned elements understood in their conven-
tional sense, is said to have an o p e n p I o t s true-
t u re.
Plot structure is not a formal factor. It is as meaningful
as any other component of the literary· work: whether
it is open or closed is conditioned entirely by the content.
For illustration let us refer to the short story genre (which
by the way, is considered by some writers to be the highest
· forrn of narrative prose).
There are known two types of short stories.
First: a plot (action) short story. As a rule, this type has
a closed structure, its plot being built upon one collision.
The action dramatically develops-only to explode at the
very. end; the sequence of events thus forms an ascending
line from the exposition on to the climax and down to
the denouement. 0. Henry's stories reveal this pattern
very well.
Second: a psychological (character) short story. It
generally shows the drama of a character's inner world.
40
 The structure in such a story is open. The traditional com-
ponents of the plot are not clearly discernable and the
action is less dynamic as compared to that of the plot short
story. Many of E. Hemingway's stories are of such a type.
Little, if anything, happens in his "Cat in the Rain".
A young AmeriCan couple are staying at an Italian hotel.
It is raining. The wife stands at the window looking out
at a cat that sits crouching under a table. The wife goes
out to fetch the cat, for "it isn't any fun to be a poor kitty
out in the rain". But the cat is gone. Back in the room
she sits at the mirror, with her husband reading. There is
a knock at the door. It is the maid with a big tortoise-
shell cat ,sent to the American wife by the hotel-keeper.
The plot, as such, is practically eventless. But an attentive
reader will see that the life situation it represents makes only
the surface layer. He will also see that out of this surface
layer there emerges another- the implied, the metaphor-
ic. The image of a cat crouching under a table to avoid
the rain suggests an analogy with the state of misery and
nostalgic restlessness the young American woman is in.
, This poetic content h'as conditioned the specific compo-
sition and plot-structure.
Speaking about the two types of short stories, i. e. the
plot short story and the character short story, it should
be emphasized ihat they do not represent the only types.
The more usual is the so-called mixed type, which in-
cludes a great variety of stories ranging from psychological
plot short stories (G. Greene's "Special Duties") to short
story-essays (S. Lewis's "Americans in Italy. Mr. Eglan-
tine") in each of which the Specific content conditions its
own form of representation, i. e. its own type, of composi-
tion and plot-structure.
It is doubtless, that the content always bears within
itself the nucleus of the form.

Plot Structure
and Literary Time
Life 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, histor-
ical time. The narrative may begin at any moment in the
41
 life of the character and end at any other moment, 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. The difference between
a natural sequence of events. and their arrangement (or
disposition) in a work of narrative prose_ as well as the
meaningfulness of this arrangement may be shown by the
example of G. Greene's "The Quiet American".
If we array in chronological order all the major events
·narrated in the novel, their sequence would be as follows:
a. Fowler, an English reporter, and Pyle, a young Ameri-
can on a special mission in Viet-Nam, meet at a hotel
in Saigon.
b. Two months after his arrival Pyle meets Phuong (a young
Vietnamese girl, Fowler's mistress) at the same hotel.
c. Fowler goes to the front-line to file news for his newspa-
pff. .
d. In the dead of night in the front-line village he is awak-
ened by Pyle who has punted there from Saigon to
tell Fowler he loves Phuong.
e. Pyle makes a proposal of marriage to Phuong through
Fowler who is to act as an interpreter.
f. Fowler meets Pyle at a Caodaist ceremony held near
Saigon. On their way back to Saigon they are both
trapped in .a paddy-field.
g. Fowler is given evidence· of Pyle's subversive activity
in Saigon. ·
h. Phuong leaves Fowler and moves to Pyle's place.
i. A bomb explodes in the Square with heavy civilian
casualties and Pyle appears to be responsible for this.
j. Fowler at last "takes sides" and decides to help the
Vietnamese communists to eliminate Pyle: he invites
Pyle to dine at a restaurant and informs the Viet-
namese about it. ·
k. Pyle does not turn up at the restaurant at the appoint-
ed time. ·
1. Fowler in his flat is anxiously waiting for Pyle until
midnight when he and Phuong are suddenly summoned
to the French police-station.
m. At the police-station they are asked to identify the body
of Pyle.
42
n. The French police repeatedly make Fowler give proof
of his alibi.
o. Fowler is left in peace at last and Phuong is by his
side, but there is little peace in his heart.
All the aboYe-enumerated events (only the principal
ones are enumerated) could be represented as making one
straight line, were they the events that occurred in actual
life. 1

a8cdefghijk m n o

In the novel, however, these events are differently ar-

ranged. The first sentence of the novel-"I sat and waited
for Pyle in my room over the rue Catinat. He has said,
'I'll be with you at latest by ten,' and when midnight
had struck I couldn't stay quiet any longer andwent down
into the street,"- plunges the reader straight into what is
practically the denouement of the novel and what we have
marked as point 1. The action then moves on to point m. at
the police-station, then back to what chronologically makes
the first item: Fowler and Pyle meet at a hotel in Saigon,
then again, come the events following Pyle's murder: sum-
mons to the French police-station; Fowler's visit to Pyle's
former flat; Phuong's return, etc. These forward and back-
ward shifts in time characterise the plot-structure of the
novel. (See the following diagram.) 2

~
The split of the natural time sequence in "The Quiet
American" is a device, and as such it has a meaning. Fowler
is the narrator of the events, he is also their participant.
The narrative is retrospective, i. e. Fowler does not narrate

1 The idea of schematic representation of natural and literary

time is borrowed from: J1. C. B bl r 0 T C K H H. IlCHXOJ!OfHH HCKyc-
CTBa. M., 1968.
2 The events that are given in the novel in their chronological
order are marked by a curved line under the straight one; those that
don't follow the IJatural time order are marked by a curved line over
the straight one.
43
the events as they occur, he speaks of them retrospectively,
he re-creates them, bringing them to light from the past.
He meditates over them, for he is not just merely an observ-
er, he is an active participant of the drama. He is to take
a decision, "he is to take sides". For the man who ha<;i prid-
ed himself on not being involved, on being just a report-
er, the decision is hard to take. He is perturbed and hesi-
tant and this is indirectly conveyed by the split time
sequence and the· nervous rhythm it creates. When Fowler
finally takes sides for "one has to take sides if one is to
remain human", he does so with deep sorrow which is sum-
marily expressed in the last sentence of the novel: "Every-
thing had gone right with me since he (Pyle) had died,
but how I wished there existed someone to whom I could
say that I was sorry".
Another vivid example of the meaningfulness of liter-
ary time representation is W. Faulkner's novel "The Sound
and the Fury". It consists of four parts, each being entirely
self-contained principally because it is narrated as seen
by a different character.
The first part is focused on a 33-year-old idiot. He is the
narrator of his own feelings, sensations and distorted mem-
ories. There is no time perspective at all in this part as
there is no consciousness of time for the imbecile. The past
and the present as such do not exist for him. In his mind
there are mingled pictures of what must have happened
some time ago and what he sees happening now.
The second part is a deliriously confused (temporally
and thematically) narration of and about Quentin, the
brother ofthe idiot. The reader gradually comes to under-
stand that what torments him is the thought about his
sister Caddy, who is ruined and disgraced. The part ends
with Quentin's suicide.
The third and the fourth parts are different from the
first two in that the narration here is clear and consistent.
The third part is focused on J ason, the third brother, cruel,
tough and money-thirsty. He narrates the events as he
sees them. He consistently reports the happenings in the
family and the reader sees the image of a tyrant, completely
devoid of humane warmth and family feeling.
The fourth part, narrated by the author, -is focused
upon Dilsey, an old Negro woman-servant. She alone
retains good sense in this shattered household, she is the
stays of it.
44
 There is no natural passage from one part to another,
the time perspective is twisted or altogether lost. Due to
all this the plot structure'of the novel may appear to be
oddly if not confusedly organized. But on perusing the whole
book the reader comes to perceive the meaningfulness of
this device, i. e. the meaningfulness of the twisted time
perspective, of the disunity between the parts, etc. The
novel.narrates about a decayed family of Southern aristo-
crats, a family that had once been great and thriving but
now is defeated from within, is disintegrated and dying.
This content has conditioned a specific form: the outward
disunity of its parts, a lack of tiJ;ne perspective, etc. Thus,
what might seem at first sight to be an oddly loose writing,
when viewed from within, from the content, turns out to
be meaningful and consequently well-organized.
Composition. The subject matter of a literary work
(the sequence of events, character collisions, etc.) may be '
represented in a variety of ways. Intuitively or not, an
author chooses his technique according to his meaning.
The narration may be donein the first person, thenar-
rator being either his own protagonist: "When I had first
opened the door, I did not know what I was about to do; but
now that I had seen her in her room, kneeling in prayer
beside her bed, unaware that I was looking upon her and
hearing her words and sobs, I was certain that I could never
care for anyone else as I did for her. I had not known until
then, but in the revelation of 1 a few seconds I knew that
I did love her. (E. Caldwell, "Warm River"); or focusing on
another: "Oh, there were hundreds of things she had said.
I remember everything, but I can't recall the words she
used. I can't repeat them. She uttered them in a jumble
of things. They had come from her lips like the jumbled
parts of a cut-out puzzle. There was no man wise enough
or patient enough to put the word~ in their correct order.
If I attempted to put them together, there would be too
many 'ands', and 'buts' and 'theys' and thousands of other
words left over. They would make no sense in human ears.
They were messages from her heart. Only feeling is intelli-
gible there." '(E. Caldwell)
The narration may be done in the third person. The
narrator then focuses on some other character or characters.
He may have direct knowledge of these and act as an
observer. For instance. "He had been contemptuous of
those who wrecked. You did not have to like it because
45
you understood it. He could beat anything, he thought,
because no thing could hurt him if he did not care.
All right. Now he would not care for death. One thing he
had always dreaC:ed was the pain. He could stand pain as
well as any man, until it went on too long, and wore him
out, but here he had something that had hurt frightfully
and just when he had felt it breaking him, the pain had
stopped." (E. Hemingway, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro")
The narrator may have no direct relation to the persons
he speaks.about, he may not be present at all, be entirely
anonymous, as in the following: "But the weather held
clear, and by nightfall he knew that the men were certain
to be holding his tracks. By nightfall Roy was too -exhaust-
ed to be cunning, and he lay in his sleeping bag in the
first dry corner he found in the rocks." (J. AI dridge, "The
Hunter")
The narration, whatever it is: first-person, third-per-
son, anonymous, rests on such forms as:
Interior monologue. The narrator as his own protago-
nist or the character he narrates about speaks to himself.
"Soames moved along Piccadilly deep in reflections excited
by his cousin's words. He himself had always been a worker
and a saver, George always a drone and a spender; and yet,
if confiscation once began, it was he - the worker and the
saver- who would be looted! That was the negation of all
virtue, the overturning of all Forsyte principles. Could
civilization be built on any other? He did not think so."
(J. Galsworthy, "To Let")
Dramatic monologue. The narrator (as his own protago-
nist) or a character speaks alone but there are those he ad-
dresses himself to, e. g. "I think you take too much care,"
said Winifred. "If I were you, I should tell her of that old
matter. It's no good thinking that girls in these days are as
they used to be. Where they pick up their knowledge I can't
tell, but they seem to know everything." (J. Galsworthy,
"To Let")
Dialogue. The speech of two or more characters ad-
dressed to each other. (The term is too obvious to need
illustration.)
Narration. The presentation of events in their develop-
ment, e. g. "The Collector had watched the arrest from the
interior of the waiting-room, and throwing open its perfora-
ted doors of zinc, he was now revealed like a god in a shrine.
When Fielding entered the doors clapped to, and were
46
 guarded by a servant, while punkah, to mark the impor-
tance of the moment, flapped dirty petticoats over· their
heads.'' (E. M. Forster, "A Passage to India")
Description. The presentation of the atmosphere, the
scenery and the like of the literary work, e. g. "They are
dark. Even when they open towards the sun, very little
light penetrates down the entrance tunnel into the circular
chamber. There is. little to see, and no eye to see it, until
the visitor arrives for his five minutes and strikes a match."
(E. M. Forster, "A Passage to India")
All these forms of presentation, as a rule, interrelate in
a literary text, with one or another of them standing out
more prominent. .
The arrangement and disposition of all the forms of the
subject matter presentation make up the composition of the
literary texP
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.
As with all other art categories it is the content that
imposes upon the genre its peculiar limitations.
Who represents the aesthetic reality; what particular
aspect of reality is represented; how is the time of repre-
sented events related to the time of speech - these and
other factors are relevant to genre.
If it is outside events that are objectively narrated by
an author, the genre is epic with narrative prose as its main
variety.
If the author speaks about an aspect of reality reflected
in his own inner world, if his emotions and meditations are
represented without a clearly delimited thematic or tempo-
ral. setting, the genre is lyric with lyric poetry as its
main variety. Consider as an instance of such the follow-
ing sonnet by John Keats "Keen, Fitful Gusts":
Keen, fitful gusts are whispering here and there
Among the bushes half leafless, and dry;
The stars look very cold about the sky,
And I have many miles on foot to fare.
Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air,
Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily,
Or of those silver lamps that burn on high,

1 See for reference: KparKali JmreparypHali SHJ.J.IIKJiorre)J;IIli, r. 3,

M., 1966, crp. 694.
47
 Or of the distance from home's pleasant lair:
For I am brimful of the friendliness
That in a little cottage I have found;
Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress,
And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd;
Of lovely Laura in her light green dress,
And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd.
If it is present day conflicting events that are represented
in the speech and actions of characters in their interrela-
tion with each other, the genre is dramatic, with different
types of plays as its main manifestations.
Another factor that delimits the genre of writing is the
nature of the represented conflict (fatal for the main charac-
ter, the hero, or, on the contrary, easily overcome by him)
as well as the moral stand taken by the author and expressed
in a peculiar emotive quality of writing (elevated, humor-
ous, ironic, sarcastic). In accordance with this factor liter-
ary works are divided into tragedy, comedy and drama.
The volume of the represented subject matter is yet
another factor which is relevant to genre. In narrative
prose, for instance, the volume delimits such two main
subdivisions within the genre as 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.
An unalloyed manifestation .of each of the above-men-
tioned factors· makes whaj: is known as "pure genre", the
type of writing characteristic of ancient Greek and Roman
literature as well as that of the Renaissance , and Classi-
cism periods. Shakespeare's great tragedies, for instance,
be it "Romeo and Juliet", "King Lear", "Hamlet", "Julius
Caesar" or "Macbeth" represent each a fatal conflict for the
main heroes. The action in each of these plays climbs to its
culmination and ends in a catastrophe. The tone of writing
is impassioned and elevated. The following words of Brutus
from "J ulius Caesar" give an inkling of the tone such plays
are usually written in:
Bet:ween the acting of a dreadful thing .
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma or a· hideous dream:
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council, and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection·
48
 ,Jn modern literature (since the 18th century) mixed
genres are prevalent. Thus, for instance, the elevated
tragedy of Shakespearean days gave way to a mixture of
tragedy and comedy or, tragedy and drama, etc.
The genre of a literary work materializes in a set of
formal features imposed upon by the content. These formal
features are: composition, plot structure, imagery, speech
representation, rhythm, etc. Each genre as an invariant is
manifested in different variants. Due to this fact we can
apply the term "sllort story", for instance, to literary works
written in different epochs and varying greatly in their
content representation. Short ~orks of W. Irving, Sh. Ander-
son, G. Greene, W. FauUmer and others are all known as short
stories. For the same re'-ason the work of H. Fielding "Tom
~ohnes, the Foundling", Th. Dreiser's "The Titan" and W.
Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" are known as novels.
Genre as any other art category is meaningful in two
ways. First, because, as it has already been shown, it is
delimited by the represented content, second, because, it
itself carries a certain content. Take, for instance, the genre
of a contemporary social-psychological novel. As a rule, its
involved composition, intricate plot-structure, varied
forms of speech representation, etc. are imposed by the
complexity of the described phenomenon- contemporary
life; at the same time all these genre-features of the novel
with their complex interplay suggest the complexity of the
represented content: contemporary life.
It should be said in conclusion, that genre changes with
the passage of time. A writer in representing his subject
matter exercises all the potentialities of the respective
genre. In doing this he adds new features to the genre he
resorts to, thus bringing about gradual changes in the genre.
This holds true to the activities of many outstanding writers.
Classics of the 19th century such as A. Pushkin, L. Tolstoi,
F. Dostoyevsky, A. Chekhov, contemporary American au-
thors E. Hemingway, Sh. Anderson and others have brought
111Pny new features into the novel and short story genres.
MICRO-COMPONENTS
OF POETIC STRUCTURE.
TROPES AND FIGURES OF SPEECH
Words and word-groups that compose a literary text are
drawn from no other source than that of the general language
But w~en words and word-groups of the general language
49
occur in a literary text they are treated as elements of poetic
speech, for in such a text (as we have shown by numerous
examples in Chapter I) they acquire a meaningfulness
conditioned by the whole poetic content of the literary
text.
Among word-sequences that constitute a literary text
there occur, however, such, which seem to be specifically
patterned- semantically, lexically, syntactically, phonet-
ically. These are the so-called tropes and figures of speech.
Their patterned nature makes them different from all other
word-sequences of the literary text and more or less
easily recognizable units of poetic speech.
Tropes and figures of speech have been worked out in
philology and rhetorics since ancient times. In the times
of classicism when writing was greatly ornamented it was
often thought that style itself consisted in their use. 1
Nowadays, when writing (especially narrative prose)
has become less decorative, the role of some of these typi-
fied patterns of expression has greatly diminished. Indeed,
some of them have been almost completely abandoned or
occur so rarely that the technical terms for them have been
forgotten. But others remain essential elements of the liter-
ary text and their knowledge is indispensable for a more
profound understanding of poetic content.
The principle manifested in tropes is that of analogy.
Some similar feature in otherwise dissimilar things is
discovered and the discovered similarity suggests an image
of that which is described. Units of poetic speech that
belong to tropes are: simile, metaphor, metonomy and
metaphoricjmetonymic epithet. The other collective term
for them is imagery.
Figures of speech are: parallel constructions, framing,
anaphora, epiphora, alliteration, antithesis, aposiopesis
and others. The organizing axes in these are recurrence,
analogy /contrast, incomplete representation.
In a literary text units of poetic speech rarely represent
a pure case of one or the other of the above mentioned
groups, the bulk are of a mixed type. It may be due to this
fact that the terms "imagery (tropes)" and "figures of speech"
are sometimes indiscriminately used by scholars of style. 2

1M. Mincoff. The Study of Style. "Naouka i iskustvo".

2See, for instance: S. Mostkova, T. Smikalova, S. Chernyavskaya.
English Literary Terms. Leningrad, 1967.
50
 Types of Tropes

S i m i 1 ~ is the most rudimentary form of trope. It

can be defined as a device based upon an analogy between
two things, which are discovered to possess some feature
in common otherwise being entirely dissimilar. For instance,
G. Greene's simile "darkness when once it fell, fell like
a stone" is based on the discovered similarity between
"darkness" and "stone" the latter suggesting sud.denness,
quickness and danger of the fallen darkness.
Other examples. (Lady Henry) "looking like a bird of
paradise that had been out all night in the rain (flitted out of
the room)." (0. Wilde) "Makes marriage vows as false as
dicer's oaths." (W. Shakespeare)
The formal elements of a simile are: I) a pair of objects
(e. g. darkness+ stone; Lady Henry + a bird of paradise;
marriage vows+ dicer's oaths); 2) a connective (like, as,
as if, as though, such as, etc.). Not only conjunctions and
adverbs but notional words (nouns, verbs, prepositional
phrases) as well as affixes (suffixes - -wise, -like) and com-
ma - the substitute of a conjunction -can have the func-
tion of a connective in a simile; e. g. "She seemed nothing
more than a doll." (A. Huxley) "He resembled a professor in
a five-elm college." (S. Lewis) " ... clouds of tawny dust ...
flung themselves table-cloth-wise among the tops of parched
trees." (R. Kipling) "M'Nab's back, through the front win-
dow, was stonily impressive, the back of a statue." (A. Hux-
ley) " ... with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim
under foot." (R. Stevenson)
All the above-mentioned formal elements make the
simile an easily recognizable unit of poetic speech.
Me t a p h or, a most widely used trope, is also based
upon analogy, upon a traceable similarity. But in the meta-
phor, contrary to the simile, there is no formal element to
indicate comparison. The difference, though, is not merely
structural. The absence of a formal indication of comparison
in the metaphor makes the analogy it is based on more
subtle to perceive. Thus, in the simile "The three with the
medals were like hunting-hawks." (E. Hemingway) the
element "like" lays bare the analogy between "those three
with medals" and "hunting-hawks". One, who knows what
a hunting-hawk is can easily imagine what those three
were: they were people trained to kill; killing was their
business. In the metaphor "I was not a hawk" (E. Heming-
51
way) due to the absence of "like" or any other formal ele-
ment of comparison the iwo objects "I" and "hawk" seem
to merge, the scope of analogy widens.
This difference between simile and metaphor leads
some scholars to the belief that metaphor is more emotional
and consequently more expressive, that it is restricted to
more literary style. 1 The simile is believed to be heavier
and more logical and therefore better fitted to lend preci-
sion to the expressed thought due to which it can be used
in any type of style even in the most prosaic. 2 This asser-
tion cannot be readily accepted because both poetical
similes and poetical metaphors are individual creations,
and their greater or lesser expressiveness depends entirely
upon the freshness and novelty of the discovered association.
Thus, with G. Greene, for instance, it is often a simile and
not a metaphor that is based on a more sudden analogy
and is, consequently, more expressive: 1) "Darkness when
once it fell, fell like a stone. Then my head came over the
earth floor and nobody shot at me and fear seeped away."
2) "She frightened him like an unlucky number. He wasn't
safe in the night nursery: their passions had flooded it."
3) "Like a small blunt icicle in her white mackintosh
she stood in the doorway. There she was, sniffing round
the area."
In purely linguistic terms the metaphor may be defined
as a deviation from conventional collocation. E. g. "The
last colours of sunset ... were dripping over the edge of the
flat world." (G. Greene) The verb "drip" usually goes with
such nouns as "water", "lard", "fat", in fact, with any name
of liquid. All such nouns represent one lexico-semantic
class. The noun "sun" does not belong to this class, its collo-
cation with the verb "drip" is thus a deviation from the con-
ventional. Consider other examples: "I saw him coming out
of the anaesthetic of her charm." (J. Thurber) "Gusts of
wind whispering here and there." (J. Keats) "Before my
pen has gleaned my teeming brain." (J. Keats) "His two
million dollars were a little nest egg for him." (Don Mar-
quis) "Her .eyes were two profound and menacing gun-
barrels." (A. Huxley)
A distinction is usually made between poetic metaphors
and lexical (dead, trite) metaphors.
1 See, for instance: M. )].. I( y 3 H e u, 10. M. C K p e 6 H e s.
CntJIHCI'HKa aHrJIHikKoro 513biKa. JI., 1960, CTp. 13-14.
~ M. Mincoff. Op. cit,
52
 P o e t i c m e t ·a p h or is based upon a discovery
of some new, fresh and striking analogy between two things~
This is a discovery made by an individual, that is to say,
a poetic metaphor is always an individual creation. (See
the above-given examples.) .
Lex i c a l met a p h or, on the contrary, is a com-
monly reproduced lexical unit. It is called d~ad or trite
because it does not call forth any vivid associations,
its function is rather that of an intensifier. E. g. Time
flies. (Time passes very quickly.) He was flooded with happi-
ness. (He was very happy.) As a rule, such a metaphor
is an integral part of the word's semantic structure, con-
stituting one of its figurative meanings. E. g. a puppy-a
young dog (literal meaning); a vain, ill-bred young man
(figurative meanilig).
A distinction is also made between a s i m p l e o r
e l em en tar y met a ph or and an extended or pro-
l on g e d (sus t a i ne d) met a p h or. The metaphor
is simple when it consists of just one word, or a word-
group. A simple metaphor may be expressed by a noun or
a noun-phrase: "anaesthetic of her charm"; by a verb:
time flies; an adjective or adverb, in the latter case it is
called a metaphoric epithet. (See below.) The metaphor
is prolonged or extended when one word used in a trans-
ferred sense ·calls forth a transferrence of meaning in the
whole sequence of words related to it. E. g. "... and I was
not a hawk, although I might seem a hawk to those who
had never hunted ... ". (E. Hemingway)
Personification, a kind of metaphor, is
a device which endows a thing or a phenomenon with
features peculiar of a human being: "At that time my vir-
tue slumbered." (R. Stevenson) "Vice triumphant holds
her sov'reign sway." (G. Byron) "My impatience has shown
its heels to my politeness." (R. Stevenson)
Personification may take the form of a digressive ad-
dress: "Thou, nature, art my goddess." (W. Shakespeare)
"Oh Night, and Storm, and Darkness, ye art wondrous
strong." (G. Byron) Digressive address is called a p os-
trop he no matter whether it refers to a thing or to
a person: "Awake, ye Sons of Spain! awake! advance."
(G. Byron) .
Units of poetic speeeh called m e t o n o m y (with
synechdoche and metonymic antonomasia as its variants)
are also based upon analogy. But in them, contrary to the
53
simile and the metaphor, there is an objectively existing
relationship between the object named and the object
implied.
Metonymic relations are varied in character. The
name of an instrument may stand for the name of the
action this instrument produces or is associated with,
e. g. "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears."
(W. Shakespeare) or the name of a symbol used instead of
that which this symbol denotes, as in: "(England) ...
sucked the blood of other countries, destroyed the brains
and hearts of Irishmen, Hindus, Egyptians, Boers and
Burmese." (J. Galsworthy), where the words "blood",
"brains", "heart" stand Jor the economic, intellectual and
spiritual life of the people referred to. That what the man
possesses may be used for the man himself, e. g. "Director
Rippleton had also married money." (S. Lewis), just
as a quality of a thing may stand for the thing itself,
e. g. "Then she turned round and took a long mournful
look at grandma's blackness and at Fenella's black coat."
(K. Mansfield)
S y n e c h d o c h e is based on a specific kind of
metonymic relationship, which may be considered as
quantitative. This is when a part stands for the whole
or when the whole stands for a part, an individual for
a whole class, or a whole class for an individual, etc.
E. g. "The Goth, the Christian-Time-War-Flood and Fire,
have dealt upon the seven-billed City's pride." (G. Byron)
What are our woes and sufference? Come and see
The cypress-- hear the owl -and plod your way
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples - Ye! (G. Byron)

A n t o n o m a s i a is the use of a proper name for

a common one. Antonomasia may be metaphoric, i. e.
based upon a similarity between two things: "The Gioconda
smile". (A. Huxley) It is metonymic when the name of
a person stands, for instance, for the thing he has created,
as. in: "Where one man would treasure a single Degas,
Renoir, Cezanne, Mr. Ferraro bought wholesale." (G. Greene)
The appeal to imagination in a metonomy (synechdoche
and metonymic antonomasia) is believed to be much
weaker than that contained in a metaphor or a simile.
Nevertheless, the former, too, is a powerful means of
poetic expression. Its force lies in the intense conciseness
with which it can pick out one particular aspect of a corn-
54
plex thing (or ide9) making the thing itself easier to com-
prehend. E. g. He has married money. He is the Napoleon
of crime, etc.
E p i t h e t is an attributive characterization of
a person, thing or phenomenon. It is, as a rule, simple in
form. In the majority of cases it consists of one word:
adjective or adverb, modifying respectively nouns or
verbs, e. g. "The glow of an artgry sunset." (Ch. Dickens)
"Carrying himself straight and soldierly." (E. Heming-
way) Sometimes epithets may be expressed by nouns,
mostly in of-phrases: "They had the spirit of modesty."
(J. Steinbeck) or compounds- equivalents of whole phrases:
"Brian feeling a quiet I-told-you-so satisfaction at the
unalterable laws." (A. Sillitoe)
There is one other type of epithet, as in: "Denis raised
the enormous bulwark of the Times against the possible
assault of Mr. Scogan." (A. Huxley) or in: "This Burns of
a city." (Th. Dreiser) In such phrases the relation between
the modifier and the modified is of a peculiar nature.
What in essence is the modified stands in the position of
the modifier: "of the Times", "of a city". The change in
the position gives the modified noun high emotional colour-
ing. Such epithets are, in a way, compressed similes
(the bulwark of the Times - the Times was like a bulwa,rk;
the Burns .of a city- the city was like Burns).
. Most manuals on style warn their readers to distinguish
between a poetic epithet and a simple adjective. The
former is·said to create an image, while the latter indicates
one of the inherent properties of the thing spoken about.
But, writes R. Jacobson, when in 1919 the Moscow Lin-
guistic Circle discussed how to define and delimit the
range of epitheta ornantia, V. Mayakovski rebuked them
by saying that for him any adjective while in poetry was
thereby a poetic epithet.l Indeed, a dividing line between the
two is often hard to draw. Thus, for instance, in the word-
group "young Tom"- "young" may merely define the
age of one who is called Tom. In such a case it is a simple
adjective. But the attribute "young" may also express the
author's emotional attitude to Tom in which case "young"
is an epithet. .
Authors whose writing is not obvious, who refrain
from direct expression of their emotional attitude often
1 See R. Jacobson. Op. cit.
55
resort to marginal cases. In the title of G. Greene's story
"Special Duties" the word "special" might be considered to
define the duties performed, in which case it is a pure
adjective, a sort of term, devoid of any connotation, cf.
the Russian «ocoGbie IIopyY:eHHR». But on reading the
story one comes to realize thal what seemed at first sight
to be ·a mere term is, in fact, brimful of a subtle implica-
tion. It conveys the <lldhor's ironic attitude to the duties
lVliss Saunders, llH' sccrct<Jry, was c>mployed to perform.
Epithets on the whole sl1ow pmc>ly individual emotional
attitude of (lw speake1· towards (he object spoken of. It
does not ddine a properly of tl1e ob.il'd spoken of, it de-
scribes ll1c> ubjed as it appc:1rs to ihe speaker.
Jl.11 L'pithet III<IY Ill' based on a11 analogy when certain
properties of otw class of things are reflected 11pon a thing
of anot!Iu· L"!a::;s. This is a meiaphoric epithet, e. g. "The
submari11e lattgldl'f was swelling, rising, ready to break
the surface of siletiCl'." (A. Huxlev), or: "The dawn with
silver-saw\;1]\cd feet crept like a frightened girl."
(0. Wildl')
Dut ill tllo"t casl's epithets are not based on analogy--
they just uwrl'ly detiote the speaker's attitude to what is
being spoken about: '"To fulfil this condition was hope-
lessly out of my powl'r." (B. Shaw) "The new and very
serious and llyper-educalcd generation." (J. Joice)
There are also tile so-called conventional (standing)
epithets, a sort n[ literary cliche. They mostly occur in
folklore or in the works of individual writers based on or
imitating folklore: my true love, merry old England, merry
month of May, wide world, etc.
Per i ph r as is is a unit of poetic speech which
both names and describes. We speak of a periphrasis
when we have the name of a person or a thing substituted
by a descriptive phrase. E. g. the better (fair) sex- women,
man in the street - an ordinary person, etc. It is when
a periphrasis is represented by a metonomy or a metaphor
that we refer it to the class of tropes. E. g. "His studw is
probably full of the mute evidences of his failure." (M. J o-
seph), where "mute evidences of his failure" stands for
"paintings". The same thing, i. e. "paintings" is described
as "his unappreciated efforts". Another example: "'For
one thing', answered Richard rankling a little, 'it (money)
won't buy one into the exclusive circles of society.' 'Oho!
won't it?' thundered the champion of the root of evil.
56
•You tell me where your exclusive circles would be if the
first Astor hadn't had the money to pay for his steerage
passage over?n' (0. Henry), where the "root of evil" is a met-
aphoric substitute for the word "money".
A periphrasis is euphemistic when it stands as a sub-
stitute for a ,concept or thing which the author finds too
unpleasant or is too reticent to name directly. He,re is how
E. Hemingway speaks of death in his "The Snows of Kili-
manjaro": "Since the gangrene started in his right leg he
had no pain and with the pain the horror had gone ...
For this, thaj: now was coming, he had very little curiosity.
For years it obsessed him; but l)OW it meant nothing in
itself." Instead of saying that Nick killed a troublesome
mosquito with a lighted match E. Hemingway says:
"The mosquito made a satisfactory hiss in the flame."
Periphrases, as all the other tropes, can be divided
into original creations of individual authors (see examples
above) and trite ones many of which have become part of
the general lexicon: the better sex; the seven-hilted city
(Rome); organs of vision (eyes); the language of Racine
(the French language).
Another unit of poetic speech based on analogy will be
mentioned in conclusion of our survey.
A 11 u s.i on is a reference to specific places, persons,
literary characters or historical events that, by some
association, have come to stand for a c.ertain thing or an
idea. The frequently resorted to sources are mythology
and the Bible, e. g. "We are met here as the guests of-
what shall I call them? - the Three Graces of the Dublin
musical world. The table burst into applause and laughter
at this allusion." (J. J oyce) The full impact of an allu-
sion, the perception of the idea it is employed to suggest
comes to that reader who is aware of the origin, i. e. the
original sense of the word, phrase, place or character allud-
ed to. Thus, for instance, in the quoted example the
cause of applause and laughter at the speaker's allusion
to "the Three Graces of the Dublin musical ·world" who
in this case are three elderly spinsters. is perceived by
him who knows that the three Graces in Roman mythol-
ogy were goddesses of beauty, joy and female charm.
Allusions may function within the literary text as meta-
phoric epithets, metaphors proper, similes, periphrases.
Quotations embedded in the text are a type of allusion,.
e. g. "The conversation which eventually followed on this
57
topic was of such stuff as dreams are made of." (Th. Drei-
ser); "such stuff as dreams are made of" is a line from
W. Shakespeare's "The Tempest" (Act IV, se. 1).
We are such stuff
As dreams are made of ...

The pleasure of reading increases when we recognize

such stray phrases and recall their full meaning in their
original context.
** *
It should be emphasized that a trope is appreciated
as poetic not for the inherent quality of the words that make
it up but rather for how vividly it suggests an image. As for
the words used in a trope they may be of the commonest,
the plainest sort. Take, for instance, the following extended
metaphor from G. Meredith's novel "The Egoist": "The
Egoist is the Son of Himself. He is likewise the Father.
And the son loves the father and the father the son: they
reciprocate affection through the closest of ties". A very
common "father" and "son" create a sudden and strikingly
vivid metaphor when used as characteristics of the Egoist.

Types of Figures of Speech

Quite a number of figures of speech are based upon the

principle of recurrence. Recurrent may be elements of differ-
ent linguistic layers: lexical, syntactic, morphological,
phonetic. Some figures of speech, as will be shown below,
emerge as a result of a simultaneous interaction of several
principles of poetic expression, i. e. the principle of con-
trast + recurrence; recurrence +analogy; recurrence+ in-
complete representation, etc.
P a r a 1 1 e 1 i s m as a figure of speech is based upon
a recurrence of syntactically identical sequences which
lexically are completely or partially different. E. g.
·~she was a good servant, she walked softly, she was a deter-
mined woman, she walked precisely." (G. Greene) "They
were all three from Milan, and one of them was to be a law-
yer, and one was to be a painter, and one had intended
to be a soldier .•. " (E. Hemingway) Parallelism strongly
affects the rhythmical organization of an utterance and
58
gives it a special emphasis, so it is imminent in oratoric art
as well as in impassioned poetry:

You've hit no traitor on the hip,

You've dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You've never turned the wrong to right,
You've been a coward in the fight. (Ch. Mackay)
The elements of the juxtaposed parts due to their juxtapo-
sition merge to create one single image. 1 (See the above
quoted examples.)
Parallelism should not be mixed up with r e p e t i -
t ion. As the word "repetition" itself suggests, this unit
of poetic speech is based upon a repeated occurrence
of one and the same word or word-group. E. g. "You cannot,
sir, take from me anything I will more willingly part withal
except my life, except my life, except my life." (W. Shake-
speare) "I wouldn't mind him if he wasn't so conceited and
didn't bore me, and bore me, and bore me." (E. Hemingway)
Depending upon the position a repeated unit occupies
in the utterance there are distinguished four types of repe-
tition.
I) An a ph or a - repetition of the first word or
word-group in several successive sentences, clauses or
phrases. E. g. "I love your hills, and I love your dales. And
I love your flocks a-bleating." (J. Keats) "Justice waited
behind a wooden counter in a high stool; it wore a heavy
moustache; it was kindly and had six children ... ; it wasn't
really interested in Philip, but it pretended to be, it wrote
the address down and sent a constable to fetch a glass of
milk." (G. Greene)
2) E p i p h or a - repetition of the final word or
word-group. E. g. "I wake up and I'm alone, and I walk
round Warlley and I'm alone, and I talk with people and
I'm alone." (J. Braine)
3) A n a d i p 1 o s i s (catch repetition) - repetition
at the beginning of the ensuing phrase, clause or sentence of
a word or a word-group that has occurred in the initial,
the middle or the final position of the preceding word-se-
quence.
E. g. But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man. (W. Shakespeare)
1 See for reference: KpaTKall mnepaTypnaH 3Hl\HKJIOITe.l\Hl!. M.,
1968, T. 5, CTp. 591.

59
 " ... there lived a bad man who kept a bad pig. He was
a bad man because he laughed too much at the wrong times
and at the wrong people. He laughed at the good brothers of
M- when they came to the door for a bit of whiskey or
a piece of si! ver, and he laughed all the time." (J. Stein-
beck)
4) F r a m i n g, or r ing repet it ion-
repetition of the same unit at the beginning and at the end of
the same sentence, stanza, or paragraph.
How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street
In the narrow lane
How beautiful is the rain!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (H. W. Longfellow)
P o I y s y n d e t o n is an insistent repetition of a con-
nective between words, phrases or clauses in an utterance,
e. g. "They were all three from Milan and one of them was to
be a lawyer, and one was to be a p,ainter, and one had
intended to be a soldier 1 and after we were finished with
the machines, sometimes we walked back together to the
Cafe Cava." (E. Hemingway)
As y n de ton, on the contrary, is a deliberate avoid-
ance of connectives, e. g. "He never tired of their (pictures)
presence, they represented a substantial saving in death-
duties." (G. Greene) Both these devices, though each
other's opposites, are equal in expressiveness. The omis-
sion of a connective as well as its supra-average occur-
rence may be suggestive in a variety of ways. Thus, the
repeated "and" in the above quoted sentence from E. He-
mingway's story "In Another Country" suggests and empha-
sizes the fact that the fates of the three men from Milan were
equally tragic: none of them had turned out to be what they
had intended to be, while the omission of the connective
"for", or "because" in the example from G. Greene's story
"Special Duties" is a way of emphasizing the fact that it was
the material benefit that he (Mr. Ferraro) valued most in
the pictures.
Both these devices are widely used in contemporary
narrative prose. In the works of some writers their occurren-
ces are quite prominent, as, for instance, in the works of
E_. Hemingway. In fact, E. Hemingway is reputed as master
of endowing these devices with exceptionally suggestive
overtones.
60
 C 1 i m a x (g r a d a t i o n) is another unit Of poetic
speech based on the recurrence of a certain syntactic pattern.
In each recurrent sequence the lexical unit is either emotion-
ally stronger or logically more· important. E. g "Walls-
palaces- half-cities, have been reared." (G. Byron)
"Janet Spence's parlour-maid was ... ugly on purpose ...
malignantly, criminally ugly." (A. Huxley)
Sometimes lexical units, when merely enumerated,
cannot be considered as more emotional or less emotional,
more important or less important, .but as soon as they are
arranged in a certain sequence they acquire a graded qual-
ity 1 as in: "He lived- he breathed- he moved- he
felt." (G. Byron) "She rose- she sprung- she clung to his
embrace." (G. Byron) A lexical unit may seem to be emotion-
ally stronger by the mere fact that it is placed last in a se-
quence of syntactically identical units, e. g. "The thoughts
went rioting through his brain, proud, joyful, tender, valor-
ous. "(J. J oyce) "Just then the hyena stopped whimpering in
th~ night and started to make a strange, human, almost cry-
ing sound." (E. Hemingway) A very subtle effect is produced
by a gradation which is based on the recurrence of the same
lexical morpheme represented by different grammar clas-
ses, e. g. "He was sleepy. He felt sleep coming. He curled
up under the blanket and went to sleep." (E. Hemingway)
A n t i c 1 i ru a x (b a t h os) is the reverse of climax.
In this figure of speech emotion or logical importance accu-
mulates only to be unexpectedly broken and brought down.
The sudden reversal usually brings forth a humorous or
ironic effect, as in the following: "She felt that she did not
really know these people, that she would never know them;
she wanted to go on seeing them, being with them, and living
with rapture in their workaday world. But she did not do
this." (A. Coppard) .
S u s p en s e (r e t a r d a t i o n) is a deliberate
delay in the completion of the expressed thought. What has
been delayed is the loading task of the utterance and the
reader awaits the completion of the utterance with an ever-
increasing tension. A suspense is achieved by a repeated
occurrence of phrases or clauses expressing condition, suppo-
sition, time, and the like, all of which hold back the con-
c.Iusion of the utterance. A c!as~ical example of a skilful
use of suspense is R. Kipling's famous poem "If". The title.
1 See: 11. P. faJibnepHH. Op. cit.; also his: Stylistics. M., 1971.
61
itself suggests suspense. The poem consists of eight stanzas
and it is only in the last two lines of the last, eighth stanza,
that the sentence and the thought are completed_! Here is
another example of suspense: J. Keat's masterpiece "When
I Have Fears".
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd graini
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the facry power
Of unreflecting love; - then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till. love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Sometimes the conclusion of the suspended utterance

goes contrary to the aroused expectations, a device often
practised for humorous effects, as in: "The little boy, whose
heart was too full for utterance, chewing a piece of licorice
stick he had bought with a cent stolen from his good and
pious aunt, with sobs plainly audible and with great glob-
ules of water running down his cheeks, glided silently
down the marble steps of the bank." (M. Twain)
Z e u g m a is a figure of speech which consists of one
main element and a number of adjuncts. The adjuncts
represent semantically different word-classes thus differ-
ing in the type and degree of cohesion with the main ele-
ment. E. g. "He had a good taste for wine and. whiskey
and an emergency bell in his bedroom." (G. Greene), where
the verb "had" simultaneously governs such two unrelated
sequences as "a good taste for", and "an emergency bell".
The contrast between the syntactic identity of adjuncts and
their semantic incompatibility is a means of creating dif-
ferent connotative effects (humorous, ironic, etc.) E. g.
"Either you or your head must be off." (L. Carroll) "Juan
was a bachelor of arts, and parts, and hearts." (G. Byron)
A 1 1 i t er a t i o n is based upon a recurrence of simi-
lar consonant sounds in a line or an utterance. It is a valu·
able element of poetic speech. It gives rhythm to an utter-
ance. Andrhythm is generally defined as a ~ombination of
1 See. 11. P. faJibnepHH. Op. cit.
62
the repeated and the variable, with the repeated as the
ruling factor. Consider as an illustration the following
lines from A. Pope's poem about Sisythius:
With many a weary step, and many a groan
Up a high hill he heaves a huge round stone
The huge round stone, resulting with a bound
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground.
The rhythm and the sound of the recurrent [w], [h], [s], [r]
make one clearly perceive a stone moving slowly upward
and rolling violently back.
As it has been shown in Chapter I (see pp.IS-19) recurrent
sounds may produce the effect of natural sounds imitation,
as in:
With the rushing of great rivers
With their frequent repetition
And their wild reverberations
As of thunder in the mountains .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (H. Longfellow)

where the repeated [r] suggests a violent rush of water in

the river.
The figures of speech discussed below are based on con-
trast or, in some cases contrast + recurrence as the main
principle of their poetic arrangement and expression.
A n t i t h e s i s is a phrase, a sentence or a group of
such in which a thing (or a concept) is measured against, or
contrasted to, its opposite. E. g. "Too brief for our passion,
too long for our peace." (G. Byron) "If he hadn't gone to
school, he'd met the scholars; if he hadn't gone into
the house, he had knocked at the door." (S. O'Casey) "Their
wrath how deadly! but their friendship sure." (G. Byron)
"Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!" (G.Byron)
As may be seen from the examples given above antithesis
emerges as a result of a contraposition of two or more
words, the contra posed words being either antonyms, as in:
brief- long, or contrastive in some of their meaning-com-
ponents as in: wrath- friendship. Sometimes words gener-
ally not contrastive in meaning acquire this quality due
to their contraposition as, for instance, the words gone -
met.
Parallelism is the organizing axis of antithesis. Some-
times, though, parallelism is substitut~d by a common
point of reference and alliteration, as in the proverb "All
that glitters is not gold," where the antithesis between
glitter - not gold is achieved by a common point of refer-
63
ence -glittering- brought out by the alliteration o.f
"glit", "gold". 1
In poetry whole pieces may be built up entirely on
a string of antitheses, as, for example, in W. Shakespeare's
well-known madrigal. '
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together
Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care
Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather
Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ,0 •• '• ••• 0.

0 x y m o r o n is a kind of antithesis in that it is also

based upon a contrast between two words. But contrary to
the antithesis where contrastive words are contraposed
(in parallel constructions), in the oxymoron contrastive
words may be juxtaposed as modifier and modified, e. g.
"The enc-hanting tale, the tale of pleasing woe." (J. Keats)
''Oh, the sweetness of the pain." (J. Keats) "The glories of
their particular France so nicely rotting." (S. Lewis) "Part-
ing is such sweei sorrow." (W. Shakespeare) "She was
filled with a glad terror." (A. Myrer) "The unreached Para-
dise of our despair." (G. Byron) "The wordy silence troubled
her." (0. Wilde)
Also as a verb+ a noun governed by the verb, e. g.
"He had lived a very long time with death and was a little
detached." (E. Hemingway); or: "Doomed to liberty."
(0. Henry)
T[le juxtaposition of two contrastive words is not in
essence illogical for with the help of it the speaker empha-
sizes the complex nature of the thing spoken about: both
elements of the pair bring out some feature or quality of
the thing or phenomenon spoken about. E. g. "'Fortunp.tely,'
he said .'we can share our pleasures. We are not always
condemned to be happy alone.'" (A. Huxley) In the
majority of cases the modifier conveys the author's or the
character's personal attitude towards what is modified,
e. g. sweet sorrow; glad terror; nicely rotting. ,
In an original oxymoron, as could be seen in the above
given examples, the denotative meaning correlates with
the connotative meaning and the latter does not contradict
but in fact helps to grasp the denotation more readily.
Frequently repeated oxymorons become trite and lexica-
lized., Some of them are nothing other than intensifiers:
1 See: M. Mincoff. Op. cit.
64
 awfully nice, mighty small, frightfully happy. Original
oxymorons do not often occur in texts but their scarcity
does not speak of their inexpressiveness. In fact, as already
stated, they help to reveal the inner contradictions that
underlie objective phenomena; they are considered to be a
· special form of paradox.
P a r a d o x is also based on contrast, being a state-
ment contradictory to what is accepted as a self-evident
or proverbial truth. E. g. "I think that life is far too impor-
tant a thing ever to talk seriously about it." (0. Wilde)
"My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to
know better, they don't know anything at all." (0. Wilde)
"A smock so artistic and modern and novel that it might
have been worn by her grandmother." (S. Lewis) "I never
like giving information to the police. It saves them trouble."
(G.- Greene) "Wine costs money, blood costs nothing."
(B. Shaw)
The appeal of a paradox lies in the fact that, however
contradictory it may seem to be to the accepted maxim, it
contains, nevertheless, a certain grain of truth,. which
makes it an excellent vehicle of satire. Indeed, it is a device
much favoured by many English and American satirists.
Paradox can be considered a figure of speech with cer-
tain reservations, since the aesthetic principle, that under-
lies it, i. e. contrast has divers linguistic manifestations.
P u n (paronomasia, a play on words) is a figure of
speech emerging as an effect created by words similar or
identical in their sound form and contrastive or incompat-
ible in meaning.
The sound form played upon may be either a polyse-
mantic word, as in: "Her nose was sharp, but not so sharp
as her voice or the suspiciousness with which she faced
Martin." (S. Lewis) " ... Were it not here apparent that
thou art heir apparent." (W. Shakespeare); or complete/
partial homonyms, as in: "So sound as things that are hnl-
low." (W. Shakespeare); or: "The Importance of Being Ear-
nest" (0. Wilde); or: "But what trade art thou? Answer me
directly. A trade, sir, that I hope, I may use with a safe
conscience which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles."
(W. Shakespeare) The meanings inherent in the sound com-
plex may be either simultaneously realized (see the exam-
ple with the words sound, earnest, sole) or kept distinct and
interwoven with one another in a decorative fashion, as
in: "Hath Romeoslain himself? Say thou but 'aye' and that
3 B. B. COCHOBCKal! 65
bare vowel ''I' shall poison more than the death-darting
eye of cockatrice." (W. Shakespeare)
However playful is the effect of· pun, however intricate
and sudden is the merging of senses in one sound complex,
in a truly talented work this unit of poetic speech shares
equally with others in the expression of the author's mes-
sage; it is a vehicle of the author's thought and not a mere
decoration. Consider, for instance, the following: "Oh,
nowadays we are all of us so hard up that the only pleasant
things to pay are compliments. They are the only things
we can pay." (0. Wilde)
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites. (W. Shakespeare)
The figures of speech called understatement, litotes,
overstatement are also based on contrast: the contrast is
between the real and the expressed values of the object.
U n d e r s t a t e m e n t is an expression of an idea
in an excessively restrained language, e. g. "He knows a
thing or two"; "Mr. Ferraro thought at first that it was the
warmth of the day that had caused her to be so inefficiently
clothed ... " (G. Greene)
L i t o t e s, a specific form of understatement, consists
in the use of a negative for the contrary, as in: "He had not
been unhappy all day." (E. Hemingway) "The figures of
these men and women straggled past the flower-bed
with a curiously irregular movement not unlike that of
the white and blue butterflies." (V. Woolf) "God has made
man in his image, and it was not unreasonable for Mr.
Ferraro to return the compliment ... " (G. Greene)
Connotative effects produced by litoteses as well as by
understatements are varied. It may be a characteristic
instance of an author's generally restrained tone of writing
as is the case with E. Hemingway, or a way of rendering
subtle iropy as could be seen in the quoted examp1es from
G. Greene's story, etc.
0 v er s t a t em en t (hyperbole) as the word itself
suggests is an expression of an idea in an exceedingly exag-
gerate language, e. g. "That was fiercely annoying." (A. Cop-
pard) "Their flat was a fourthfloor one and there was -
0, fifteen thousand stairs!" (A. Coppard) "I'd cross the world
to find you a pin." (A. Coppard)
Whereas various forms of litotes and understatement are
an expression of a restrained, non-committal or subtly
66
ironic tone of writing, supra-average cases of overstatement,
on the contrary, are characteristic of an obviously emotion-
al, if not altogether impassioned, manner of representation.·
A p o s i o p e s i s, a sudden intentional break in the
narration or dialogue, is a figure of speech based upon the
aesthetic principle of i n c o m p I e t e rep res en -
t a t i on. What is not finished is implied: the sense of the
unexpressed is driven inside and the reader is expected
to find it out for himself, the context of the situation being
his guide. The authors who refrain from being too outspoken
often resort to this device.
Take, for· instance, K. Mansfield's story "The Voyage"
where aposiopesis is prominent among ot(ler units of poetic
speech. A little girl, Fenella, leaves her home for a stay at
her grandmother's. The place is somewhere across the
Straits, so Fenella and her grandmother go there aboard
a ship ... Something untoward has precipitated the visit,
something tragic has happened in Fenella's family. This
is suggested by a whole series of details such as the sad pre-
occupation of the girl's father who came to see them off,
the fact that he wouldn't look at the girl when she whis-
pered anxiously "How long am I going to stay?"; the grand-
mother's words "God bless you, my own brave son!" and at
last an aposiopesis: "'I hope-' began the stewardess.
Then she turned round and looked a long mournful look
at Grandma's blackness and at Fenella's black coat and
skirt, black blouse, and hat with a crape rose." Fenella
slips into her berth and finds it qard to turn down those
stiff sheets: "You simply had to tear your way in." And
again an aposiopesis: "If everything had been different,
Fen ell a might have got the giggles ... "
An attentive reader perceives that these aposiopeses
along with other hints suggest somebody's death: some-
body has died and is not to be spoken of openly in the girl's
presence. The surmise becomes a certainty when the
stewardess says: "Poor little motherless mite."
Aposiopeses are numerous in the works of J. Galsworthy,
E. Hemingway, G. Greene and others. The implications
are rich and varied, e. g. "I'm sorry, Thomas. By the way,
my name is Alden, if you care ... " "'I'd rather stick to Pyle,'
I said. 'I think of you as Pyle."' (G. Greene) or: "If you
hadn't left your own people, your goddamned Old West-
berry, Saragota, Palm Beach people to take me on - "
(E. Hemingway)
67
 The graphic indication of an aposiopesis is, as a rule,
a dash or dots.
E 1 1 i g.~ is is an intentional omission from an utter-
ance of one or more words, e. g. "If teenage'baby-sitters
typical, there's hope yet."1 "Then the electric lights came
on, and it was pleasant along the streets looking in the
windows." (E. Hemingway)
The difference between ellipsis and aposiopesis lies in
the fact that whereas in the former the omitted words make
the utterance only grammatically incomplete the meaning
of the omitted words being easy to surmise from the utter-
ance itself (e. g. Been home?- instead of: Have you been
home?; Hungry?- instead of: Are you hungry?) in the
latter it is the context of the situation alone that helps
surmise the meanLng of the unuttered words, while grammat-
ically an aposiopesis may or may not be complete, e. g.
"If everything had been different, Fenella might have got
the giggles ... " is a grammatically complete utterance; but:
"By the way, my name is Alden, if you'd care ... " -
a grammatically incomplete utterance.

* * *
To better illustrate the idea of the patterned nature of
tropes and figures of speech, we have always proceeded
from the principle (be it analogy, contrast, recurrence,
or incomplete representation) that stands basic in the unit.
But, as it follows from the definitions and illustrations
given above, more than one principle manifests itself, as
a rule, in each unit of poetic speech. Thus, in an antithesis
it is not only the principle of contrast but that of recurrence
as well: recurrent may .be either syntactic elements (paral-
lelism) or phonetic (alliteration) or ·both, e. g. "Some
look' d perplex' d and others look' d profound." (G. Byron)
"Youth is lovely, age is lonely." (H. W. Longfellow)
In a pun there may be present analogy as well as con-
trast: the analogy of sound and the contrast of meaning,
e. g. "I am a mender of bad soles." (W. Shakespeare) [Soull-
1) the moral part of man's nature; 2) the bottom of a book,
shoe, slipper; or: "Is confidence based on a rate of exchange?
We used to speak of sterling qualities. Have we got to talk
now about a dollar love?" (G. Greene) Sterling ['sta:IIol:
I) English money; 2) genuine.

1 Quoted from: H. Spitzbardt. Lebendiges English. Halle, 1962.

68
 This being the underlying factor in most of the units
of poetic speech, we do not use the term "mixed" each time
we have such a unit. The term "mixed" should be used when
a trope or a figure of speech involves other units of poetic
speech which happen to be its constituents. For instance;
a case of pun may involve a metaphor (e. g. "I will speak
daggers to her, but use none.") or an epithet (e. g. "Her
nose was sharp, but not so sharp as her voice or the suspi-
ciousness with which she faced Martin."); a paradox may
. involve an antithesis (e. g. "Wine costs money, blood costs
nothing.") or a repetition +antithesis (e. g. "I always
find out that one's most glaring fault is one's most impor-
tant virtue."), etc. It is always essential to see the unit that
stands as the main (a macro-unit) in relation to its con-
stituent parts (micro-units).
The tropes and the greater part of the figures of speech
we have considered above are the m_ore prominent units of
poetic speech. Each of them carries enormous expressive
potentiality which alone accounts for the extensive use
these units have in literary texts.

STYLE

The original meaning of the word "style" was a writing

implement, a pointed object of bone or metal for inscribing
wax. But already in Classical Latin the word acquired
a terminological meaning. It came to denote one's way of
expressing oneself. Later, in French, the word acquired
an evaluative tif!t, it came to denote a good way of expres-
sing oneselfY'Style" also denoted the expressive means
used in poetry and prose, specifically tropes and figures of
speech, expressive means used by an author in his literary
works. All these remain to be a field of philological study. 2
With the development of the theory of language, on the
one hand, and the theory of literature, on the other, the
meaning of "style" came to be modified as style in language
and style in literature.
Style in language is understood to be the whole corpus
of expressive means of the language. This view was first
1 F. L. Lucas. Style. Pan Books. L., 1964.
2 M. n. K y 3 He u, IO. M. c K p e 6 He B. CTiiJI!ICTllKa aHrJI!IH-
CKOfO 513biKa. JI., 1960; E. H. K JI If Me H K o. 5aiipoH. 5lsbiK !I CT!IJib.
M., 1960.
69
proclaimed by Ch. Bally in his "Stylistique Fran<;ais"
(1909) to be later developed in numerous works on style,
among them those of V. V. Vinogradov, R. A. Budagov
and others. ·
In Achmanova's dictionary of linguistic terms "style"
is defined as a subsystem (within the language system)
with its own vocabulary, phraseology and syntax. It dif-
fers from other subsystems primarily by expressive prop-
erties of its elements and by the fact that it is connected
with a certain sphere of functioning (everyday life, science,
business, literature, etc.). 1 The branch of linguistics that
makes a study of expressive properties of linguistic units
as well as the spheres of their usage is called linguo-sty-
listics.
Style in Imaginative Likrature. Complexity of the
phenomenon of Imaginative Litera tu re and of Literary
Work, for that matter, breeds, among other things, a variety
of approaches to their style.
In contemporary studies of style several trends stand out
prominent Most elaborated among them is the so called
linguistic trend. Style of a literary wor·k, it claims, mani-
fests itself verbally. Consequently, style can be appreciated
as a result of an analysis of verbal sequences constituting
a literary text ·
The theoretical point of departure in such studies of
style is the concept of the norm.
Stylistic norm is understood to be that which character-
izes most if not all texts of different types. It is a statisti-
cal mean. The otherterms for stylistic norm are"zerostylist-
ic reference", "stylistic neutrality". Those who proceed from
such a concept of the norm regard style as an individual
deviation froni the norm, a choice (K. Vossler, L. Spitzer,
C. Brooks, R. P. Warren). The choice of an element out
of a nuiuber of others provided by the language for the
expression of a given sense is understood to be a stylistic
choice. E. f!. I trust you; I have trust in you; I have confi-
dence in you; de.
A writer's slyle, in terms of this conception, is his
individual and creative utilization (choice) of the resources
of the language; the limitations upon the choice are

1 0. C. A x M a H o B a. CJ!oeapb JlllHfBH~TllqecKllX TepMHHoB.

M., 1966, CTp. 455.
70
superimposed by the writer's period, his genre and his
purpose. 1 ·
Viewed by the reader, the style of a literary work is that
whole of the content and its linguistic expression that
manifests .. itself in a certain effect. 2
A number of feasible methods have been worked out
in recent years on the basis of a linguistic approach to style.
We endeavour to outline them in short below in hope that
such an outline would give the reader some hints as to what
he could be guided by in his appreciation of the style of
literary works· he reads.
The methods rest, for the most part, upon contemporary
linguistic theories such as the speaker-hearer linguistics,
the semantic field theory, quantitative linguistics and oth-
ers. These linguistic theories bring system into the field
of research where formerly wholly impressionistic studies
were prevalent.
One such method is s t a t i s t i c a I m e a s u r i n g
of sty 1 e. Here is its essence. To measure the style of
a text means to calculate the frequencies of its linguistic
items (phonetic, morphological, lexical) and then compare
them with the corresponding features of another text which
has a definite contextual relationship with the given text.
In statistical analysis the following phenomena are usually
estimated:
1) the concentration of lexical units in the text (repe-
tition of lexical units); 2) the dispersion of lexical units in
the text (occurrence of rare words - a factor that speaks for
the richness of the vocabulary of the text); 3) the occurrence
of thematic (key) words. 3
The merit of this method is its objectivity. Its main
limitation lies in the fact that it can show the difference
between texts, but alone cannot evaluate. It cannot reveal

1 Linguistics and Style. "Language and Language Learning.. "

Oxford University Press, 1964.
2 "KaK 6bi HH pacxo.D.HJIHCb asTopbi no qacTHbiM sonpocaM, see mm
6oJiee HJIH Meaee corJiaCHbi, qTo CTHJIHCTHKa paccMaTpHsaet pe3yJib·
TaTbl, T. e. aqxpeKT Bbi6opa TeX I!Jill I!Hb!X JieKCHqecKHX, CTHJIHCTHqe-
CKHX, cpoHeTH'IeCKHX I! T . .1\. cpe.I\CTB B pa3Hb!X YCJIOBHHX 06Ill.ei!Hll". -
11. B. A p a o JI b .1\. TeMaTnqecKHe cJiosa xy.D.oJKeCTseauoro TeKcTa
(3JieMeHTbl CTHJIHCTH'IeCKOfO ,l\eKO.I\HpOBaHHll). «11IIOCTpai!Hbie 513b!KH
B llliWJie», N~ 2, 1971.
a 0. C. A x M a a o B a, JI. H. H a T a a, A. 11. Il o JI T o p a u: -
K u i\, B. 11. <!> aT 10 me a K o. 0 npHHU:Hnax u MeTonax JIHHfBOCTH·
JIHCTHqecKHx HccJie.u,osaHHi'!. Pe.u,. 0. C. AxManosa. 113.u,-so MfY, 1966.

71
the aesthetic effect of the text. Th_!!s, it is useful only as
a supplementary vehicle of stylistiC analysis.
Statistical method is sometimes combined with some
other analysis. A combination of s t a t i s t i c .a 1 a n d
p s y c h o 1 i n g u i s t i c methods has been described
by J. Carroll in his paper "Vectors of Prose Style.l Major
objective qualities of style such as the occurrence of cer-
tain classes of words, clauses, sentences and other linguis-
tic entities were counted and then related to subjective
descriptions of style made by expert judges. The descri p-
tions of selected pieces of literary texts were made accord-
ing to adjectival scales such as the following: subtle -
obvious; vigorous --'- placid; emotional - rational; opin-
ionated- impartial, etc. The author admits that the '
judges agreed in making descriptive classifications of prose
passages but they seldom agreed when making general eval-
uations of style. Nevertheless, the style that has been agreed
upon by most judges as ornamented had the following objec-
tive characteristics: long sentences, long clauses, wide
variation in sentence length, a high proportion of nouns
with Latin suffixes, a low proportion of verbs denoting
physical action, a high number· of descriptive adjectives.
The main conclusion made by the author of the article was:
there is no hard distinction between style and content.
Though we may define style as the manner of treating the
subject matter, the type of subject matter will in general
impose constraints upon the possible kinds of stylistic
treatment.
Intensive work in the study of style is being done by
the Leningrad philologists (Arnold, Diakonova, Silman
and others). Of special interest in the present case
is the method worked out by I. V. Arnold and her follow-
ers.2 It is based upon the assumption that: 3
1) A literary text is a complete and undivided structure
ef interdependent elements: all elements of the text are
equally conducive to the understanding of the whole.

1In: Style in Language. ed. by Th. A. Scbeok. N. Y.,' 1960,

211. B. A p H o .~ b A. TeMaTHlieCKHe CJWBa XYAOlKeCTBeHHOro
TeKCTa. «J1HOCTpaHHb!e H3b!KH B WKOJIC». !97!, Ng 2.
3 See also: M. Riffaterre. Criteria for Style Analysis. In: "W'ord",
v. XV, 1959, No I; M. Riffaterre. The Stylistic Function. In: "Proceed-
ings of the Ninth Congress of Linguists". Cambridge, 1962; S. R. Le-
vin. Linguistic Structures in Poetry. In: "Lanuo linguarum". Series
minor, No 23, The Hague Mouton, 1962,
72
 2) Meanings most essential for the understanding of the
whole content recur in the text and make up its thematic
basis. These meanings may be expressed by recurrent words,
by recurrent semes (different sound complexes with simi-
lar meaning components) and by recurrent themes. Meaning-
fulness of the recurrent element is generally signalled by
coupling, i. e. by the occurrence of similar elements in
similar positions with the resulting interconnection of
all elements of the text.
;3) Rare words and rare (semi-marked) word-groups of
a grief ago type usually signal the text's most significant
meanings. ""·
While reading the text one, line by line, observes
the recurrent words and the meanings they convey, as
well as recurrent meanings contained in different lexical
units.
The recurrent lexical units give the reader an idea of the
work's theme, while rare words and word-groups as well
as recurrent semes within specHic syntactic and phonemic
structures reveal tb_e whole content.
The method has been found especially useful in the
analysis of those works of poetry whose content is compli-
cated and involved.
The methods we have briefly outlined above
(and these are by far not all of those used .in contem-
porary style study) have tliis in common: they are based
on a linear (verbal) analysis of the text, i. e. they all
represent a linguistic approach to the style of the literary
work..
There are other approaches. Those that proceed from the
fact that literature is primarily one of the arts (with all
the differences that there are between them) may be tenta-
tively defined as an aesthetic trend. Basic assumption in
such a trend is that a literary work though expressed in
words, does not exhaust itself in linear word sequences.
It involves both linear {verbal) and non-linear (supraver-
bal) components, such as composition, genre, image and
the like. The style of a literary work is considered to be
a unique whole of all the linear and supralinear components.
The difficulty of the style analysis arises from the fact that
linear and supralinear components are not coincident with
each other.
In recent years there have emerged new methods within
the aesthetic trend of style study characterized by a semio-
73
tic or cybernetic approach to the literary work. 1 We re-
strain from giving their outline as the methods are still in
the making; some concepts of the aesthetic trend, though,
have found their way into this book.
** *
Class-room analysis of literary works naturally differs
from scientific research. As a rule, an intuitive· approach
prevails by which we understand an interpretation of the
effect produced upon the reader by the analysed piece of
writing and perceived at the reader's nerve endings.
Descriptive approach, too, is practised. It consists in
the identification of all the favoured devices used by the
author in the text.
Elements of other methods (such as those outlined above)
gradually make their way into the class-room.
'But no matter how consistently the applied method is
pursued one thing is essential: the analysis of style should
not be separated Jrom content, for the two are inseparable.
1 See, for instance: IO. M. JI o T M a H. CTpyKTypa xyllOlKeCTBeH-
woro TCKCTa. M., 1970.
 PART TWO

ANALYTICAL READING

I KNOCK AT THE DOOR

(from Sean O'Casey's "Autobiographies")

[Sean O'Casey's "Autobiographies" are remarkable for their impas-

sioned tone, "for the flavom of the expressive speech of the Irish, for
the folklore-like quality of imagery and rhythm. The selected piece
is the last chapter of the "Autobiographies" first volume which, too,
carries the name of "I knock at the Door", so that both make a sort of
framing.]

Johnny's mother was very concerned abouthis educa-

tion. So was Archie in a hazy and bullying kind of way; and
so was Ella, who was nursing her first baby and whose
husband was soon to bid good-bye to the army forever.
Ella's education of her own husband was a failure, as
Johnny said grumblingly, and now she wanted to fix her
teeth in him. Many and mighty were the collogin that
went on between her an' her mother about poor Johnny's
ignorance of all things.
One day Ella came, bringing a bundle of clothes for
her mother to wash; when the washing was over, they sat
down to a cup of tea and a crumpet, to start the talk all
over again.
"I know he can't be let go on as he's goin' ,"said Mrs.
Casside, "or, when he's a man, he won't even know the
number on his own hall-door. He must be taught some-
thing, even though he can't go to school. The last thing
throublin' your poor father's mind, before he died, was
that Johnny was bound to grow up a dunce."
Ella sipped her tea, and thought for a moment.
"I can't help thinking that he should have been kept
to school, in spite of his eyes," she said. "Oh, I know the
doctors said he mustn't," she went on swiftly,_to forestall
her mother who was opening her mouth to speak; "but the
75
 doctors haven't to rear him. A common labourer is all
he'll be able to be when the time comes for him to take
his place in life."
Your own husband won't be much more, thought her
mother; but she held her tongue.
"A common labourer," went on Ella, "if he's sthrong
enough even for that. It was a sad mistake not to have let
him go to the Blue-coat School, afther all the trouble the
rector and Mr. Purefoy took to get him admitted."
Her mother's mouth hardened.
"That's all over an' done with," she said. "As long as
I live, the boy'!! never set foot in an institution."
· "He'd be well fed an' clad, anyway," retorted Ella.
"They're a lot, but they're not everything. The. boy
hasn't much here, but he has a home."
There had been a great how-do-you-do about this
Blue-coat School for J ohnny. El la and Archie had fed
him with the grandeur of the boys' lovely blue uniform,
with its deep collar and cuffs of chrome yellow, long trou-
sers, glengarry cap, blucher boots that were fastened with
buckle and strap, and, lastly, a natty cane to be carried
under the arm. The brothers in the army had written home
to say the idea was a grand one; and J ohnny, himself,
had pressed his mother to agree. But his mother had stood
out against them all; and every time J ohnny pleaded all
the good things about the school, she put him off with,
"You 're far betther off as you are here."
"They'd teach him his religion," went on Ella.
"They'd hammer it into him, Ella. Every turn he'd
take would be chronicled; and if one wasn't done as they'
had planned, the boy'd be broken into their way of doin'
it; an' Johnny's my boy, an' not theirs. If they're anxious
to ked him, let them feed him here; if they're anxious
to clothe him, let them clothe him here. I'm not goin'
to have the life in him cowed out of him, as long as I can
prevent it. There's no use of harpin' on the Blue-coat
School, for me mind's made up - the boy won't go into
it."
"I'm arguin' only for the boy's own good," said Ella
righteously. ·
"Everyone's advisin' me about the boy, says he's ar-
guin' only for the boy's own good."
"You've only to look at him," said Ella, "to see what's
happening- he has hardly any forehead at all." '
76
 "I'm doin' all I can about that, an' it's certainly a
little betther than it was," said the mother. "Three times
a day I brush it off his forehead as hard as I can for more'n
quarter of an hour; an' the hair growin' close to his eyes
is bound to wear away in time. An', after brushin' it at
night, I put a tight bandage to keep a pull up on the hair
while he's asleep. Even if his eyes .prevent him from learn-
in' much, ase!f, I'll not let him go through life with a low
forehead. I'd like to do something for his teeth, but they'll
have to take their chance."
Ella went over to rummage among the books left behind
as unsalable out of her father's fine store. She brought
back a Superseded Spelling-book, by SulLivan, who held
that by learning affixes and suffixes, Latin and Greek
roots, you could net_ words in hundreds, as ,against the
old method of fishing one word up at a time; a Reading
Lesson Book; a Primer of Grammar; and simple Lessons
in Geography.
"Here,' she said, "is all he'll need for the present. Make
him learn the parts I've marked in each book, an', if he
learns a like lot every day for a year, he'll know a little
at the end of it."
J ohnny was brought in from the street, and told what
he had to do.
"I'm not goin' to do it," he said viciously; "I won't ·
do it. I'm good enough as I am." .
"Very well," said his mother firmly, "at the end of the
week, no penny for your Boys of London and New York.
Remember, no lessons, no penny for your paper."
Johnny was beaten. He'd as lief lose his life as lose
the stories of Old King Brady, the Wonder Detective,
Red Eagle, the Ffi.end of the Palefaces, or From Bootblack
to Broker, the story of business life in New York, all of
which his mother helped him to read when he brought the
paper home. ·
After Ella had read the big words for him, he put on
his cap, and sauntered gloomily off to where there was
a strip of waste ground near the railway, covered with
coarse grass, dandelions, _daisies, dead nettles, plantains,
rag-worts, and odd scarlet pimpernel, and patches of
scarlet poppies. Choosing a fair spot of grass,. bordered
with poppies and daisies, he sat down, opened his books,
watched, for a moment, bees busy in a clump of clover;
and then began his studies.
77
 Grammar, he tried to read, is the art of speaking, read-
ing and writing the English language correctly. It is
divided into four parts, namely, Orthography, Etymology,
Syntax, and Prosody. Orthography deals with the art
of spelling; Etymology with the origin and derivation
of words; Syntax with the proper construction of senten-
ces; and Prosody with the laws and rules of poethry.
"Curse o'God on it!" he muttered, "isn't it terrible!"
He opened the Reading Book, and found that Ella
had marked the first few verses of The Brook, by Tennyson.
"Who the hell's Tennyson? " he asked himself, as he
slowly recited:
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
"Coot an' hern," he murmured; "I wondher what they
are? Must be some kinda birds, ma says; but what kinda
birds?" He knew well the kinda birds sparrows were; not
worth a tuppenny damn, for even Jesus said that two of
them were sold in Jerusalem for a farthing; indeed, you
wouldn't get even that for a dozen of them in Dublin.
He had seen a redpoll, a green linnet, a thrush, a blackbird,
and a goldfinch, all in cages; the.y were all the birds he
had seen so far; but he had never even heard of a coot or
a hern. But this kinda mopin'll never get on with the work;
and he started to recite again:
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Phi lip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
"Only one more verse," murmured Johnny, "only one
more river to cross."
I chatther over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
Sharps an' threbles -~hat did they mean? He knew
that to be sharp meant to have an edge on anything that
would cut, if you weren't careful; but what had sharp
78
to do with the running water of a brook? And what was
a threble? He sighed. The useless and puzzlin' things they
made him learn. He knew what the sea was, because he had
seen it at Sandymount. And a river, too, for one flowed
through the city. What was the use of askin' him to learn
what things were when he knew what they were already?
But what about their own river, the Liffey? Where did
it make its start? No one could tell him. His mother didn't
know; Ella didn't know; Archie didn't know. Somewhere
or another, was all they could say. Didn't he know that
himself! An' they're cross with you over something you
don't know, an' just as cross when you ask them something
they don't know themselves.- Take the Tolka. That was
called a river, yet it was only the size of a brook, for he
had paddled in it, and had filled a jar with miimows out
of it. Yet it was the river Tolka. Puzzle, puzzle, puzzle.
Of course he remembered the time it flooded the rotting
little white-washed cottages on its bank, and swept away
swift the statue of the Blessed Virgin standing in the muddy
space beside the river. The statue had floated back again
against the flow, like bread cast upon the waters,· return-
ing after many days, and stayed floating beside the hou-
ses, till it was taken up, cleaned, painted blue and white,
and put back on its pedestal again. Yes, when it was in
flood, the Tolka was a river; but every other time, it was
only a brook.
A slender shadow fell across the poppies and the daisies.
J ohnny looked up, and saw J ennie Cltheroe standing beside
him. Each eyed the other for a few moments, shyly, in
silence.
"Just comin' from school?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered, "just back from school. What are
you doin' with the school books?"
"Just havin' a little look at them."
She made a place beside the poppies, passed a hand
along her skirt to tuck it in, sat down beside him, and
fingered the books.
"Oh, I'm in the fifth standard, now," she said, "and
I passed out of these years ago. I'm learnin' Euclid an'
everything."
J ohnny gathered the books up and stuffed them into
his pocket.
"Y' know the river Liffey?" he asked.
"'Course I do."
79
 "Well, where does it start 'from?"
"How where does it start from?" she asked vaguely.
"Where does it begin; where can you find it a thfickle
before it swells into a river?"
"It's not mentioned in any of my books," said Jennie,
"so it mustn't much matter. D'ye know yourself?"
"'Course I do." ~
"Where does it stmt, then?"
"Ah," said Johnny mockingly, "let the great scholar
go an' find out."
Jennie picked a daisy, and began to pluck the petals
off, one by one, murmuring, "this year, next year, sometime,
never; this year, next year, sometime, never; this year -"
and she let the last petal fall on the grass. ·
"This year, what?" he asked.
"''m goin' to be married," she said roguishly.
"Who'r you goin' to marry?"
"Ah," she said mockingly, "let the great scholar go an'
guess."
He caught her by the shoulders, and pulled her back
towards him.
''Tell me who'r you goin' to marry, or I'll hold you
like this forever."
"You couldn't hold me a second longer, if I thried to
break away," she said defiantly.
He pulled her back till her brown curls were pressed
against his chest, and her deep brown eyes were looking
up into his.
"You just thry to get away," he mocked.
She moved, but put no big effort into it, and then lay
quiet, looking up into his face, smiling. Suddenly he bent
down and kissed her twice hard on the mouth. Then he
shoved her away in sudden shame, his face flushing. He
jumped up and made off through the poppies and dead
nettles, frightened at what he had done.
"I'll tell me mother," she cried out after him.
"Tell her, then," he said defiantly, looking back at her,
still sitting among the poppies, with a white butterfly
fluttering near her. "I don't care whether you do or no."
Girls tell their mothers everything, he thought, resent-
fully, as he walked away. Why did she let him kiss her,
anyway? She could easily have broken away, if she wanted.
She was more to blame, really, than I was. Oh, let her
tell, if she likes.
80
 He took the Reading Lesson-book out of his pocket,
opened it, and recited:-
! chatther, chatther as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come, and men may gCY,
But I go on for ever.
Well, he'd learned poethry and had kissed a girl. If
he hadn' gone to school, he'd met the scholars; if he hadn'
gone into the house, he had knocked at the door..

TASKS

1. Read the text closely; discuss its plot in accordance

with the following:
a) What were Mother's and Ella's views concerning
J ohnny and his education?
b) What method of making Johnny study have the two
developed?
c) How and where did Johnny learn his lessons? Repro-
duce the scenery and comment on it.
d) What did Johnny wonder at when he was learning
the poem by Tennyson? (Learn the poem yourself.)
2. Whose point of view does the narrator represent? How
is it revealed?
3. What is the emotional atmosphere of the chapter? What
details of speech, action and scenery go to convey it?
Speak in this connection on the function of dialect idio-
syncrasies found in the text.
4. Dwell on the last paragraph ofthe chapter, on themes-
sage conveyed by the antithesis: "If he hadn' ·gone to
school, he'd met the scholars; if he hadn' gone into the
house, he had knocked at the door."
Interpret the title of the chapter (and of the volume)
in this connection.
5. What image of J ohnny has formed itself in your mind
on your reading the chapter. (Express it in a page-long
statement.)
TRIBUTE
by ~lfred Coppard

["Tribute" is written in the genre of pamphlet, a type of literary

composition in which some social evil is exP-osed and satirized. Con-
trast is the underlying device upon which 'Tribute" is built. Observe
'
81
its manifestations when you read the story; the following tasks may
serve you as a guide.]
Two honest young men lived in Braddle, worked together
at the spinning mills at Braddle, and courted the same girl
in the town of Braddle, a girl named Patience who was
poor and pretty. One of them, Nathan Regent, who wore
cloth uppers to his best boots, was steady, silent, and digni-
fied, but Tony Vassal!, the other, was such a happy-go-lucky
fellow that he soon carried the good will of Patience in
his heart, in his handsome face, in his pocket at the end
of his nickel watch chain, or wherever the sign of requited
love is carried by the happy lover. The virtue of steadiness,
you see, can be Jlleasured only by the years, and thus Tony
had put such a hurry into the tender bosom of Patience;
siknoe may very well be golden, but it is a currency not
easy to negotiate in the kingdom of courtship; dignity is
so much less than simple faith that it is unable to move
even one mountain, it charms the hearts only of bank mana-
gers and bishops.
So Patience married Tony Vassall and Nathan turned
his attention to other things, among them to a girl who
had a neat little fortune- and Nathan married that.
Braddle is a large gaunt hill covered with dull little
houses, and it has flowing from its side a stream which
feeds a gigantic and beneficent mill. Without that mill -
as everybody in Braddle knew, for it was there that every-
body in Braddle worked - the heart of Braddle would cease
to beat. Tony went on working at the mill. So did Nathan
in a way, but he had a cute ambitious wife, and what with
her money and influence he was soon made a manager of
one of the departments. Tony went on working at the mill.
In a few more years Nathan's steadiness so increased
his opportunities that he became joint manager of the whole
works. Then his colleague died; he was appointed sole mana-
ger, and his wealth became so great that eventually Nathan
and Nathan's wife bought the entire concern. Tony went
on working at the mill. He now had two sons and a daughter,
Nancy, as well as his wife Patience, so that even his posses-
sions may be said to have increased although his position
was 110 different from what it had been fortwenty years.
Tlw Rt>gents, now living just outside Braddle, had one
clllld, 11 dalllo(lltPr n<ll1it'd Olive, of the same age as Nancy.
Sll,. ww, vny bl'nlltiflll and had been educated at a school
lu wl11ch "Ill' llltll' u11 u bicycle until she was eighteen.
/1'}
 About that time, you must know, the country .embarked
upon a- disastrous campaign, a war so calamitous that every
sacrifice was demanded of Braddle. The Braddle mills
were worn from their very bearings by their colossal ef-
forts, increasing by day or by night, to provide what were
called the sinews of war. Almost everybody in Braddle grew
white and thin and sullen with the strain of constant labour.
Not quite everybody, for the Regents received such a vast
increase of wealth that their eyes sparkled; they scarcely
knew what to do with it; their faces were neither white
nor sullen.
"In times like these," declared Nathan's wife, "we must
help our country still more, still more we must help; let
us lend our money to the country."
"Yes," said Nathan.
So the'y lent their money to their country. The country
paid them tribute, and therefore, as the Regents' wealth
continued to flow in, they he! ped their country more and
more; they even lent the tribute back to the country and
received yet more tribute for that.
"In times like these," said the country, "we must have
more men, more men we must have." And so Nathan went
and sat upon a Tribunal; for, as everybody in· Braddle
knew, if the mills of Braddle ceased to grind, the heart of
Braddle would cease to beat.
"What can we do to help our country?" asked Tony Vas-
sail· of his master, "we have no money to lend."
"No?" was the reply. "But you can give your strong son
Dan."
Tony gave his son Dan to the country.
"Good-bye, dear son," said his father, and his brother
and his sister Nancy said "Good-bye." His mother kissed
him.
Dan was killed in battle; his sister Nancy took his
place at the mill.
In a little while the neighbours said to Tony Vassall:
"What a fine strong son is your young Albert Edward!"
And Tony gave his son Albert Edward to the country.
"Good-bye, dear s.on," said his father; his sister kissed
him, his mother wept on his breast.
Albert Edward was killed in battle; his mother took
his place at the mill.
But the war did not cease; though friend and foe alike
were almost drowned in blood it seemed as powerful as
83
eternity, and in time Tony Vassall too went to battle and
was killed. The country gave Patience a widow's pension,
as well as a touching inducement to marry again; she died
of grief. Many people died in those days, it was not strange
at all. Nathan and his wife got so rich that after the war
they died of over-eating, and their daughter Olive came
into a vast fortune and a Trustee.
The Trustee went on lending the Braddle money to the
country, the country went on sending large sums of inter-
est to Olive (which was the country's tribute to her because
of her parents' unforgotten, and indeed unforgettable,
kindness), while Braddle went on with its work of enabling
the country to do this. For when the war came to an end
the country told Braddle that those who had not given their
lives must now turn to and really work, work harder than
before the war, much, much harder, or the tribute could
not be paid and the heart of Braddle would therefore cease
to b_eat. Braddle folk saw that this was true, only too
true, and they did as they were told.
The Vassail girl, Nancy, married a man who had done
deeds of valour in the war. He was a mill hand like her
father, and they had two sons, Daniel and Albert Edward.
Olive married a grand man, though it was true he was not
very grand to look at. He had a small sharp nose, but that
did not matter very much because when you looked at him
in profile his bouncing red cheeks quite hid the small ·
sharp nose, as completely as two hills hide a little barn in
a valley. Olive lived in a grand mansion with numerous
servants who helped her to rear a little family of one, a girl
named Mercy, who also had a small sharp nose and round
red cheeks.
Every year after the survivors' return from the war
Olive gave a supper to her workpeople and their families,
hundreds of them; for six hours there would be feasting and
toys, music and dancing. Every year Olive would make
a little speech to them all, reminding them all of their
duty to Braddle and Braddle's duty to the country, although,
indeed, she did not remind them of the country's tribute
to Olive. That was perhaps a theme unfitting to
touch upon, it would have been boastful and quite unbe-
coming.
'These are grave times for our country," Olive would
declare, year after year; "her responsibilities are enormous,
we lllttst all put our shoulders to the wheel."
84
 Every year one of the wor¥men would make a little
speech in reply, thanking Olive for enabling the heart
of Braddle to continue its beats, calling down the spiritual
blessings of heaven and the golden blessings of the world
upon Olive's golden head. One year the honour of replying
fell to the husband of Nancy, and he was more than usually
eloquent for on that very day their two sons had commenced
to doff bobbins at the mill. No one applauded louder than
Nancy's little Dan or Nancy's Albert Edward, unless·
it was Nancy herself. Olive was always much moved on
these occasions. She felt that she did not really know these
people, that she would never know them; she wanted to go
on seeing them, being with them, and living with rapture
in their workaday world. But she did not do this.
"How beautiful it all is!" she would sigh to her daughter,
Mercy, who accompanied her. "I am so happy. All these
dear people are being cared for by us, just simply us.
God's scheme of creation- you see- the Almighty-
we are his agents- we must always remember that: It goes
on for years, years upon years it goes on. It will go on, of
course, yes, for ever; the heart of Braddle will not cease
to beat. The old ones die, the young grow old, the children
mature and marry and keep the mill going. When I am ~
dead ... "
"Mamma, mamma!"
"0, yes, indeed, one day! Then you will have to look
after all these things, Mercy, and you will talk to them-
just like me. Yes, to own the mill is ~ grave and difficult
thing, only those who owri them know how grave and diffi-
cult; it calls forth all one's deepest and rarest qualities;
but it is a divine position, a noble responsibility. And the
people really love me- I think."

TASKS
1. Pick out and comment on the words that characterize:
a) Nathan Regent; b) Tony Vassall at the time they
were young and courted the same girl.
Interpret the following senterrce: "So Patience married
Tony Vassall and Nathan turned his attention to other.
things, among them to a girl who had a neat little for-
tune- and Nathan married that." Indicate the case
of metonomy contained in the sentence and speak on
its meaning.
85
2. Describe Nathan's career after he had married a neat
little fortune. What was the life Tony lived at the time?
What recurrent phrase speaks of his way of living? What
meaning is conveyed by this recurrent phrase?
3. Speak of the two families during the war. Pay attention
to the word tribute as it first appears in the story and
after. Comment on its connotation.
4. Indicate the figures of speech contained in the sentence:
"The country gave Patience a widow's pension, as well
as a touching inducement to marry again; she died of
grief." Speak on their connotations.
5. Pick out sentences which show how Olive spoke to and
of her workmen. Evaluate her manner of speaking.
Nameand speak on the effect of the figures of speech
contained in the following sentence: "She felt that she
really didn't know these people, that she would never
know them; she wanted to go on seeing them, being with
them, and living with rapture in their workaday world.
But she did not do this."
6. Write out sentences and phrases which seem to you to be
especially sarcastic. Observe the tropes and figures of
speech contained in them. Which of them do you find
recurring in the text? Enumerate them and interpret
their effect.
7. What are the dictionary meanings of the words vassal
and regent? What do the respective names of the two
men imply? ·
8. Make a page-long statement of what you think the
author satirizes in his. pamphlet. Interpret the title
in this connection.

TIMEOF HOPE

Chapter 5
A TEN-SHILLING NOTE
IN FRONT OF THE CLASS
by Charles P. Snow

[Bitter ethical and moral conflicts constitute t~e core of C. ~· Snow's

numerous novels. This, as well as very penetratmg psychologtca~ anal-
ysis, clarity and elegant neatness of diction are main attracttons of
C. P. Snow's works.] ·
86
 [. .. ] The incident of the subscription list took place in
November, a couple of months after I first attended the
school. Each boy in each form had been asked to make
a donation to the school munitions fund. The headmaster
had explained how, if we could only give sixpence, we
should be doing our bit; all the money would go straight
to buy shells for what the headmaster called 'the 1918
offensive - the next big push'.
I reported it all to my mother. I asked her what we
could afford to give.
"We can't afford much really, dear," said my mother,
looking upset, preoccupied, wounded. "We haven't got
much to spare at the end of the week. I know that you've
got to give something."
It added to her worries. As she had said before, she was
not going 'to have me suffer by the side of the other boys'.
"How much do you think they'll give, Lewis?" she in-
quired. "I mean, the boys from nice homes."
I made some discreet investigations, and told her that
most of my form would be giving half a crown or five shil-
lings.
She pursed her lips.
"You needn't bother yourself, dear," she said. "I'm
not going to have you feel out of it. We can do as well
as other people."
She was not content with doing 'as well as other people'.
Her imagination had been fired. She wanted me to give
more than anyone in the form. She told herself that it
would establish a position for me, it would give me a good
start. She liked to feel that we could 'still show we were
someone'. And she was patriotic and war-like, and had
a strong sense of wartime duty; though most of all she want-
ed me to win favour and notice, she also got satisfaction
from 'buying shells', from taking part in the war at sec-
ond-hand.
She skimped my father's food and her own, particularly
hers, for several weeks. After a day or two my father no-
ticed, and mildly grumbled. He asked if the rations were
reduced so low as this. No, said my mother, she was saving
up for the st1bscription list at school.
"I hope you don't have many subscriptions," said my
father to me. "Or I expect she'll starve me to death."
He clowned away, pretending that his trousers had
inches to spare round his middle.
87
 "Don't be such a ·donkey, Bertie," said my mother
irritably.
She kept to her intention. They went without the small
luxuries that she had managed to preserve, through war,
through the slow grind of growing poverty - the glass
of stout on Saturday night, the supper of fish and chips
(fetched, for propriety's sake, by Aunt Milly's maid),
the jam at breakfast. On the morning when we had to
deliver our subscriptions, my mother handed me a new
ten-shilling note. I exclaimed with delight and pressed
the crisp paper against the tablecloth. I had never had
one in my possession before.
"Not many of them will do better than that," said my
mother contentedly. "Remember that before the war I
should have given you a sovereign. I \vant you to show
them that we've still got our heads above water."
Under the gaslight, in the early morning, the shadow
of my cup was blue on the white cloth. I admired the ten-
shilling note, I admired the blue shadows, I watched the
shadows of my own hands. I was thanking my mother;
I was flooded with happiness and triumph. .
"I shall want to hear everything they say," said my
mother. "They'll be a bit flabbergasted, won't they? They
won't expect anyone to give what you're giving. Please
to remember everything they say."
I was lit up with anticipation as the tramcar clanged
and swayed into the town. Mist hung over the country
ground, softened the red brick of the little houses by the
jail; in the.mist -not fog, but the clean autumnal mist-
the red brick, though softened, seemed at moments to leap
freshly on the eye. It was a morning nostalgic, tangy, and
full of well-being.
In the playground, when we went out for the eleven-
o'clock break, the sun was shining. Our subscriptions were
to be collected immediately afterwards; as the bell jan-
gled, my companions and I made our way chattering through
the press of boys to the room where we spent most of our
lessons.
Mr Peck came in. He taught us algebra and geometry;
he was a man about fifty-five who had spent his whole
life at the school; he was bald, fresh-skinned, small-fea-
tured, constant.ly smiling. He lived in the next suburb
beyond ours, and occasionally he was sitting in the tramcar
when I got on.
88
 Some boy had written a facetious word on the blackboard.
Peck smiled deprecatingly, a little threateningly, and
rubbed out the chalkmarks. He turned to us, still smiling.
"Well," he said, ''the first item on the programme is
to see how much this form is going to contribute to make
the world safe for democracy." There was a titter; he had
won his place long ago as a humorist.
"If any lad gives enough," he said, "I dare say we shall
be prepared to let him off all penalties 'for the rest of the
term. That is known as saving your bacon."
Another titter.
"Well," he went on, "I don't suppose for a moment that
you want to turn what you are pleased to call your minds
to the problems of elementary geometry. However, it is
my unfortunate duty to make you do so without un_-
necessary delay. So we will dispose of this financial trib-
ute as soon as we decently can. I will call out your names
from the register. Each lad will stand up to answer his
name, announce his widow's mite, and bring the cash up
here for me to receive. Then the last on the list can add
up the total and sign it, so <;~s to certify that I haven't run
away with the money."
Peck smiled more broadly, _and we all grinned in re-
turn. He began to read out the names. The new boys were
divided in to forms by a I phabeiical order, and ours ran
from A to H.
"Adniit.." "Two shillings, sir." The routine began, Ad-
nitt walked to the front of the class and put his money on
the desk. I was cherishing my note under the lid of the
desk; my heart thudded with joyful excitement. "Aldwin-
ckle." "Two and sixpence." "Brookman." "Nothing,"
Brookman was a surly, untidy boy, who lived in the
town's one genuine slum. Peck stared at him, still smil-
ing. "You're not interested in our little efforts, my friend?"
said Peck.
Brookman did not reply. Peck stared at him, began
another question, then shrugged his shoulders and pa~sed
on.
"Buckley." "A shilling." "Cann." "Five shillings." The
form cheerfully applauded. "Coe." "A shilling." "Cotery."
"Three shillings and twopence." There was laughter;
Jack Cotery was an original; one could trust him not to
behave like anyone else. "Dawson." "Half a crown." There
were several other D's, all giving between a shilling and
89
three shillings. "Eames." "Five shillings." Applause. My
name came next. As soon as Peck called it out, I was on my
feet. "Ten shillings, sir." I could not damp a little stress
upon the ten. The class stamped their feet, as I went be-
tween the desks and laid the note among the coins in front
of Peck.
I had just laid the note down, when Peck said:
"That's quite a lot of money, friend Eliot." I smiled
at him, full of pleasure, utterly unguarded; but at his next
remark the smile froze behind my lips and eyes.
"I wonder you can afford it," said Peck. "I wonder you
don't feel obliged to put it by towards your father's debts."
It was cruel, casual, and motiveless. It was a motive-
less malice as terrifying for a child to know as his first
knowledge of adult lust. It ravaged me with sickening
shameful agony- and, more violently, I was shaken with
anger, so that I was on the point of seizing the note and
tearing it in pieces before his eyes.
"Let me give you a piece of advice, my friend," said
Peck, complacently. "It will be to your own advantage
in the long run. You're a bright lad, aren't you? I'm think-
ing of your futur.e, you know. That's why I'm giving
you a piece of advice. It isn't the showy things that are
most difficult to do, Eliot. It's just plodding away and
doing your duty and never getting thanked for i t - that's
the test for bright lads like you. You just bear my words
in mind."
Somewhere in the back of consciousness I knew that
the class had been joining in with sycophantic giggles.
As I turned and met their eyes on my way back, they were
a little quieter. But they giggled again when Peck said:
"Well, I shall soon have to follow my own advice and
plod away and do my duty and never get thanked for it -
by teaching a class of dolts some geometrical propositions
they won't manage to get into their thick heads as long
as they live. But I must finish the colledion:first. All con-
trib.utions thankfully received. Fingleton." "Two shil-
lings, sir." "Frere." "A shi 11 ing."
I watched and listened through a sheen of rage and
misery.
At the end of the morning, Jack Cotery spoke to me
in the playground. He was a lively, active boy, short but
muscular, with the eyes of a comedian, large, humorous,
and sad.
90
 "Don't mind about Pecky," he said with good nature
and a light heart.
"I don't mind a scrap."
"You were as white as a sheet. I thought you were
going to howl." .
I did not swear as some of the boys in the form habit-
ually did; I had been too finically brought up. But at
that moment all my pain, anger, and temper exploded
in a screaming oath.
Jack Cotery was· taken aback. "Keep your shirt on,"
he said. ·
On the way to the tram stop, where we travelled in
different directions, he could not resist asking me: "Is
your old man in debt, really?" ·
"In a way," I said, trying to shield the facts, not to tell
an actual lie- wanting both to mystify and to hide my
own misery."In a way. It's all very complicated, it's a mat-
ter of- petitions," I added, as impressively as I could,
"It's been in the solicitor's hands."
"I'm glad mine's all right," said Jack Cotery, impressive
in his turn. "Of course, I could have brought a lot more
money this morning. My old man is making plenty, though
he doesn't always let on. He'd have given me a pound
if I'd asked him. But"--,- Jack Cotery whispered and his
eyes g\owed- "I'm keeping it in reserve for something
else." ·
· When I arrived home, my mother was waiting for me
with an eager question. _ .
"What did they think of your subscription, dear?"
"All right," I said. . .
"Did anyone give more th.an ten shillings?"
"No. Not in our form."
My mother drew herself up and nodded her head: "Was
ours the highest?"
"Oh, yes."
"What was the next highest?"
"Five shillings," I said.
·"Twice as much," said my mother, smiling and grati-
fied. But she was perceptive; she had an inkling of some-
thing wrong.
"What did they say, though, dear?"
"They thanked me, of course."
"Who was the master who took it?" she asked.
·"Mr. Peck." ·
91
 "Was he pleased with you?"
"Of course he was," I said flatly.
"I want to hear everything he said," said my mother,
half· in vanity, half trying to reach my trouble.
"I can't now, Mother. I want to get back early. I'll
tell you everything tonight."
,"I don't think that's very grateful of you," said my
mother. "Considering what I did to find you all that mon-
ey. Don't you think I deserve to be told all about it now?"
"I'll tell you everything tonight."
"Please not to worry yourself if it's too much trouble,"
she said ha)Jghtily, feeling that I was denying her love.
"It's not too much trouble, Mother. I'll tell you to-
night," I said, not knowing which way to turn.
I did not go straight home from school that evening.
Instead, I walked by myself a long way round by the
canal; the mist was rising, as fresh and clean as .that
morning's mist; but as it swirled round the bridges and
\varehouses and the trees by the waterside, it no longer
exalted me. I was inventing a story, walking that long
way home through the mist, which would content my
mother. Of how Mr. Peck had said my contribution was
an exa·mple to the form, of how he had told other masters,
of how someone said that my parents were public-spir-
ited. I composed suitable speeches. I had enough sense
of reality to make them sound plausible, and to add one
or two disparaging remarks from envious form-mates.
I duly repeated that fiction to my mother. ·Nothing
could remove her disappointment. She had thought me
inconsiderate and heartless, imd now, if she believed
at all, she felt puzzled, cast-off, and only a little flattered.
I thought that I was romancing simply to save her from
a bitter degradation. Yet I should have brought her more
love if I had told her the truth. It would have been more
loving to let her take an equal share in that day's suffer-
ing. That lie showed the flaw between us.

TASKS
1. Discuss the conflict presented in the extract in accord-,
ance with the following.
a) What had moved Lewis' mother to give her son a ten-
shilling note to donate, the sum she could not very
well afford? Pick out and use in your statement words
 and expressions that speak of her reaction to the
news about the donation to be made.
b) What was the attitude of Lewis' classmates to the
munitions fund subscription? Gather and reproduce
the details that show this attitude.
c) What were Lewis' anticipations in regards to the
donation he was about to make? Mark down and
reproduce in your statement the various qualifying
nouns and verbs that describe Lewis' anticipation.
d) Why did he take Mr. Peck's words "I wonder you
can afford it. I wonder you don't feel obliged to put
it by towards your father's debts" as "cruel, casual,
and motiveless"?
e) Why did Lewis compose a fictitious story to his
mother about hew his subscription was accepted?
How do you urderstand the sentence "That lie
showed the flaw between us"?
2. What impression of Lewis' mother, Mr. Peck and Lewis
himself have you gathered? Find adjectives to character-
ize each of them.
3. Express the underlying thought of the extract in a ha)f-
page statement.
4.'"" Who is the narrator of the episode? Does the time of
narration coincide with the time of action? Prove your
point, the character of word-choice and syntax may be
yoHr guide. Do the following tasks in this connection.
a) Make a list of the words found in the extract which de-
note: I) social position; 2) satisfaction; 3) anger; 4) frus-
tration. Comment on the number, stylistic and emotive
qualities of the words within each of the groups. Indicate
synonymous pairs and triplets. .
b) Pick out epithets, metaphors and similes found in
the extract and comment on their nature. Are such meta-
phors as "I -was flooded with happiness" original or trite?
Do they.paint a picture of the object spoken of or serve as
emotional intensifiers?
c) Observe the cases of gradation, parallel construc-
tions and repetition. Comment on their effect.

SPECIAL DUTIES
by Graham Greene
[G. Greene is seldom quite obvious in transmitting his message to the
reader. He lets his characters act and reveal themselves, himself remain·
ing seemingly detached and non·committal. This depictive manner
' 93
 accounts for the fact why meaning in Greene's works never lies on the
surface. Plot-structure, composition, imagery and word-choice
each beside its surface meaning possesses an implied meaning which
together with the surface meaning and the implied meaning of a)!
other components of the work convey the author's message. It takes
an effort on the part o! the reader to see the double semantics of the
work, but all the greater is his enjoyment when the implied meaning
gradually opens up to him.]
\Villia_m Ferraro, of Ferraro & Smith, lived in a great
house in Montagu Square. One wing was occupied by his
wife, who believed herself to be an invalid and obeyed
strictly the dictate that one should live every day as if
itwere one's last. For this reason her wing for the last ten
years had invariably housed some Jesuit or Dominican
.priest with a taste for good wine and whisky and an emer-
gency bell in his bedroom. Mr. Ferraro looked after his
salvation in more independent fashion. He retained the
firm grasp on practical affairs that had enabled his grand-
father, who had been a fellow exile with Mazzini, to found
the great business of Ferraro and Smith in a foreign land .
. God has made man in his image, and it was not unreason-
able for Mr. Ferraro to return the compliment and to re-
gard God as the director of some supreme business which
yet depended for certain of its operations on Ferraro &
Smith. The strength of a chain is in its weakest link, and
Mr. Ferraro did not forget his responsibility.
Before leaving for his office at 9.30 Mr. Ferraro as a
matter of courtesy would telephone to his wife in the other
wing. "Father Dewes speaking," a voice would say.
"How is my wife?"
"She passed a good night."
The conversation seldom varied. There had been a time
when father Dewes' predecessor made an attempt to bring
Mr. and Mrs. Ferraro into a closer relationship, but he had
desisted when he realized how hopeless his aim was, and
how on the few occasions when Mr. Ferraro dined with
them in the other wing an inferior claret was served at table
and no whisky was drunk before dinner.
Mr. Ferraro, having telephoned from his bedroom, where
he took his breakfast, would walk rather as God walked
in the Garden, through his library lined with the correct
classics and his drawing-room, on the walls of which hung
one of the most expensive art collections in private hands.
Where one man would treasure a single Degas, Renoir,
Cezanne, Mr. Ferraro bought whe>lesale- he had six
94
 Renoirs, four Degas, five Cezannes. He never tired of their
presence, they represented a substantial saving in death
duties.
On this particular Monday morning it was also May
the first. The sense of spring had come punctually to Lon-
don and the sparrows were noisy in the dust. Mr. Ferraro
too was punctual, but unlike the seasons he was as reliable
as Greenwich· time. With his confidential secretary -
a man called Hopkinson - he went through the schedule
for the day. It was not very onerous, for Mr. Ferraro had
the rare quality of being able to delegate responsibility.
He did this the more readily because he was accustomed
to make unexpected checks, and woe betide the employee
who failed him. Even his doctor had to submit to a sudden
countercheck from a rival consultant. "I think," he said
to Hopkinson, "this afternoon I will drop in to Christie's
and see how Maverick is getting on." (Maverick was em-
ployed as his agent in the purchase of pictures.) What better
could be done on a fine May afternoon than check on Mave-
rick? He added, "Send in Miss Saunders", and drew for-
ward a personal file which even Hopkinson was not al-
lowed to handle.
Miss Saunders moused in. She gave the impression of
moving close to the ground. She was about thirty years
old with indeterminate hair and eyes of a startling clear
blue which gave her otherwise anonymous face a resem-
blance to a holy statue. She was described in the firm's
books as "assistant confidential secretary" and her duties
were "special" ones. Even her qualifications were special:
she had been head girl at the Convent of Saint Latitudi-
naria, Waking, where she had won in three successive years
the special prize for piety- a little triptych of Our Lady
with a background of blue silk, bound in Florentine leather
and supplied by Burns Oates & Washbourne. She also had
a long record of unpaid service as a Child of Mary.
"Miss Saunders," Mr. Ferraro said, "I find no account
here of the indulgences to be gained in June."
"I have it here, sir. I was late home last night as the
plenary indulgence at St. Etheldreda's entailed the Sta-
tions of the Cross."
She laia a typed list on Mr. Ferraro's desk: in the first
column the date, in the second the church or place of pil-
grimage where the indulgence was to be gained, and in
the third column in red ink the number of days saved from
95
temporal punishments of Purgatory. Mr. Ferraro read it
careful! y.
"I get the impression, Miss Saunders," he said, "that
you are spending too much time on the lower brackets.
Sixty days here, fifty days there; Are you sure you are
not wasting your time on these? One indulgence of 300
days will compensate for many such. I noticed just now
that your estimate for May is lower than your April figures
and your estimate for June is nearly down to the N1arch
level. Five plenary incl'ttlgences and 1,565 days - a very
good April work. I don't want you to slacken off."
"April is a very good month for indulgences, sir. There
is Easter. In May we can depend only on the fact that i't
is Our Lady's month. Ju_ne is not very fruitful, except at
Corpus Christi. You will notice a liitle Polish church in
Cambridgeshire ... "
"As long as you remember, Miss Saunders, that none of
us is getting younger. I put a great deal of trust in you,
Miss Saunders. If I were less occupied here, I could attend
to some of these indulgences myself. You pay great atten-
tion, I hope, to the conditions."
"Of course I do, Mr. Ferraro."
"You are always careful to be in a State of Grace?"
Miss Saunders lowered her eyes. "That is not very
difficult in my case, Mr. Ferraro."
"What is your programme today?"
"You have it there, Mr. Ferraro."
"Of course. St. Praxted's, Canon Wood. That is rather
a long way to go. You have to spend the whole afternoon·
on a mere sixty days' indulgence?"
"It was all I could find for today. Of course there are
always the plenary indulgences at the Cathedral. But I know
how you feel about not repeating during the same month."
"My only point of superstition," Mr. Ferraro said. "It
has no basis, of course, in the teaching of the Church."
"You wouldn't like an occasional repetition for a member
of your family, Mr. Fen·aro, your wife ... "?"
"We are taught, Miss Saunders, to pay first attention
to our own souls. My wife should be looking after her own
indulgences- she has an excellent Jesuit adviser, I
employ you to look after mine."
"You have no objection to Canon Wood?"
"If it is really the best you can do. So long as it does
not involve overtime."
96
 ''Oh no, Mr. Fertaro. A decade of the Rosary, that's all."
After an -early lunch- a simple one in a City chop-
house which concluded with some Stilton and a glass of
·excellent port- Mr. Ferraro visited Christie's. Maverick
was .satisfactorily on the spot and Mr. Ferraro did not
bother to wait for the Bonnard and the Mallet which his
agent had advised him to buy. The day remained warm
and sunny, but there were confused sounds from the direc-
tion of Trafalgar Square which reminded Mr. Ferraro that
it was Labour Day. There was something inappropriate
to the sun and the early flowers under the park trees in
these processions of men without ties carrying dreary ban-
ners covered with bad lettering. A desire came to Mr.
Ferraro to take a real holiday, and he nearly told his
chauffeur to drive to Richmond Park. But he always pre-
ferred, if it were possible, to combine business with plea-
sure, and it occurred to him that if he drove out now to
Canon Wood,MissSaundersshould bearrivingabout the same
time, after her lunch interval, to start the afternoon's work.
Canon Wood was one of those new suburbs built around
an old estate. The estate was now a public park, the house for-
merly famous as the home of a minor Minister who served
under Lord North at the time of the American rebellion
was now a local museum, and a street had been built on
the little windy hill-top once a· hundred-arce field: a
Charrington coal agency, the window dressed with one
large nugget in a metal basket, a Home & Colonial Stores,
an Odeon cinema, a large Anglican church. Mr. Ferraro
told his driver to ask the way to the Roman Catholic
church.
"There isn't one here," the policeman said.
"St. Praxted 's?"
"There's no such place," the policeman said.
Mr. Ferraro, like a Biblical character, felt a loosening
of the bowels.
"St. Praxted's, Canon Wood."
"Doesn't exist, sir," the policeman said. Mr. Ferraro
drove slowly back towards the City. This was the first
time he had checked on Miss Saunders - three prizes for
piety had won his trust. Now on his homeward way he
remembered that Hitler had been educated by the Jesuits,
and yet hopelessly he hoped.
In his office he unlocked the drawer and took out the
special file. Could he have mistaken Canonbury for Canon
4 B. B. COCHOBCKall 97
Wood? But he had not been mistaken, and suddenly a
terrible doubt came to him how often in the last three years
Miss Saunders had betrayed her trust. (It was after a severe
attack of pneumonia three years ago that he had engaged
her - the idea had come to him during the long insomnias
of convalescence.) Was it possible that not one of these
indulgences had been gained? He couldn't believe that.
Surely a few of that vast total of 36,892 days must still
be valid. But only Miss Saunders could tell him how many.
And what had she been doing with her office time- those
long hours of pilgrimage? She had once taken a whole
week-end at Walsingham.
He rang for Mr. Hopkinson, who could not help remark-
ing on the whiteness of his employer's face. "Are you
feeling quite well, Mr. Ferraro?"
"I have had a severe shock. Can you tell me where Miss
Saunders lives?"
"She lives with an invalid mother near Westbourne
Grove.·•·
"The exact address, please."
Mr. Fen-aro drove into the dreary waste of Bayswater:
great family houses had been converted into private hotels
or fortunately bombed into car parks. In the terraces
behind dubious girls leant against the railings, and a
street band blew harshly round a corner. Mr. Ferraro
found the house, but he could not bring himself to ring
the bell. He sat crouched in his Daimler waiting for
something to happen. Was it the intensity of his gaze that
brought Miss Saunders to an upper window, a coincidence,
or retribution? Mr. Ferraro thought at first that it was
the warmth of the day that had caused her to be so inef-
ficiently clothed; as she slid the window a little wider open.
But then an arm circled her waist, a young man's face
looked down into the street, a hand pulled a curtain across
with the familiarity of habit. It became obvious to Mr.
Ferraro that not even the conditions for an indulgence
had been properly fulfilled.
If a friend could have seen Mr. Ferraro that evening
mounting the steps of Montagu Square, he would have
been surprised at how he had aged. It was almost as though
he had assumed during the long afternoon those 36,892
days he had thought to have saved during the last three
years from Purgatory. The curtains were drawn, the lights
were on, and no doubt Father Dewes was pouring out the
98
first of his evening whiskies in the other wing. Mr. Ferraro
did not ring the bell, but let himself quietly in. The thick
carpet swallowed his footsteps like quicksand. He switched
on no lights: only a red-shaded lamp in each room had
been lit ready for his use and now ~~uided his steps. The
pictures in the drawing-room reminded him of death duties:
a great Degas bottom like an atomic explosion mush-
roomed above a bath. Mr. Ferraro passed on into the library:
the leather-bound classics reminded him of dead authors.
He sat down in a chair and a slight pain in his chest remin-
ded him of his double pneumonia. He was three years nearer
death than when Miss Saunders was appointed first. After
a long while. Mr. Ferraro knotted his fingers together in
the shape some people use for prayer. With Mr. Ferraro
it was an indication of decision. The worst was over:
time lengthened again ahead of him. He thought: "To-
morrow I will set about getting a really reliable se-
cretary."

TASKS

1. Discuss the plot of the story according to the fol-

lowing.
a) What was the nature of "special duties" Miss Saun-
ders was employed to perform? .
b) What was it about Miss Saunders that had won
Mr. Ferraro's trust?
c) How, in reality, did Miss Saunders perform her
duties?
d) What were the emotions of Mr. Ferraro when he
had found out his secretary's deceit?
2. In view of the discovery Mr. Ferraro had made what
decision do you expect him to take when you read
that: "After a long while Mr. Ferraro knotted his fingers
tog~ther in the shape some people use for prayer.
With Mr. Ferraro it was an indication of decision."?
What effect is, in this connection, produced by
the last sentence of the story: "He thought: 'To-mor-
row I will set about getting a really reliable sec-
retary."'?
3. What feature of Mr. Ferraro's does the author
suggest by concluding his story with the above-quoted
sentence?
4* 99
4. What words and phrases recur in the story? What
meaning do they convey?
5. Pick out and speak on the details that reveal Mr.
Ferraro's attitude to his wife, to his employees, to
workers in general, to his art collection, to his god
and ... to himself.
6. Characterize Mr. Ferraro's manner of speaking. What
stylistic reference, thematic bias and emotive quality
is his vocabulary marked by?
How is Mr. Ferraro's manner of speaking revealed,
only through his direct speech, or both through direct
and represented? Prove your point.
7. Speak on the implication contained in the following:
" ... he remembered that Hitler had been educated
by the Jesuits, and yet hopelessly he hoped."
8. How does Mr. Ferraro's manner of speaking as well
as his manner of reasoning revealed in the above-quoted
sentence and elsewhere characterize him?
9. What is the author's attitude to Mr. Ferraro? Does
he make his attitude quite obvious or, on the contrary,
prefers to be noncommittal? Paraphrase and comment ·
on the tone as well as on the way this tone is expressed
in the following: "God has made man in his image
and it -was not unreasonable for Mr. Ferraro to return
the compliment and to regard God as the director of
some supreme business which yet depended for certain
of its operations on Ferraro and Smith." "Mr. Ferraro
... would walk rather as God walked in the Garden,
through his library lined with the correct classics
and his drawing-room, on the walls of which hung
one of the most expensive art collections in private
hands." Also comment on the story's title.
10. Is the writer's attitude to other characters different
from his attitude to Mr. Ferraro? What is the tone.
of the few details that depict Mrs. Ferraro and her Jesuit
advisers? Pick out and comment on the tropes used
in the portrayal of Miss Saunders. What image of Miss
Saunders do those tropes suggest?
11. What can you say about the plot-structure and the
composition of the story? In what way are they sug-
gestive of the idea conveyed in the story?
12. Summarize your impressions of the story in a page-·
long written statement.

lOO
 AMERICANS IN ITALY. MR. EGLANTINE.

by Sinclair Lewis

[S. Lewis, the satirist, was an unsurpassed master of portraying

characters that represent different types of contemporary Americans.
His Babbitt, for instance, has become a byword of everything that is
ignorant and boastful, self-satisfied and money-mad. S. Lewis' sati-
rical method is largely based upon a grotesque, on a revealing detail,
overstatement, understatement, paradox and irony.]

Mr. Vernon Eglantine is thin and rather tall and as

respectable looking as an English muffin. He resembles
a professor in a five-elm college, and that is what he was
until that slight misconception of his interest in a girl
student, when the college president is said to have him
chased down the steps of Old Main and halfway to the
library. Since then, he has prepared house organs for
large and robust Cleveland farms, written verse for gree-
ting cards, and translated scandalous novels from languages
he does ndt quite understand into English, which you'd
better not understand; And for thirty years he has been a
veteran of American artistic colonies in Europe, along
with his latest wife, Mitzi, who is jolly and has large
amounts of black hair, not often washed. Verny and Mitzi
are usually shaky from ten a. m., when they rise till ten-
ten, when they have their first cognac.
They were insiders in the good old days of the Left
Bank in Paris. Ten thousand Americans lived in Pads ·
then and had their own bars and restaurants and news-
papers. There Verny added to his literary art and the art of
sponging. His speciality was ·getting the names of rich
new American arrivals )ram the local papers, calling on
these innocents to ask, with. all his skinny and storklike
solemnity, about a hypothetical uncle back home, and
gratefully inviting the· tenderfoot of the boulevards DUt
to a fat lunch. Good old Mitzi always just happened to
drop in at the restaurant and she got invited too.
Sometimes, with Verny's bright conversation and hints
. of how to see in Paris what could not be seen, the lunch
was good for a hundred-dollar touch, so thankful was the cul-
tural sucker at having this new friend to show him the
soft and dusky underside of Paris. Sometimes it was only
twenty-five- and a dollar and a half accepted cheerfully.
Anyw<\y, it was always a lunch- enough sordid solid
101
sustenance to last the Eglantines for two days, so that
they could reserve their cash for the more necessary proven-
der of grappa and brandy.
When the magnificent luncheon bill was reverently
borne in, on silver,Verny as host would look at it yawningly,
and do a skilled and professional fumble. Oh! He had left
his purse at home! Never mind; they knew and loved him
here in this brocaded restaurant, they'd take his check.
And he would actually, with the slow art of the old master,
bring out a real check book, but what do you think? All
the checks had been used up.
Sometimes the Eglantines had a quarter of an hour
of warm pleasure in watching the downfall of the sucker,
who ten days before had been a canny banker or salesman
back home. Sometimes it was only five sly, exquisite min-
utes. But always, finally, the sucker paid for the lunch.
Except that the Eglantines made it a principle that if
he had "lent" them, as it was called, over seventy-five
dollars, they themselves would pay, out of the fistful of
paper francs which Mitzi carried in her greasy black and
gold handbag.
They felt that they were spiritually soiled by having
thus to associate with American businessmen, but they
made up for it in their wonderful permanent friends of
the Latin Quarter cafes: women with faces like athletic
young men, young men with faces like petulant girls,
and all the geniuses who for ten years now had b,een writing
a non-objective free-verse play about Edgar Allan Poe.
(After 1946, this play, all the hundred lines of it so far
written, would be turned into an existentialist drama
with Lord Haw Haw as the hero.)
When War II came to make such annoying inconve-
nience to gentle people like the Eglantines, Verny and
Mitzi escaped to England, where she washed her hair
(early in 1941 it was) and he took to shaving and was
employed by the government as an expert on American
culture. Much later, they found that they should have
returned to America, for their old friend Hank Hiller,
who in Paris had never rated much higher than Anatole
France, had gone to California and founded an academy
of geniuses who stupefied America with admiration by
spelling all the five-letter words with four letters, so
that, reading them, young ladies in Bennington College
became able to shock their ex-prospector grandfathers.
102
 The Eglantines frolicked back to Paris in '47, but all
the glories of their particular France, so nicely rotting
like a decaying pear, were gone, and it was cold. They
decided to take their combination of American enterprise
and French culture to Italy, early in 1948 ..
Naturaiiy they first tried Capri, that lovely rock
island of the sirens, which ever since the Emperor Tibe-
rius has been a refuge for slightly frowsy genius. But they
discovered there much better hobohemians and cadgers
than themselves, Russians and Hungarians and Peruvians
and Javanese, and they ail spoke real spoken Italian.
Verny did not speak it, no, not enough to caii an ItaHan
pussy-cat. He merely translated from it and wrote arti-
cles on the young Italian poets. And Capri was so smaii,
with so few boats, that nasty shopkeepers could get to you
about that little matter of the five thousand lire for wine
and cheese.
They moved to the neighbouring island of Ischia, in
the Bay of Naples, where the damp brethren were gath-
ering but all of these ingrates were inclined to keep their
lire for themselves. Indignantly, they went on to Florence.
They did find, in the Camiiio and Sostenza, in Florence,
such smaii, cheap, exceiient restaurants jammed with
American art students. and Russian mystics and Italian
pianists, as in Paris had always meant pickings, but in
disgust they also found that even the most arty-looking
Anglo-Americans went regularly to church; that some of
· the English rather liked England, and some of the Ameri-
cans still hankered after ice-cream soda and Grant Wood's
paintings.
They were broke. Mitzi had to do baby-sitting for the
wife of an American vice-consul, and Verny had to go to
work and finish up his book on Romanesque Art: A Hand-
book for Normal Schools. He went so far as to walk nine
whole blocks to look at the Tuscan Gothic Church of Santa
Maria Noveiia, which was the most intensive laboratory
work he had ever done on the subject, and it took him
seven cognacs to recover. .
Then the good rumors came in. On the Ligurian coast,
below Genoa, in a 'bus-stop viilage where Ezra Pound had
once lived, robed in purple petulance, the Boys and
Girls were beginning to flutter in·, and the beautiful realm
of art freed from morals and oatmeal porridge would soon
be established again. '
103
 To this village fled Verny and Mitzi, and the first person
they saw walking down the tiny Corso was a rich arid
languorous American gent in Basque trousers and sash
and rope sandals, and with him were a young lady in
severe riding breeches and starched white shirt, and
another young lady in a smock so artistic and modern
and novel that it might have been worn by her grand-
mother, who used to be the shock of the more advanced
artistic circles in West Virginia.
The strangers and the Eglantines all looked at one
another knowlingly.
"Have a strega?" murmured the American gent.
Verny and Mitzi sighed and smiled and felt good -
like a Hemingway hero after the seventh beer, and they
knew that in Europe there would never be a time when
Americans too sensitive to cope with high schools and
tarpon fishing and gum and air-conditioning will not
be able to find somewhere an asylum where the less-
hairy Whitmans will sit together from half past ten to
two o'clock in the1morning and tell one another how superior
they are to all the Babbitts in Iowa and Ireland and Oslo
and South Uruguay.
The Eglantines are still at that village on the Italian
Riviera and every day they still say to each other, after
borrowing lunch money, "I do hope this place won't be
ruined by all these dreadful American tourists."

TASKS
1. Enumerate the different ways Mr. Eglantine used
to make his living in. ·
2. List words and phrases that belong to the thematic
group of "speciality", "skill". What meaning are these
words imbued with in the present story?
3. How did the Eglantines practise their art of sponging?
Pick out the details that show that they enjoyed that
practice.·
4. What was there .about Mr. Eglantine that could win
the trust of American tourists? Pick out sentences/phras-
es which speak of Mr. Eglantine's appearance. Comment
on their tone. ·
5. What is the author's attitude to the "artistic" set the
Eglantines were proud to associate with? Prove your
point.
104
 6. Observe how the author speaks of Mr. Eglantine's
· reluctance to do honest work. Name the figures of
speech contained in the following sentence and com-
ment on their effect: "He went so far as to walk nine
whole blocks to look at the Tuscan Church of Santa Maria
Novella, which was the most intensive laboratory
work he had ever done on the subject, and it took him
seven cognacs to recov~r." _
7. What people did the Eglantines live off? What attitude
to these people did they profess to have? How do you
understand the sentence: "The strangers and the Eglan-
tines all looked at one another knowingly."?
8. What makes the last sentence of the story "I do hope
this place won't be ruined by all these dreadful Ameri-
can tourists" sound bitterly ironical?
9. What type of Americans is depicted in the story? Write
a page-long statement on how the author depicted
the type.

THAT EVENING SUN

by William Faulkner
[With all its contradictions and distortions, mysticism and violence
W. Faulkner's total work mirrors the tragic tumult of life in the
Southern States. In his best works, such as this, W. Faulkner has
achieved an almost impossible penetration into the characters' pained
and twisted hearts. "The problems of the human heart in conflict with
itself ... alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing
about, worth the agony and the sweat." (W. Faulkner))
I
Monday is no different from any other weekday in
Jefferson now. The streets are paved now, and the telephone
and electric companies are cutting down more and more
of the shade trees - the water oaks, the maples and locusts
and elms - to make room for iron poles bearing clusters
of bloated and ghostly and bloodless grapes, and we
have a city laundry which makes the rounds on Monday
morning, gathering the bundles of clothes into bright-
coloured, specially made motor-cars: the soiled wearing
of a whole week now flees apparitjonlike behind alert
and irritable electric horns, with a long diminishing
noise of rubber and asphalt like teari'ng silk, and even
the Negro women who still take in white people's washing
after old custom, fetch and deliver it in automobiles.
105
 But fifteen years ago, on Monday morning the quiet,
dusty, shady streets would be full of Negro women with,
balanced on their steady, ·turbaned heads, . bundles of
clothes tied up in sheets, almost as large as cotton bales,
carried so without touch of hand between the kitchen door
of the white house and the blackened washpot beside a cabin
door in Negro Hollow.
Nancy would set her bundle on the top of her head,
then upon the bundle in turn she would set the black
straw sailor hat which she wore winter and summer. She
was tall, with a high, sad face sunken a little where
her teeth were missing. Sometimes we would go a part
of the way down the lane and across the pasture with her,
to watch the balanced bundle and the hat that never
bobbed nor wavered, even when she walked down into the
ditch and up the other side and stooped through the fence.
She would go down on her hands and knees and crawl
through the gap, her head rigid, uptilted, the bundle steady
as a rock or a balloon, and rise to her feet again and go on.
Sometimes the husbands of the washing women would
fetch and deliver the clothes, but Jesus never did that
for Nancy, even before Father told him to stay from our
house, even when Dilsey was sick and Nancy would come
cook for us.
And then about half the time we'd have to go down
the lane to Nancy's cabin and tell her to come on and cook
breakfast. We would stop at the ditch, because Father told
us to not have anything to do with Jesus- he was a short
black man, with a razor scar down his face- and we
would throw rocks at Nancy's house until she came to
the door, leaning her head around it without any clothes on.
• "What yawl mean, chunking my house?" Nancy said.
"What you little devils mean?''
"Father says for you to come and get breakfast," Caddy
said. "Father says it's over a half an hour now, and you've
got to come this minute."
"I ain't studying no breakfast," Nancy said. "I going
to get my sleep out."
"I bet you're drunk," Jason said. "Father says you're
drunk. Are you drunk, Nancy?" .
"Who says I is?" Nancy said. "I got to get my sleep
out. I ain't studying breakfast."
So after a while we quit chunking the cabin and went
back home. When she finally came, it was too late for
106
me to go to school. So we thought it was whisky until
that day they arrested her again and they were taking her to
jail and they passed Mr. Stovall. He was the cashier in
the bank and a deacon in the Baptist church, and Nancy
began to say:
"When you going to pay me, white man? When you
going to pay me, white man? It's been three times now
since you paid me a cent-" Mr. Stovall knocked her down,
but she kept on saying, "When you going to pay me,
white man? It's been three times now since -" until
Mr. Stovall kicked her in the mouth with his heel and
the marshal caught Mr. Stovall back, and Nancy lying
in the street, laughing. She turned her head and spat out
some blood and teeth and said, "It's been three times
now since he paid me a cent."
That was how she lost her teeth, and all that day they
told about Nancy and Mr. Stovall, and all that night
the ones that passed the jail ~ould hear Nancy singing
and yelling. They could see her hands holding to the
window bars, and a lot of them stopped along the fence,
listening to her and to the jailer trying to make her stop.
She didn't shut up until almost daylight, when the jailer
began to hear a bumping and scraping upstairs and he
went up there and found Nancy hanging from the window
bar. He said that it was cocaine and not whisky, because
no nigger would try to commit suicide unless he was full
of cocaine, because a nigger full of cocaine wasn't a nigger
any longer.
The jailer cut her down and revived her; then he beat
her, whipped her. She had hung herself with her dress.
She had fixed it all right, but when they arrested her
she didn't have on anything except a dress and so she
didn't have anything to tie her hands with and she couldn't
make her hands let go of the window ledge. So the jailer
heard the noise and ran up there and found Nancy hanging
from the window, stark naked, her belly already swelling
out a little, likea little balloon.
When Dilsey was sick in her cabin and Nancy was
cooking for us, we could see her apron swelling out; that
was before father told Jesus to stay away from the house.
Jesus was in the kitchen, sitting behind the stove, with
his razor scar on his black face like a piece of dirty string.
He said it was a watermelon that Nancy had under her
dress.
107
 "It never come off of your vine, though," Nancy said.
"Off of what vine?" Caddy said.
"I can cut down the vine it did come off of," Jesus said.
"What makes you want to talk like that before these
chillen?" Nancy said. "Whyn't you go on to work?
You done et. You want Mr. J ason to catch you hanging
around his kitchen, talking that way before these chillen?"
"Talking what way?" Caddy said. "What vine?"
"I can't hang around white man's kitchen," Jesus
said. "But white man can hang around mine. White man
can come in my house, but I can't stop him. When white
man want to come in my house, I ain't got no house. I can't
stop him, but he can't kick me outen it. He can't do that."
Dilsey was still sick in her cabin. Father told Jesus
to stay off our place. Dilsey was still sick. It was a long
time. We were in the library after supper.
"Isn't Nancy through in the kitchen yet?" Mother
said. "It seems to me that she has had plenty of time to have
finished the dishes."
"Let Quentin go and see," Father said. "Go and see if
Nancy is through, Quentin. Tell her ·she can go on
home."
I went to the kitchen. Nancy was through. The dishes
were put away and the fire was out. Nancy was sitting
in a chair, close to the cold stove. She looked at me.
' "Mother wants to know if you are through," I said.
"Yes," Nancy said. She looked at me. "I done finished."
She looked at me.
· "What is it?" I said. "What is it?"
· "I ain't nothing but a nigger," Nancy said. "It ain't
none of my fault."
She looked at me, sitting in the chair before the cold
stove, the sailor hat- on her head. I went back to the library.
It was the cold stove and all; when you think of a kitchen
being warm and busy and cheerful. And with a cold stove
and the dishes all put away, and nobody wanting to eat
at that hour. . .
"Is she through?" Mother said.
"Y essum," I said.
"What is she doing?" Mother said.
"She's not doing anything. She's through."-
"I'll go and see," Father said.
"Maybe she's waiting for Jesus to come and take her
home," Caddy said.
108
 "Jesus is gone,'' I said. Nancy told us how one morning
she woke up and Jesus was gone.
"He quit me," Nancy said. "Done gone to Memphis,
I reckon. Dodging them city police for a while, I reckon."
"And a goad riddance," Father said. "I hope he stays
there".
"Nancy's scaired of the dark," Jason said.
"So are you," Caddy said.
"I'm not," Jason said.
"Scairy cat," Caddy said.
"I'm not," Jason s.aid.
"You, Candace!" Mother said. Father came back.
"I am going to walk down· the lane with Nancy," he
said. "She says that Jesus is back."
"Has she seen him?" Mother said.
"No. Some Negro sent her word that he was back in town.
I won't be long."
"You leave me alone to take Nancy home?" Mother
said. "Is her safety more precious to you than mine?"
"I won't be long," Father said.
"You'll leave these children unprotected, with that
Negro about?"
"I'm going too," Caddy said. "Let me go, Father."
"What would he do with them, if he were unfortunate
enough to have them?" Father said.
"I want to go, too," J ason said.
"Jason!" Mother said. She was speaking to Father.
You could tell that by the way she said the name. Lil<e
she believed that all day Father had been trying to think
of doing the thing she wouldn't like the most, and that
she kl'lew all the time that after a while he would think
of it. 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.
I was the oldest. I was nine and Caddy was seven and
Jason was five.
"Nonsense," Father said. "We won't be long."
Nancy had her hat on. We came to the lane. "Jesus
always been good to me," Nancy said. "Whenever he had
two dollars, one of them was mine." We walked in the
lane. "If I can just get through the lane," Nancy said,
"I be all right then."
The lane was always dark. "This is where J ason got
scaired on Hallowe'en," Caddy said.
109
 "1 didn't,;, Jason said.
"Can't Aunt Rachel do anything witb him?" Father
said. Aunt Rachel was old. She lived in a cabin beyond
Nancy's, by herself. She had white hair and she smoked
a pipe in the door, all day long; she didn't work any more.
They said she was Jesus' mother. So~netimes she said she
was and sometimes she said she wasn't any kin to Jesus.
"Yes, you did,"Caddy said. "You were scairder than
Frony. You were scairder than T. P. even. Scairder than
niggers."
"Can't nobody do nothing with him," Nancy said.
"He say I done woke up the devil in him and ain't but
one thing going to lay it down again."
"Well, he's gone now," Father said. "There's nothing
for you to be afraid of now. And if you'd just let white
men alone."
"Let what white men alone?" Caddy said. "How let them
alone?"
"He ain't gone nowhere," Nancy said. "I can feel him.
I can feel him now, in this lane. He hearing us talk, every
word, hid somewhere, waiting. I ain't seen him, and
I ain't going to see him again but once more, with that
razor in h·is mouth. That razor on that string down his
back, inside his shirt. And then I .ain't going to be even
surprised." "I wasn't scaired," Jason said.
"If you'd behave yourself, you'd have kept out of this,"
Fath~r said. "But it's all right now. He.'s probably in
Saint Louis now. Probably got another wife by now and
forgot all about you."
"If he has, I better not find out about it," Nancy said.
"I'd stand there right over them, and every time hewropped
her, I'd cut that arm off. I'd cut his head off and I'd slit
her belly and I'd shove-"
"Hush," Father said.
"Slit whose belly, Nancy?" Caddy said.
"I wasn't scaired," Jason said. "I'd walk right down
this lane by myself."
"Yah," Caddy said. "You wouldn't dare to put your
foot down in it if we were not here too."
II
Dilsey was still sick, so we took Nancy home every
night until Mother said, "How much longer is this going on?
I to be left alone in this big house while you take home
a. frightened Negro?" . .
110
 We fixed a pallet in the kitchen for Nancy. One night
we waked up, hearing the sound. It was not singing and
it was not crying, coming up the dark stairs. There was
a light in Mother's room and we heard Father going down
the hall, down the back stairs, and Caddy and I went into
the hall. The floor was cold. Our toes curled away from
it while we listened to the sound. It was like the sounds
that Negro make.
Then it stopped and we heard Father going down
the back stairs, and we went to the head of the stairs.
Then the sound began again, in the stairway, not loud,
and we could see Nancy's eyes halfway up the stairs,
against the wall. They looked like eat's eyes do, like
a big cat against the wall, watching us. When we carpe
down the steps to where she was, she quit making the
sound again, and we stood there until Father came back
up from the kitchen, with his pistol in his hand. He went
back down with Nancy and they came back with Nancy's
pallet.
We spread the pallet in our room. After the light in
Mother's room went off, we could see Nancy's eyes again.
"Nancy," Caddy whispered, "are you asleep, Nancy?"
Nancy whispered something. It was oh or no, I don't
know which. Like nobody had made it, like it came from
nowhere and went nowhere, until it was like Nancy was
not there at all; that I had looked so hard at her eyes on
the stairs that they had got printed on my eyeballs, like
the sun does when you have closed your eyes and there
is no sun. "Jesus," Nancy whispered. "Jesus."
"Was it Jesus?" Caddy said. "Did he try to come into
the kitchen?" ·
"Jesus," Nancy said. Like this: Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus,
until the sound went out, like a match of a candle does.
"It's the other Jesus she means," I said.
"Can you see us, Nancy?" Caddy whispered. "Can you
see our eyes too?"
"I ain't nothing but a nigger," Nancy said. "God knows.
God knows."
"What did you see down there in the kitchen?" Caddy
whispered. "What tried to get in?"
"God knows," Nancy said. We could see her eyes.
"God knows."
Dilsey got well. She cooked dinner. "You'd better stay
in bed a day or two longer," Father said.
111
 ''What for?" Dilsey said. "If I had. been a day later,
this place would be to rack and ruin. Get on out of here
now, and let me get my kitchen straight again."
Dilsey cooked supper too. And that night, just before
dark, Nancy came into the kitchen.
"How do you know he's back?" Dilsey said. "You
ain't seen him."
"Jesus is a nigger," Jason said.
"I can feel him," Nancy said. "I can feel him laying
yonder in the ditch."
"Tonight?" Dilsey said. "Is he there tonight?"
"Dilsey's a nigger too," Jason said:
"You try to eat something," Dilsey said.
"I don't want nothing,'' Nancy said.
"I ain't a nigger," Jason said.
"Drink some coffee," Dilsey said. She poured a cup of
coffee for Nancy. "Do you l<now he's out there tonight? How
come you know it's tonight?"
"I know," Nancy said. "He's there, waiting. I know.
I done lived with him too long. I know what he is fixing
to do for he know it himself."
"Drink some coffee," Dilsey said. Nancy held the cup
to her mouth and blew into the cup. Her mouth pursed out
like a spreading adder's, like a rubber mouth, like she had
blown all the color out of her lips with blowing the coffee.
, "I ain't a nigger," J ason said. "Are you a nigger, Nancy?"
"I hellborn child," Nancy said. "I won't be nothing
soon. I going back where I come from soon."
Ill
She began to drink the coffee. While she was drinking,
holding the cup in both hands, she began to make the sound
again. She mad~ the sound into the cup and the coffee
sploshed out onto her hands and her dress. Her eyes looked
at us and she sat there, her elbows on her knees, holding
the cup in both hands, looking at us across the wet
cup, making the sound.
"Look at Nancy," J ason said. "Nancy can't cook for
us now. Dilsey's got well now."
"You hush up," Dilsey said. Nancy held the cup in both
hands, looking at us, making the sound, like there were
two of them: one looking at us and the other making the
sound. "Whyn't you let Mr. Jason telefoam the marshal?"
Dilsey said. Nancy stopped then, holding the cup in her
112
long brown hands. She tried to drink some coffee again,
but it splashed out of the cup, .onto her hands and her
dress, and she put the cup down. J ason watched her.
"I can't swallow it," Nancy said. "I swallows but it
won't go down me."
"You go down to the cabin," Dilsey said. "Frony will
fix you a pallet and I'll be there soon."
"Won't no nigger stop him," Nancy said.
"I ain't a nigger," Jason said. "Am I, Dilsey?"
"I reckon not," Dilsey said. She looked at Nancy.
"I don't reckon so. What you going to do, then?"
Nancy looked at us. Her eyes went fast, like she was
afraid there wasn't time to look, without hardly moving at all.
She looked at us, at all three of us at one time.
"You remember that night I stayed in yawls' room?"
she said.
She told about how we waked up early the next morn-
ing, and played. We had to play quiet, on her pallet,
until Father woke up and it was time to get breakfast.
"Go and ask your maw to let me stay here tonight," Nancy
said. "I won't need no pallet. We can play some
more. "
Caddy asked Mother. Jason went too. "I can't have
Negroes sleeping in' the bedrooms," Mother said. J ason
cried. He cried until Mother said he couldn't have any
dessert for three days if he didn't stop. Then Jason said
he would stop if Dilsey would make a chocolate ca}<e.
Father was there.
"Why don't you do something about it?" Mother said.
"What do we have officers for?"
"Why is Nancy afraid of Jesus?" Caddy said. "Are you
afraid of Father, Mother?"
"What could the officers do?" Father said. "If Nancy
hasn't seen him, how could the officers find him?"
"Then why is she afraid?" Mother said.
"She says he is there. She says she knows he is there
tonight."
"Yet we pay taxes," Mother said. "I must wait here
alone in this big house while you take a Negro woman home."
"You know that I am not lying outside with a razor,"
Father said.
"I'll stop if Di!sey will make a chocolate cake," Jason
said. Mother told us to go out and Father said he didn't
know if J ason would get a chocolate cake or not, but he
113
 knew what J ason was going to get in about a minute. We
went back to the kitchen and told Nancy. .
"Father said for you to go home and lock the dom',
and you'll be all right,"Caddy said. "All right from what,
Nancy? ~Is Jesus mad at you?" Nancy was holding the
coffee cup in her hands again, her elbows on her knees
and her hands holding the cup between her knees. She was
looking into the cup. "What have you done that made
Jesus mad?" Caddy said. Nancy let the cup go. It didn't
break on the floor, but the coffee spilled out, and Nancy
sat there with her hands still making the shape of the cup.
She began to make the sound again, not loud. Not singing
and not unsinging. We watched her.
"Here," Dilsey said. "You quit that, now. You get
aholt of yourself. You wait here. I going to get Versh
to walk home with you." Dilsey went out.
We looked at Nancy. Her shoulders kept shaking,
but she quit making the sound. We stood and watched her.
"What's Jesus going to do to you?" Caddy said. "He
went away."
Nancy looked at us. "We had fun that night I stayed in
yawls' room, didn't we?" -
"I didn't," J ason said. "I didn't have any fun."
"Y du were asleep in Mother's room," Caddy said.
"You were not there." ·
"Let's go down to my house and have some more fun,"
Nancy said.
"Mother won't let us," I said. "It's too late now."
"Don't bother her," Nancy said. "We can tell her in
the morning. She won't mind."
"She wouldn't let us," I said
"Don't ask her now," Nancy said. "Don't bother her
now."
"She didn't say we couldn't go," Caddy said.
"We didn't ask," I said.
"If you go, I'll tell," Jason said.
"We'll have fun," Nancy said. "They won't mind,
just to my house. I been working for yawl a_ long. time.
They won't mind."
"I'm not afraid to go," Caddy said. "Jason is the one
that's afraid. He'll tell."
"I'm not," Jason said.
"Yes, you are," Caddy said. "You'll tell."
"I won't tell," Jason said. "I'm not afraid."
114
 "Jason ain't afraid to go with me," Nancy said. "Is
you, Jason?"
"Jason is going to tell," Caddy said. The lane was dark.
We passed the pasture gate. "I bet if something was to jump
out from behind that gate, Jason would holler."
"I wouldn't," J ason said. We walked down the la11e.
Nancy was talking loud.
"What are you talking so loud for, Nancy?" Caddy said.
"Who, me?" Nancy said. "Listen at Quentin and Caddy
and J ason saying I'm talking loud." 1

"You talk like there was five of us here," Caddy said.

"You talk like Father was here too."
"Who, me talking loud , Mr. Jason?" Nancy said.
"Nancy called J ason 'Mister'," Caddy said.
"Listen how Caddy and Quentin and Jason talk,"
Nancy said.
"We're not talking loud," Caddy said. "You're the
one that's talking like Father -"
"Hush," Nancy said; "hush, Mr. Jason."
"Nancy called Jason 'Mister' aguh -"
"Hush," Nancy said. She was talking loud when we
crossed the ditch and stooped through the fence where
she used to stoop through with the clothes on her head.
Then we came io her house. We were going fast then. She
opened the door. The smell of the house w-..s like the lamp
and the smell of Nancy was like the wick, like they were
waiting for one another to begin to smell. She lit the lamp
and closed the door and put the bar up. Then she quit
talking loud, looking at us.
"What'fe we going to do?" Caddy said.
"What do yawl want to do?" Nancy said.
"You said we would have some fun," Caddy said.
There was something about Nancy's house; something
you could smell besides Nancy and the house. J ason smelled
it, even. "I don't want to stay here," he said. "I want
to go home."
"Go home, then," Caddy said.
"I don't want to go by myself," Jason said.
"We're going to have some fun," Nancy said.
"How?" Caddy said.
Nancy stood by the door. She was looking at us, only
it was like she had emptied her eyes, like she had quit
using them. "What do yawl want to do?" she said.
"Tell us a story," Caddy said. "Can you tell a story?"
115
 "Yes," Nancy said.
"Tell it," Caddy s11id. We looked at Nancy. "You don't
know any stories."
"Yes," Nancy said. "Yes, I do."
She came and sat in a chair before the hearth. There
was a little fire there. Nancy built it up, when it was already
hot inside. She built a good blaze. She told a story. She
talked like her eyes looked, like her eyes watching us-and
her voice talking to us did not belong to her. Like she
was living somewhere else, waiting somewhere else. She
was outside the cabin. Her voice was inside and the shape
of her, the Nancy that could stoop under a barbed wire
fence with a bundle of clothes balanced on her head as
though without weight, like a balloon, was there. But
that was all. "And so this here queen come walking ·
up to the ditch, where that bad man was hiding. She was
walking up to the ditch, and she say, 'If I can just get
past this here ditch,' was what she say ... "
"What ditch?" Caddy said. "A ditch like that one out
there? Why did a queen want to go into a ditch?"
"To get to her house," Nancy said. She looked at us.
"She had to cross the ditch to get into her house quick
and bar the door." .
"Why· did she want to go home and bar the door?" Caddy
said.
IV
Nancy looked at us. She quit talking. She looked at us.
Jason's legs stuck straight out of his pants where he sat
on Nancy's lap. "I don't think that's a good story," he
said. "I want to go home."
"Maybe 'Ye had better," Caddy said. She got up from
the floor. "I bet they are looking for us right now." She
went toward the door.
"No," Nancy said. "Don't open it." She got up quick
and passed Caddy. She didn't touch the door, the wooden bar.
''Why not?" Caddy said.
"Come back to the, lamp," Nancy said. "We'll have
fun. You don't have to go."
"We ought to go," Caddy said. "Unless we have a. lot of
fun." She and Nancy came back to the fire, the lamp.
"I want to go home," J ason said. "I'm going to tell."
"I know another story," Nancy said. She stood close
to the lamp. She looked at Caddy like when your eyes
116
look up at a stick balanced on your nose. She had to Jook
down to see Caddy, but her eyes looked. like that, like
when you are balancing a stick.
"I won't listen to it," Jason said. "''ll bang on the
floor."
"It's a good one," Nancy said. "It's better than the
other one."
"What's it about?" Caddy said. Nancy was standing
by the lamp. Her hand was on the lamp, against the light,
long and brown. .
"Your hand is on that hot globe," Caddy said. "Don't it
feel hot to. your hand?" ·
Nancy looked at her hand on the lamp chimney. She
took her handJ away, slow. She stood there, looking at
Caddy, wringing her long hand as though it were tied
to her wrist with a string.
"Let's do something else," Caddy said.
"I ·want to go home," J ason said.
"I got some popcorn," Nancy said. She looked at Caddy
and then at J ason and then at me and then at Caddy again.
"I got some popcorn."
"I don't like popcorn," Jason said. "I'd rather have
candy."
Nancy looked at Jason. "You can hold the popper."
She was still wringing her hand; it was long and limp
and brown.
"All right," J ason said. "I'll stay a while if I can do
that. Caddy can't hold it. I'll want to go home again
if Caddy holds the popper."
Nancy built up the fire. "Look at Nancy putting her
hands in the fire," Caddy said. "What's the matter with
you, Nancy?"
"I got popcorn," Nancy said. "I got some." She took the
popper from under the bed .. It was broken. J ason began
to cry.
"Now we can't have any popcorn," he said.
"We ought to go home, anyway," Caddy said. "Come
on, Quentin."
"Wait," Nancy said; "wait. I can fix it. Don't you want
to help me fix it?"
"I don't think I want any," Caddy said. "It's too late
now."
"You help me, Jason," Nancy said. "Don't you want
to help me?'
117
 "No," Jason said. "I want to go home."
"Hush," Nancy said; "hush. Watch. Watch me. I can
fix it so Jason can hold it and pop the corn." She got a piece
of wire and fixed the popper. ·
"It won't hold good," Caddy said.
"Yes it will," Nancy said. "Yawl watch. Yawl help
me shell some corn."
The popcorn was under the bed too. We shelled it into
the popper and Nancy helped J ason hold the popper over
the fire.
"It's not popping," Jason said. "I want to go home."
"You wait," Nancy said. "It'll begin to pop. We'll
have fun then."
She was sitting close to the fire. The lamp was turned
up so high it was beginning to smoke. "Why don't you
turn it down some?" I said.
"It's all right," Nancy said. "I'll clean it. Yawl wait.
The popcorn will start in a minute."
"I don't believe it's going to start," Caddy said. "We
ought to start home, anyway. They'll be worried."
"No," Nancy said. "It's going to pop. Dilsey will tell
urn yawl with me. I been working for yawl long time.
They won't mind if yawl at my house. You wait, now.
It'll start popping any minute now."
Then J ason got some smoke in his eyes and he began
to cry. He dropped the popper into the fire. Nancy got
a wet rag and wiped Jason's face, but he didn't stop crying.
"Hush," she said. "Hush." But he didn't hush. Caddy
took the popper out of the fire. .
"It's burned up," she said. "You'll have to get some
more popcorn, Nancy."
"Did you put all of it in?" Nancy said.
"Yes," Caddy said. Nancy looked at Caddy. Then she
took the popper and opened it and poured the cinders
into her apron and began to· sort the grains, her hands
long and brown, and we watching her. ·
"Haven't you got any more?" Caddy said.
"Yes," Nancy said; "yes. Look. This here ain't burnt.
All we need to do is -"
"I want to go home," Jason said. "I'm going to tell."
"Hush," Caddy said. We all listened. Nancy's head
was already turned toward the barred door, her eyes
filled with red lamplight. "Somebody is coming," Caddy
said.
118
 Then Nancy began to make that sou'nd again, not
loud, sitting there above the fire, her long hands dangling
between her knees; all of a sudden water began to come out
on her face in big drops, running down her face, carrying
in each one a little turning ball of fire-light like a spark
until it dropped off her chin. "She is not crying," I said.
"I ain't crying," Nancy said. Her eyes were closed. "I
ain't crying. Who is it?"
"I don't know," Caddy said. She went to the door and
looked out. "We've got to go home," she said. "Here comes
Father."
- "r''m going to tell," Jason said. "Yawl made me come."
The .water still ran down Nancy's face. She turned
in her chair. "Listen. Tell him. Tell him we going to have
fun. Tell him I take good care of yawl until in the morning.
Tell him to let me come home with yawl and sleep on the
floor. Tell him I won't need no pallet We'll have fun.
You remember last time how we had so much fun?"
"I didn't have fun," Jason said. "You hurt me. You
put smoke in my eyes. I'm goinlj! to tell."

Father came in. He looked at us. Nancy did not get up.
"Tell him," she said.
"Caddy made us come down here," J ason said. "I didn't
want to."
Father came to the fire. Nancy looked up at him.
"Can't you go to Aunt Rachel's and stay?" he said. Nancy
looked up at Father, her hands between her knees. "He's
not here," Father said. "I would have seen him. There's
not a soul in sight."
"He in the ditch," Nancy said. ''He waiting in the
ditch yonder."
"Nonsense," Father said. He looked at Nancy. "Do you
know he's there?"
"I got the sign," Nancy said.
"What sign?"
"I got it. It was on the table when I come in. It was
a hogbone, with blood meat still on it, laying by the lamp.
He's out there. When yawl walk out that door, I gone."
"Gone where, Nancy?" Caddy said.
"I'm. not a tattletale," J ason said.
"Nonsense," Father said.
119
 "He out there," Nancy said. "He looking through
that window this minute, waiting for yawl to go. Then I
gone."
"Nonsense," Father said. "Lock up y"our house and we'll
take you on to Aunt Rachel's."
"'Twon't do no good," Nancy said. She didn't look
at Father now, but he looked down at her, at her
long, limp, moving hands. "Putting it off won't do no
good."
"Then what do you want to do?" Father said.
"I don't know," Nancy said. "I can't do nothing. Just
put it off. And that don't do no good. I reckon it belong
to me. I reckon what I going to get ain't no Illtlre than
mine."
"Get what?" Caddy said. "What's yours?"
"Nothing," Father said. "You all must get to bed."
"Caddy made me come," J ason said.
"Go on to Aunt Rachel's," Father said.
"It won't do no good," Nancy said. She sat before
the fire, her elbows on her knees, her long hands between
her knees. "When even ·your own kitchen wouldn't do no
good. When even if I was sleeping on the floor in the room
with your chillen, and the next morning there I am, and
blood -:-- " 1

"Hush," Father said. "Lock the door and put out the
lamp and go to bed."
"I scared of the dark," Nancy said. "I scared for it to
happen in the dark."
"You mean you're going to sit right here with the lamp
lighted?" Father said. Then Nancy began to make the sound
again, sitting before the fire, her long hands between
her knees. "Ah, damnation," Father said. "Come along,
chillen. It's past bedtime." .
"When yawl go home, I gone," Nancy said. She talked
quieter now, and her face looked quiet, like her hands.
"Anyway, I got my coffin money saved up with Mr. Love-
lady." Mr. Lovelady was a short, dirty man who collected
the Negro insurance, coming around to the cabins or the
kitchens every Saturday morning, to collect fifteen cents.
He and his wife lived at the hotel. One morning his wife
committed suicide. They had a child, a little girl. He and
the child went away. After a week or two he came back
alone. We would see him going along the lanes and the
back streets on Saturday mornings.
120
 "Nonsense," Father said. "You'll be the first thing
I' 11 see in the kitchen tomorrow morning."
"You'll see what you'll see, I reckon," Nancy said.
"But it will take the Lord to say what that will be.".
VI
We left her sitting before the fire.
"Come and put the bar up," Father said. But she didn't
move. She didn't look at us again, sitting quietly there
between the lamp and the fire. From some distance down
the lane we could look back and see her through the open
door.
"What, Father?" Caddy said. "What's going to happen?"
"Nothing," Father said. Jason was on Father's back,
so Jason was the tallest of all of us. We went down into
the ditch. I looked at it, quiet. I couldn't see much
where the moonlight and the shadows tangled.
"If Jesus is hid there, he can see us, can't he?"Caddy said~
"He's not there," Father said. "He went away a long
time ago."
"You made me come," Jason said,' high; against the
sky it looked like Father had two heads, a little one and
a big one. "I didn't want to."
We went up out of the ditch. We could still see Nancy's
house and the open door, but we couldn't se_e Nancy now,
sitting before the fire with the door open, because she was
tired.
''I just got tired," she said. "I just a nigger. It ain't
no fault of mine."
But we could hear her, because she began just after
we came up out of the ditch, the sound that was not sing-
ing and not unsinging. "Who will do our washing now,
Father?" I said.
"I'm not a nigger," Jason said, high and close above
Father's head.
"You're worse," Caddy said. "You are a tattletale.
If something was to jump out, you'd be scairder than
a nigger."
"I wouldn't," Jason said.
"You'd cry," Caddy said.
"Caddy," Father said.
"I wouldn't!" .Jason said.
"Scairy cat," Caddy said.
"Candace!" Father said.
121
 TASKS

I. What facts about Nancy do you come to know on reading

part one of the story? Enumerate them in their succes-
sion. Dwell on the cause of Nancy's trying to commit
suicide and on that of Jesus' leaving her. State sum-
marily the developments narrated in the other five parts
of the story.
2. Who is the narrator of the story? How does his percep-
tion of the described events tint the story?
3. Contrast is known to be one of the main principles of
poetic expression. Speak on how it manifests itself
in the present story.
a) What is the background against which Nancy's
tragedy is shown?
b) How is Nancy's calamity seen by the children?
Interpret the following. "Father said for you to- go
home and lock the door, and you'll be all right,"
Caddy said. "All right from what, Nancy? Is Jesus
mad at you?" "What have you done that made
Jesus mad?" Pick out other sentences of similar kind.
c) Comment on the word "fun" as it occurs in the follow-
ing sentences. Reproduce the situations in which these
sentences are uttered: "We had fun that night
I stayed in yawls' room, didn't we?" "Let's go down
to my house and have some more fun." "We are
going to have some fun," Nancy said. "We ought
to go," Caddy said. "Unless we have a lot of fun."
"I didn't have fun," J ason said. "You hurt me.
You put smoke in my eyes."
d) Observe and comment on the situations in which
the word "scaired" is used by Nancy and by the
children.
4. What .does the reader learn about the family of the
narrator? What details may be mentioned as. vividly
portraying each member of the family? How much
did the family depend upon their Negro servants? Give
illustrations.
5. Do you find common traits (phonetic, grammar, lexical)
in the speech of the children and of the Negroes? What
do these traits suggest as to the life of the children
and the influences they were subjected to?
6. What was the attitude of the mother and the father
of the family to Nancy in her calamity? Quote sentences
122
 from the story to substantiate your statements. What
feature does the author emphasize as far as the family's
attitude to Nancy is concerned? Comment on the impact
of the last part of the story, which begins with the
sentence "We left her sitting before the fire."
7. What key-phrase (and its variants) recurs in the story?
Find it occurring in Jesus's angry utterances, in Nancy's
bitter lamentations and in little J ason's proud asser-
tions. Comment on the idea it conveys.
8. Speak on the implied meaning of the story's title.
9. What is the author's attitude to the problem he had
presented in the story? Express your thoughts in a half-
page statement.

IN ANOTHER COUNTRY
by Ernest Hemingway
[E. Hemingway's is a depictive writing. He paints pictures of the things
he writes about and that often with the help of details of simple and
direct perceptions. ·
In E. Hemingway's works what shows on the surface is only the
smaller part of the whole meaning. The rest is submerged in such
elements of poetic structure which are not immediately visible. The
reader is supposed to be sufficiently trained and attentive to discover
the implied meaning. For instance, he should be able to see the mean-
ing emerging out of the interplay of the direct and the metaphorical,
the compositional make-up, the key words, and the like.]

In the fall the war was always there, but we did not
go to it any more. It was cold in the fall in Milan and the
dark came very early. Then the electric lights came on,
and it was pleasant along the streets looking in the windows.
There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the
snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew
their tails. The deer hung stiff and heavy and empty,
and small birds blew in the wind and the wind turned
their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came down
from the mountains.
We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there
were different ways of walking across the town through
the dusk to the hospital. Two of the ways were alongside
canals, but they were long. Always, though, you crossed
a bridge across a canal to enter the hospital. There was
a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold
roasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of her
123
charcoal fire, and the chestnuts were warm afterward
in your pocket. The hospital was very old and very beauti-
ful; and you entered through a gate and walked across
a courtyard and out a gate on the other side. There were
usually funerals starting from the courtyard. Beyond the
old hospital were the new brick pavilions, and there we
met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested
in what was the matter, and sat in the machines that
were to make so much difference.
The doctor came up to the machine where I was sitting
and said: "What did you like best to do before the war?
Did you practise a sport?"
I said: "Yes, football."
"Good," he said. "You will be able to play football
again better than ever."
My knee did not bend <and the leg dropped strC)ight
from the knee to the ankle without a calf, and the machine
was to bend the knee and make it move as in riding a tri-
cycle. But it did ·not bend yet, and instead the machine
lurched when it came to the bending part. The doctor said:
"That will all pass. You are a fortunate young man. You
will play football again like a champion."
In the next machine was a major who had a little hand
like a baby's. He winked at me when the doctor examined
his hand, which was between two leather straps that boun-
ced up and down and flapped the stiff fingers, and said:
"And will I too play football, captain-doctor?" He had
been a very great fencer, and before the war the greatest
fencer in Italy.
The doctor went to his office in a back room and brought
a photograph which showed a hand that had been withered
almCJst as small as major's before it had taken a machine
course, and after was a little larger. The major held the
photograph with his good hand and looked at it very
carefully. "A wound?" he said.
"An industrial accident," the doctor said.
"Very interesting, very interesting," the major said,
and handed it back to the doctor.
"You have confidence?"
"No," said the major.
There were thre-e boys who came each day who were
about the same age I was. They were all three from Milan;
and one of them was to be a lawyer, and one was to. be
a painter, and one had intended to be a soldier, and after
124
we were finished with the machines, sometimes we walked
bc,ck together to the Cafe Cova, which was next door
to the Scala. We walked the short way through the commu-
nist quarter because we were four together. The people
hated us because we were officers, and from a wine-shop
some one called out, "A basso gli ufficiali!" as we passed.
Another boy who walked with us sometimes and made us
five wore a black silk handkerchief across his face because
he had no nose then and his face was to be rebuilt. He had
gone out to the front from the military academy and been
wounded within an hour after he had gone into the front
line for the first time. They rebuilt his face, but he came
from a very old family and they could never get the nose
exactly right. He went to South America and worked in
a bank. But this was a long time ago, and then we did
not any of us know how it was going to be afterward. We
only knew then that there was always the war, but that
we were not going to it any more.
We all had the same medals, except the boy with
the black silk bandage across his face, and he had not
been at the front long enough to get medals. The tall toy
with a very pale face who was to be a lawyer had been
a lieutenant of Arditi and had three medals of the sort
we each had only one of. He had lived a very long time
with death and was a little detached. We were all a little
detached, and there was nothing that held us together
except that we met every afternoon at the hospital. Al-
though, as we walked to the Cova through the tough part
of town, walking in the dark, with light and singing coming
out of the wine-shops, and sometimes having to walk
into the street when the men and women would crowd
together on the sidewalk so that we would have had to
jostle them to get by, we felt held together by there being
something that had happened that they, the people who
disliked us, did not understand.
We ourselves all understood the Cova, where it was
rich and warm and not too brightly lighted, and noisy
and smoky at certain hours, and there were always girls
at the tables and the illustrated papers on a rack on the
wall. The girls at the Cava were very patriotic, and I found
that the most patriotic people in Italy were the cafe girls -
and I believe they are still patriotic.
The boys at first were very polite about my medals
and asked me what I had done to get them. I showed them
125
the papers, which were written in very beautiful language
and full of fratellanza and abnegazione, but which really
said, with the adjectives removed, that I had been given
the medals because I was an American. After that their
manner changed a little toward me, although I was their
friend against outsiders. I was a friend, but I was never
really one of them after they had read the citations, because
it had been different with them and they had done very
different things to get their medals. I had been wounded,
it was true; but we all knew that being wounded, after
all, was really an accident. I was never ashamed of the
ribbons, though, and sometimes, after the cocktail hour,
l would imagine myself having done all the things they
had done to get their medals; but walking home at night
through the empty streets with the cold wind and all
the shops clooed, trying to keep near the street light,
I knew that I would never have done such things, and I was
very much afraid to die, and often lay in bed at night
by myself, afraid to die and wondering how I would be
when I went back to the front again.
The three with the medals were like hunting-hawks;
and I was not a hawk, although I might seem a hawk
to those who had never hunted; they, the three, knew
better and so we drifted apart. But I stayed good friends
with the boy who had been wounded his first day at the
front, because he would never know now how he would have
turned out; so he could never be accepted either, and
I liked him because I thought perhaps he would not have
turned out to be a hawk either.
The major, who had been the great fencer, did not
believe in bravery, and spent much time while we sat
in the machines correcting my grammar. He had compli-
mented me on how I spoke Italian, and we talked together
very easily. On~ day I had said that Italian seemed such
an easy language to me that I could not take a great interest
in it; everything was so easy to say. "Ah, yes," the major
said. "Why, then, do you not take up the use of gram-
mar?" So we took up the use of grammar, and soon Italian
was such a difficult language that I was afraid to talk
to him until I had the grammar straight in my mind.
The major came very regularly to the hospital. I do
not think he ever missed a day, although I am sure he
did not believe in the machines. There was a time when
none of us believed in the machines, and· one day the major
12(i
said it was all nonsense. The machines were new then and
it was we who were to prove them. It was an idiotic idea,
he said, "a theory, like another". I had not learned my
grammar, and he said I was a stupid impossible disgrace,
and he was a fool to have bothered with me. He was a small
man and he sat straight up in his chair with his right hand
thrust into the machine and looked straight ahead at the
wall while the straps thumped up and down with his fingers
in them.
"What will you do when the war is over if it is over?"
he asked me. "Speak grammatically!"
"I will go to the States."
"Are you married?"
"No, but I hope to be."
"The more of a fool you are," he said. He seemed very
angry. "A man must not marry."
"Why, Signor Maggiore?"
"Don't call me 'Signor Maggiore' ."
"Why must not a man marry?"
"He cannot marry. He cannot marry," he said angrily.
"If he is to lose everything, he should not place himself
in a position to lose that. He should not place himself
in a position to lbse. He should find things he cannot lose."
He spoke very angrily and bitterly, and looked straight
ahead while he talked.
"But why should he necessarily Iose it?"
"He'll lose it," the major said. He was looking at the
wall. Then he looked down at the machine and jerked
his little hand out from between the straps and slapped
it hard against his thigh. "He'll lose it," he almost shouted.
"Don't argue with me!" Then he called to the attendant
whG> ran the machines. , ·
"Come and turn this damned thing off."
He went back into the other room for the light t~eatment
and the massage. Then I heard him ask the doctor if he
might use his telephone and he shut the door. When he came
back into the room, I was sitting in another machine.
He was wearing his cape and had his cap on, and he came
directly toward my machine and put his arm on my shoul-
der.
"I am so sorry," he said, and patted me on the shoulder
with his good hand. "I would not be rude. My wife has
just died. You must forgive me."
"Oh- " I said, feeling sick for him. "I am so sorry."
127
 He stood there. biting his lower 1ip. "It is very difficult,';
he said. "I cannot resign myself."
He looked straight past me and out through the window.
Then he began to cry. "I am utterly unable to resign myself,"
he said and ch.oked. And then crying, his head up looking
at nothing, carrying himself straight and soldierly, with
tears on both his cheeks and biting his lips, he walked
past the machines and out the door.
The doctor told me that the major's wife, who was very
young and whom he had not married until he was defi-
nitely invalided out of the war, had died of pneumonia.
She had been sick only a few days. No one expected her
to die. The major did not come to the hospital for three
days. Then he came at the usual hour, wearing a black
band on the sleeve of his uniform. When he came back,
there were large framed photographs around the wall,
of all sorts of wounds before and after they had been cured ·
by the machines. In front of the. machine the majbr used
were three -photographs of hands like his that were com-
pletely restored. I do not know where the doctor got them.
I always understood we were the first to use the machines.
The photographs did not make much difference to the major
because he only looked out of the window.

TASKS

I. Reproduce the exposition to the story. Comment on

the emotional atmosphere it conveys. Point out the
means that create that atmosphere.
2. How is war referred to in the first paragraph and
elsewhere in the story?
3. Tell summarily what you have learned about the young
men who came to the hospital for the machine treatment.
4. How do you understand the phrase "we ... sat in the
machines that were to make so much difference?"
5. Paraphrase and interpret the following: "... they
had done very different things to get their medals";·
"I was never ashamed of the ribbons, though ... ";
~'The three with the medals were like hunting-hawks,
and I was not a hawk, although I might seem a hawk
to those who'had never hunted."
E. Hemingway, who avoids straight-forward eva-
luations, often resorts to periphrasis and understateo
128
 . 111enL Point out their occurrertces in the above-quoted
and other sentences of the text. Speak on their emotive
quality. · .·
6. Observe the occurrences of the words "cold" and
"warm"; speak on the undercurrent of meaning they
carry.
1. Comment on the meaning the word "detached" is
imbued with in the story.
8. a) Why, do you think, did the major who had no
confidence in the machine treatment come to the
hospital very regularly?
b) Interpret the following: "The major who had been
the great fencer, did not believe in bravery, and spent
much time while we sat in the machines correcting
my grammar."
c) Reproduce the 'dialogue between the major and
the American when the two were sitting in the
machines. What was it iri the speech of the major
that betrayed his nervousness and preoccupation?
What turned out to be the cause of these? How is
it made known to the reader? ·
d) Why, after what had happened to his wife, d'id
the major come to the hospital again at the usual
hour? What poetic detail shows that it was not the
. machine treatment the major came for? Pay attention
to the phrase to make much difference. When was
it first used and what is its implication in the present
case? Observe the two occurrences of .Jhe phrase with-
in the compositional framework of the story;
·speak on the meaningfulness of this compositional
device.
9. Pay attention to the verbs and adverbs/agjectives
the author uses when he writes about the major.
Comment on their quality.
10. Pick out words and expressions that denote physical
injuries the characters have suffered. Comment on
the emotive quality of those words. List the Italian
words found in the story. Account for their use.
11. What moral message does the author convey through
the image of the major. .
12. Interpret the title of the story, the interplay of the
literal and the metaphorical in the phrase in another
country. Write a short statement on the idea the
author has conveyed in the story.
0 B, B, COCHOBCKall }29
 WILD FLOWERS
by Erskine Caldwell
["Wild Flowers" is undoubtedly one of E. Caldwell's masterpieces.
The story being multiordinal the depth of its content opens up to him
who can see not only through its rather simple surface plot but through
the metaphoric and symbolic layers as well.]
I derive more satisfaction from the writing of
stories such as this one than I do from any other.

The mockingbird that had perched on the roof top

all night, filling the clear cool air with its music, had flown
away when the sun rose. There was silence as deep and
mysterious as the flat sandy country that extended mile
after mile in every direction. Yesterday's shadows on the
white sand began to rea,ssemble under the trees and around
the fence posts, spreading on the ground the lacy foliage
of the branches and the fuzzy slabs of the wooden fence.
The sun rose in leaps and bounds, jerking itself upward
as though it were in a great hurry to rise above the tops
of the pines so it could shine down upon the flat country
from there to the Gulf.
Inside the house the bedroom was light and warm.
Nellie had been awake ever since the mockingbird had
left. She lay on her side with one arm under her head.
Her other arm was around the head beside her on the
pillow. Her eyelids fluttered. Then for a minute at a time
they did not move at all. After that they fluttered again,
seven or eight or nine times in quick succession. She
waited as patiently as she could for Vern to wake up.
When Vern came home sometime late in the night,
he did not wake her. She had stayed awake waiting for
him as long as she could, but she had become so sleepy
her eyes would not stay open until he came.
The dark head on the pillow beside hers looked tired
and worn. Vern's forehead, even in sleep, was wrinkled
a little over his nose. Around the corners of his eyes the
skin was darker than it was anywhere else on the face.
She reached over as carefully as possible and kissed the
cheek closest to her. She wanted to put both arms around
his head and draw him to her,, and to kiss him time after
' time and hold his dark head tight against her face.
Again her eyelids fluttered uncontrollably.
"Vern," she whispered softly. "Vern."
. Slowly his eyes opened, then quickly closed again.
130
 "Vern, sweet," she murmured, her heart beating faster
and faster.
Vern turned his face toward her, snuggling his head
between her arm and breast, and moving until she could
feel his breath on her neck.
"Oh, Vern," she said, part aloud.
He could feel her kisses on his eyes and cheek and fore-
head and mouth. He was comfortably awake by then.
He found her with his hands and they drew themselves
tigh t1 y together.
"What did he say, Vern?" she asked at last, unable
to wait any longer. "What, Vern?" He opened his eyes
and looked at her, fully awake at last.
She could read what he had to say on his face.
"When, Vern?" she said.
"Today," he said, closing his eyes and snuggling
his head into her warmth once more. -
Her lips trembled a little when he said it. She could not
he! p her self.
"Where are we going to move to, Vern?" she asked like
a little girl, looking closely to his lips for his answer.
He shook his head, pushing it tightly against her
breasts and closing his eyes against her body.
They both lay still for a long time. The sun had warmed
the room until it was almost like summer again, instead
of early fall. Little waves of heat were beginning to rise
from the weatherworn window-sill. There would be a little
more of summer before winter came.
"Did you tell him - - ?" Nellie said. She stopped
and looked down at Vern's face. "Did you tell him about
me, Vern?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
Vern did not answer her. He pushed his head against
her breast and held her tighter, as though he were struggling
for food that would make his body strong when he got up
and stood alone in the bare room.
"Didn't he say anything, Vern?"
"He just said he couldn't help it, or something like that.
I don't remember what he said, but I know what he meant."
"Dcesn't he care, Vern?"
"I guess he doesn't, Nellie."
Nellie stiffened. She trembled for a moment, but her
body stiffened as though she had no control over it.
131
 "But you care what happens to me, don't you, Vern?"
"Oh, God, yes!" he said. "That's all I do care about
now. If anything happens - - ." -
For a long time they lay in each other's arms, their
minds stirring them wider and wider awake. .
Nellie got up first. She was dressed ·and out of the room
before Vern knew how quickly time had passed. He leaped
out of bed, dressed, and hurried to the kitchen to make
the fire in the cookstove. Nellie was already peeling the
potatoes when hegot it going.
The·y did not say much while they ate breakfast.Theyhad
to move, and move tJ1at day. There was nothing else they
could do. The furniture did not belong to them, and they
had so few clothes it would not be troublesome to carry
them.
Nellie washed the · dishes while Vern was getting
their things ready. There was nothing to do after that
except to tie up his overalls and shirts in a bundle, and
Nellie's clothes in another, and to start out.
When they. were ready to leave, Nellie stopped at the
gate and looked back at the house. She did not mind leaving
the place, even though it had been the only home she
and Vern. had ever had together. The house was so dilap-
idated that probably it would fall down in a few years
more. The roof leaked, one side of the house had slipped
off the foundation posts, and the porch sagged all the
way to the ground in front.
Vern waited until she was ready to leave. When she
turned away from the house, there were tears in her eyes,
but she never looked back at it again. After they had gone
a mile, they had turned a bend in the road, and the pines
hid the place from sight.
"Where are we going, Vern?" she said, looking at him
through the tears.
"We'll just have to keep on until. we find a place,"
he said. He knew that she knew as well as he did that in
that country of pines and sand the farms and houses were '
sometimes ten or fifteen miles apart. "I don't know how
far that will be."
While she trudged along the sandy road, she could smell
the fragrance of the last summer flowers all around her.
The weeds and scrub hid most of them from sight, but every
chance she got she stopped a moment and looked along
the side of the ditches for blossoms. Vern qid not stop,
132
 and she always ran to catch up with him before she could
find any. · . ·
In the middle of the afternoon they came to a creek
where it was cool and shady. Vern found her a place to lie
down and, before taking off her shoes to rest her feet,
scraped a pile of dry pine needles for her to lie on and pulled
an armful of moss from the trees to put under her he.?d.
The water he brought her tasted of the leaves and grasses
in the creek, and it was cool and clear. She fell asleep as
soon as she had drunk some.
It was late afternoon when Vern woke het up.
"You've been asleep two or three hours, Nellie," he said.
"Do you think you could walk a little more before night?"
She sat up and put on her shoes and followed him to the
road. She felt a dizziness as soon as she was on her feet.
She did not want to say anything to Vern about it, bec~use
she did not want him to worry. Every step she took pained
her then. It was almost unbearable at times, and she bit
her lips and crushed her fingers in her fists, but she walked
along behind him, keeping out of his sight so he would
not know about it.
At sundown she stopped and sat down· by the side
of the road. She felt as though she would never be able
to take another step again. The pains in her body had drawn
the calor from her face, and her limbs felt as though
they were being pulled from her body. Before she knew it,
she had fainted. _
When she opened her eyes, Vern was kneeling beside
·her, fanning her with his hat. She looked up into his face
and trred to smile.
"Why didn't you tell me, Nellle?" he said. "I didn't
know you were so tired."
"I don't want to be tired," she said. "I just couldn't .
help it, I guees."
He looked at her for a while, fanning her all the time.
"Do you think it might happen before we get some
place?" he asked anxiously. "What do you think, Nellie?"
Nellie closed her eyes and tried not to think. They
had not passed a house or farm since they had left that
morning. She did not know how much farther it was to a
town, a.nd she was afraid to think how far it might be even
to the next house. It made her afraid to think about it.
"I thought you said it would be another two weeks - ?"
Verrt said. "Didn't you, Nellie?"
133
 "1 thought so,'' she said. "But ies going to be different
now, walking like this all day."
His hat fell from his hand, and he looked all around in
confusion. He did not know what to do, but he knew he
had to do something for Nellie right away.
"I can't stand it," he said. "I've got to do something."
He picked her up and carried her across the road. He
found a place for her to lie under a pine tree, and he put
her down there. Then he untied their bundles and put some
of their clothes under her head and some over her feet
and legs.
The sun had set, and it was becoming dark. Vern did not
know what to do next. He was afraid to leave her there all
alone in the wobds, but he knew he had to get help for her.
"Vern," she said, holding out her hand to touch him.
He grasped it in his, squeezing and stroking her fin-
gers and wrist. "What is it, Nellie?"
"I'm afraid it is going to happen ... happen ... happen
right away," she said weakly, closing her eyes before she
could finish.
He bent down and saw that her lips were bloodless
and that her face was whiter than he had ever seen anyone's
face. While he watched her, her body became tense and
she bit her mouth to keep from screaming with pain.
Vern jumped up and· ran to the road, looking up it
and down it. The night had come down so quickly that
he could not tell whether there were any fields or clea1ed
ground there as an indication of somebody's living near.
There were no signs of a house or people anywhere.
He ran back to Nellie. .
"Are you all right?" he asked her.
"If I could go to sleep," she said. "I think I would be
all right for a while."
He got down beside her and put his arms around her.
"If I thought you wouldn't be afraid, I'd go up the
road until I found a house and get a car or something to
carry you. I can't let you stay here all night on the ground."
"You might not get back - in time!" she cried fran-
tically.
"I'd hurry as fast as I could," he said, "I'll run until
I find somebody."
"If you'.ll come back in two or three hours," she said,
"I'd be able to stand it, I think. I couldn't stand it any
longer than that alone, though." ·
134
 He got up.
''I'm going," he said.
He ran up the road as fast as he could, remembering
how he had pleaded to be allowed to stay in the house
a little longer so Nellie would not have to go like that.
The only answer he had got, even after he had explained
about Nellie, was a shake of the head. There was no use
in begging after that. He was being put out, and he could
not do anything abo.ut it. He was certain there should
have been some money due him for ·his crop that fall,
even a few dollars, but he knew there was no use in trying
to argue about that, either. He had gone home the night
before, knowing they would have to leave. He stumbled,
falling heavily, headlong, on the road. .
When he picked himself up, he saw a light ahead.
It was only a pale ray from board window that had been
closed tightly. Bu.t it was a house, and somebody lived
in it. He ran toward it as fast as he could.
When he got to the place, a dog under the house
barked, but he paid no attention to it. He ran up to the door
and pounded on it with both fists.
"Let me in!" he yelled. "Open the door!"
Somebody inside shouted, and several chairs were
knocked over. The dog ran out from under the house and
began snapping at Verri's legs. He tried to kick the dog
away, but the dog was just as determined as he was, and
came back at him more savagely than before. Finally he
pushed the door open, breaking a buttonlock.
Several Negroes were hiding in the room. He could
see heads and feet under the bed and behind a trunk and
under a table.
"Don't be scared of me," he said as calmly as he could.
"I came for help. My wife's down the road, sick. I've
got to get her into a house s'omewhere. She's lying on the
ground."
The oldest man in the room, a gray-haired Negro who
looked about fifty, crawled from under the bed.
"I'll help you, boss," he said. "I didn't know what
you wanted when you came shouting and yelling like
that. That's why I didn't open the door and let you in."
"Have you got a cart, or something like that?" Vern
asked.
"I've got a one-horse cart," the man said. "George, you
and Pete go hitch up the mule to the cart. Hurry and do it."
135
 two Negro boys came from their hiding-places and ran
out the back door.
"We'll need a mattress, or something like that to put
her on," .Vern said. .
The Negro woman began stripping the covers from the
bed, and Vern picked up the mattress and carried it out
the front door to the road. While he waited for the boys to
drive the cart out, he walked up and down, trying to assure
himself that Nellie would be all right.
When the, cart was ready, they all got in and ·drove
down the road as fast as the mule could go. It took less
than half an hour for them to reach the grove where he
. had left Nellie, and by then he realized he had been gone
three hours or longer.
Vern jumped to the ground, calling her. She did not
answer. He ran up the bank and fell on his knees beside
her on the ground. "Nellie!" he said, shaking her. "W?ke
up, Nellie! This is Vern, Nelliel"
He could not make her answer. Putting his face down
against hers, he felt her cold cheek. He put his hands on
her forehead, and that was cold, too. Then he found her
wrists and held them· in his fingers while he pressed his
ear tightly against her· breast.
The Negro man finally succeeded in pulling him back-
ward. For a while he did not know where he was or what
had happened. It seemed as if his mind had gone complete-
ly blank.
The Negro was try,ing to talk to him, but Vern could
not hear a word he was saying. He did know that something
had happened, and that Nellie's face and hands were cold,
and that he could not feel her heart beat. He knew, but
he could not make himself believe that it was really
true.
He fell down on the ground, h.is face pressed against
the pine Iwcdll•s, whllehis fingers dug in-to the soft damp
earth. He could hear voices above him, and he could hear
the words lilt' voices said,· but nothing had any meaning.
Sometime - a long time away - he would ask about
their baby -about Nellie's- about their baby. He knew
it would be a long time before he could ask anything like
that, though. It would be a long time before words wou·Jd
have any meaning In them again. · ·

136
 TASKS

1. Read the story; speak about your first impression of

it.
2. Point out the compositional parts! the exposition, the
story, the climax, the denouement. Give a title to
each part.
3. Reproduce .the episode of Nelly waiting for Vern to
wake up as well as th.e dialogue which follows it. Pay
attention to how suspense is being gradually worked
up. Point out and comment on the words and phrases
that depict Nelly's emotional state. Indicate and com-
rtient on the meaningfulness of the device of grada-
tion as well as other devices used in this part of the
story. .
4. Pick out and comment on the sentences that speak of
how Vern had been told to leave. How do you account
for the fact that the man who had turned them
out is never called by name but is referred to as
"he"?
5. Find the occurrences of apesiopeses. Observe what they
all refer to; speak on their implication.
6. What is the author's attitude towards Vern and Nelly?
How is it revealed: in the author's direct, personal
evaluation, or, impersonally, through a depiction of the
characters' actions and speech? Do the following task
by way of substantiating your point. Pick out words and
expressions that speak of: I) The way Nelly stood
her ordeal; 2) Vern's and Nelly's relationship; 3) Vern's
reaction to Nellie's death. Analyse the'words you have
picked out from the view-point of their denotations
(e. g. verbs of concrete physical actions vs. abstract
actions), stylistic reference and emotive charge.
7. Comment on the metaphorical meaning of the story's
title. What can you say about the author's attitude
to the two characters as regards the emotive quality
, of the metaphor he has employed.
8. Reproduce Nature descriptions given in the story.
a) Observe the character of the epithets and other tro-
pes used in the descriptions. See how epithets are
arranged in sentences. Comment on the rhythmical effect
these sentences produce and the causes of such an effect.
b) Indicate that feature of Nature which figures prom- ,
inent in the .exposition and elsewhere in the story.
6 B. B, CocaoacKas 137
 Wliat is its function as far as the underlying idea of
the story is concerned?
9. Reproduce the Negro episode. What of the Negroes'
position and of their character has the author managed
to show in that short episode? Indicate the word that
stands as key-word in the episode.
10. Write a page-long statement on the message the author
has conveyed in the story. '
 SUPPLEMENTARY
READING

THE RED ABOVE THE GREEN 1

(from Sean O'Casey's "Autobiographies")

[. .. ] Every shop, warehouse, bank, and building flut-

tered with flags; and walls flamed with rose, shamrock,
and thistle, harps here and crowns there, with lions and
unicorns in special places. It was a gorgeous sight as the
tram moved slowly through the street, walled with fire;
with copings, pillars, pediments, balconies, and balu-
strades swathed in purple and crimson cloths, edged with
the finest gold; and garlands of red, white, and blue joining
them all lovingly together; fair and fine linen, taffeta,
and tabinet of gentle weave, brought out and displayed
with great cunning in honour of England's valiant Queen.
On the tram crawled between the people crowding the
street, the driver constantly blowing his whistle as a
reminder to the people to keep a way clear; over Carlisle
Bridge, into, and up, Westmoreland Street, Johnny point-
. ing to the brightly lit clock, surmounted by a sparkling
crown, slung out of the office of the Irish Times.
"It's a great thing," said Johnny's mother, "to see
such enormous crowds so ordher 1y, beset on! y with the
one thought of enjoyin' themselves. If the government
'ud establish a Royal Residence here, there' d be no more
loyal and law-abidin' people in the whole livin' world
than the Irish people. We're coming now to the heart of
it all, she added - Thrinity College an' the Bank of Ire-
land." ·
The tram slowly glided, with the crowd around it, into a
wide well of gleaming, glittering, rippling lights, turning
1 Short stories and extracts from novels given in this part of
the book are meant for a two-hour discussion each. The discussion
will of necessity be cursory. It may be limited to "What the thing
impressed me most by".
6* 139
the night into a laughing day. Through the first few
streets, J ohnny had seen the jewels hanging from Dub-
lin's ear and a shimmering circle of gems around her neck;
but here he stared at the beautiful crown set lovingly .on
her head. Trinity College and the Royal Bank of Ireland
were dripping in jewels of light, and the countless banners
fluttered like broad blossoms flowering in the midst of
flames. The great mass of people stood silent and still,
gazing spellbound in the midst of the wonder. The silence.
was fraught with a quiet passion of esteem and fealty.
It was the adorning. of the rock of their salvation, and
Johnny and his mother pressed-each other's hands.
Out in the middle distance, Johnny caught sight of
sparkling spots of silver shining out in the darker patches
close to less brilliantly lighted buildings. They were the
silver-mounted helmets of the police standing in batches,
here and there, under the doorways and gateways of the
buildings. · ·
Suddenly a crowd of well-dressed young men, ar-.
ranged in ranks like soldiers, one of them carrying a
big Union Jack, began to sing with all the vigour of their
voices and all the fervour of their young hearts:
God save our gracious,Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen!

"The College Boys are out, the College boys are out!"
shouted the man of the wide watery mouth, jumping to
his Jeet, and hanging half out over the top of the tram.
"Now we'll see a snatch of the thruth at last!"
. But the vigour of the lusty singing voices was pushed
down to a murmur by a low humming boo from the crowd,
growing louder and deeper till it silenced the song and
shook itself into a menacing roar of anger. A crash of splin-
tered glass was heard, and pieces of a broken college win-
dow fell tinkling on to the pavement below. The menacing
roar mellowed into a chanting challenge, low at first,
but gradually ~rowing to the tumbling booming of a great
river in flood, as the huge crowd sang .and pressed against
the police in an effort to come closer to the College Boys:
The jealous English tyrant, now, has 'banned our Irish green,
And forced us to eonecnl lt, like a something foul and mean;
But yet, by hcavl~nsl hu'll sooner raise his victims from the dead,
Than force our hcurb tu leave the green and ~otton to the red!_
140
 Someone raised a great green flag; there was a. great
cheer; the crowd pressed forward, and the police were hard
put to keep them back; and broken glass from the college
windows continued to fall tinkling on to the pavement
below, as the song went on:
We'll trust ourselves, for God is good, and blesses those who lean
On their. brave hearts, and not upon an earthly king or queen,
And freely as we lift our hands, we vow our blood to shed,
Once and forever more to raise the green above the red!
Johnny saw the singing crowd suddenly surge forward,
break the line of policemen barring their way, and attack
the College Boys with fists and sticks, driving them back,
back, back towards the college gates. He heard a bell
tolling inside the college; saw the heavy entrance dobrs
open, and a crowd of other College Boy,s pouring out,
armed with heavy sticks, all cheering and yelling as they
hurried on to join their comrades attacked by the people.
He saw the police struggling with the crowd, trying hard
to keep together, and smiting ashard as they could every
head that came within reach of a baton; but one by one
they were falling, to be savagely kicked and trampled on
by the angry members of the dense crowd. And there in
· it all sto.od the tram, like a motionless ship in a raging
sea, o/hile the gentle horses stood still together in the
midst of the tumult.
Some of the crowd had got a rope, had flung it over
the pole carrying a great Royal Standard, flying from a big
bank building. Hundreds of hands tugged and tugged till
the pole snapped, and the great flag came fluttering down
among the delighted crowd who struggled with each other
to be the first to tear it to pieces.
"Looka them pulling down the Royal Standard," moaned ·
the man of the wide watery mouth. His mouth slavered
with rage, and he could hardly speak. "Where's the
polish! Why don't the polish do somethin' -the ·gang of
well-clad, well-fed, lazy, useless bastards! If I was betther
dhressed than I am, I be down in a jiffy to show them how
to jue their job."
"Betther if we hadn't come out at all," Mrs. Casside
kept murmuring, keeping a tight grip of Johnny's hand.
"I wish we hadn't come out at all." _
. A frightened cry rang out as the crowd and the College
Boys were fighting. The horse police, the horse police,
here's the horse police! Far away up Danme Street, Johnny
141
 saw the silvered helmets of the horse police bobbing up
and down, becoming brighter and drawing nearer second
by second. A great wedge of the crowd pressed back into
Grafton Street, pushing, shoving, and fisting its way on
to get clear of the oncoming mounted police. Women
· screamed as they were shoved headlong back, and some men
tried to lift terrified children on to their shoulders. In
one place Johnny saw a yelling woman savagely trying to
fight her way back to the thick of the crowd, screaming
out:
"Me Tommie's lost; he was pushed out o' me hands;
let me· back, God damn .you, till I find me Tommiel Oh,
please, please make way for me!"
But the crowd was helpless, and she was pushed back
and back, till Johnny lost sight of her, still screaming to
be let back to find her Tommie.
The mounted constables were followed by a great crowd,
booing and yelling, throwing stones, bottles, and even bits
of iron coming as close as they dared to the heels of the
horses. Occasionally some of the police would wheel,
charge back, and the crowd following would scatter; to
come back again as soon as the mounted police had turned
to their comrades. Once, J ohnny saw a mounted cons tab le
stiffen in his saddle, give a little yelp, letting go his hold
on the long truncheon so that it hung by the throng of
his wrist, turn his face backwards, showing that his right
cheek had been cut open by the jagged end of half a bottle,
flung by a hating hand in the crowd. Other constables
ran to help the wounded man from his horse; and one of
them tied up the gaping cheek with a large handkerchief
borrowed from a comrade.
Some of those fighting the College Boys shouted a
warning as the mounted men came curvetting into College
Street; the fighters broke conflict, and the enemies of the
loyal College Boys retreated down Westmoreland and
College Streets, some running with a limp and others with
bent heads, and hands.clasped over them. The man carrying
the long green. banner ran with them, but the weight of
pole and the folds of the flag fluttering round his legs ·
hampered his running. The police, angry at the fall of
their comrade, came forward at a hard gallop irt pursuit of.
the fleeing crowd. One of them, galloping by the man
with the flag, leaned over his horse, swung his long batcin,
and brought it down on the man's head, tumbling him
142
over to lay him stretched out near the centre of the street,
almost hidden in the folds of his green banner.
J ohnny shrank back and pressed close to his mother,
feeling her body shudder deep as she saw.
A mounted police officer came trotting over to the
tram, leaned over his horse, and touched the driver on
the shoulder with a slender whip.
"Take your tram to hell out of this, back to where it
came - quick!" he ordered.
The driver leaped down off his platform, unhooked the
tracing-pole with . one hand, turned the horses to the
opposite end of the tram by the reins with the other, hooked
the tracing-pole again, and climbed on to the platform.
The conductor pulled his bell, and the tram moved slowly
back the way it had come; out of the gas-glittering
homage to a Queen; out of the purple and crimson and gold;
out of the pomp on the walls and bloodshedin the street;
out of sight of the gleaming crowns and beaming blessings,
back to the dimness of Dorset Street and home.
The last sight that J ohnny saw, as the tram moved slowly
away, was the mounted police making a galloping charge
towards Dame Street, in the middle ·of a storm of boos
and stones and bottles; and a lone huddled figure lying
still in the street, midway between the bank and the
college, almost hidden in the folds of a gay green,banner.

THE CHERRY TREE

by Alfred Coppard

There was uproar somewhere among the backyards of

Australia Street. It was so alarming that people at their
midday meal sat ·still and stared at one another. A fort-
night before murder had been done in the street, in broad
daylight, with a chopper; people were nervous. An upper
window was thrown open and a .startled and ·startling
head exposed.
"It's that young devil, J ohnny Flynn, again! Killing
rats!" shouted Mrs. Knatchbole, shaking her fist towards
the Flynn's backyard. Mrs. Knatchbole was ugly; she had
a goitred neck and a sharp skinny nose with an orb shining
at its end, constant as grief.
"You wait, my boy, till your mother comes home, you
just wait!" invited this apparition, but Johnny was gazing
. 143
 sickly aLthe body of a big rat slaughtered by the dogs
of his friend George. The uproar was caused by the quar-
relling of the dogs, possiqly for honours, but more prob-
ably, as is the custom of victors, for loot.
"Bob down!" warned George, but Johnny bobbed up
to catch the full anger of those baleful Knatchbole eyes.
The urchin put his fingers promptly to his nose.
. "Look at that for eight years old," screamed the lady.
"Eight years old 'e is! As true as God's my maker I'll ... "
The impending vow was stayed and blasted· forever,
Mrs. Knatchbole being taken with a fit of sneezing, where-
upon the boys uttered some derisive 'Haw-haws!'
So Mrs. Knatchbole met Mrs. Flynn that night as -she
came from work, Mrs. Flynn being a widow who toiled
daily and dreadfully at a laundry and perforce left her
children, except for their school hours, to their own devices.
The encounter was an emphatic one and the tired widow
promised to admonish her boy.
"But-it's all right, Mrs. Knatchbole, he's going from
me in a week, to his uncle in London he is going, a person
of wealth, and he'll be no annoyance to ye then. I'm
ashamed.that he misbehaves but he's no bad boy really."
At home his mother's remonstrances reduced J ohnny
to repentance and silence; he felt base indeed;.he wanted to
do something great and worthy at once to offset it all;
he wished he had got some money, he'd have gone and
bought her a bottle of stout - he knew she liked stout.
"Why do yevex people so, Johnny?" asked Mrs. Flynn
wearily. "I work my fingers to the bone for ye, week in
and week out. Why can't ye behave like Pomony?"
His sister was a year younger than him; her name was
Mona, which Johnny's elegant mind had disliked. One
day he re-baptised her; Pomona she became and Pomona ·
she remained. The Flynns sat down to supper. "Never
mind about 'all that, mum," said the boy, kissing her as
he passed her chair, "talk to us about the cherry tree!"
The cherry tree, luxuriantly blooming, was the crown of
the mother's memories of her youth and her father's farm;
.around the myth of its wonderful blossoms and fruit she
could weave garlands of romance, and to her own mind,
as well as to_ the minds of her children, it became a hea-
venly symbol of her old lost home, grand with acres and
delightful with orchard and full pantry. What wonder
that in her humorous narration the joys were multiplied
144
and magnified until even Johnny was obliged lo intervene ..
"Look here, how many horses did your father have, mum
... really, though?" Mrs. F}ynn_ became vague, cast a furtive
glance at this son of hers and then gulped with laughter
until she recovered her ground with: "Ah, but there was
a cherry tree!" It W!lS a grand supper - actually a polony
and some potatoes. J ohnny knew this was because he was
going away. Ever since itw_as known that he was to go to
London they had been having something special like this,.
or sheep's trotters, or a pig's tail. Mother seemed to grow
kinder and kinder to him. He wished he had some money,
he would like to buy her a bottle of stout - he knew she
liked stout.
Well, Johnny went away to live with· his uncle, but,
alas, he was only two months in London before he was
returned to his mother and Pomciny. Uncle was an engine-.
driver who disclosed to his astounded nephew a passion
for gardening. This was incomprehensible to J ohimy ·
Flynn. A great roaring boiling locomotive was the grand-
est thing in the world. J ohnny had rides on it, so he knew.
And it was easy for him to imagine that every gardener
cherished in the darkness of his disappointed soul an un-
availing passion for a steam engine, but how an engine-driver
could immerse' himself in the mushiness of gardening was
a baffling problem. However, before he returned home he
discovered .one important thing from his uncle's hobby,
and he sent the information to his sister: ·

Dear Pomona,
·Uncle Harry has got a alotment and grow veggutabfes.
He says what makes the mold is worms. You know
we puled all the worms out off our garden and chukked ·
them over Miss Natchbols wall. Well you better get
some more quick a lot ask George to help you and I
·bring som seeds home when I. comes next week by the
excursion on ,Moms birthday. -
Your sincerely brother
John Flynn
On mother's birthday Pomona met him at the station.
She kissed him shyly and explained that mother was going
to have a half holiday to celebrate th~ double occasion
and would be home with them at dinner time.-
"Pomona, did you get them worms?"·
145
 Pomona was inclined to evade the topic of worms for
the garden, but fortunately her brother's enthusiasm for
another gardening project tempered the wind of his indig-
nation. When they reached home he unwrapped two par-
cels he had brought with him; he explained his scheme
to his sister; he led her into the garden. The Flynns'
backyard, mostly paved with bricks, was small, and so
the enclosing walls, truculently capped by chips of glass,
a! though too low for privacy were yet too high for the growth
of any cherishable plant. J ohnny had certainly once reared
a magnificent exhibit of two cowslips, but these had been
mysteriously destroyed by the Knatchbole cat. The dank
little enclosure was charged with sterility; nothing flour-
ished there except a lot of beetles and a dauntless evergreen
bush, as tall as J ohnny, displaying a profusion of thick
shiny leaves that you could split on your tongue and make
squeakers with. Pomona showed him how to do this and
they then busied themselves in the garden until the dinner
siren warned them that mother would be coming home.
They hurried into the kitchen and Pomona quickly spread
the cloth and the plates of food upon the table, while
J ohnny placed conspicuously in the centre, after laboriously
extracting the stopper with a fork and a hair-pin, a
bottle of stout brought from London. He had been much
impressed by numberless advertisements upon the hoar-
dings respecting this attractive beverage. The children
then ran off to meet their mother and they all came home
together with great hilarity. Mrs. Flynn's attention having
been immediately drawn to the sinister decoration of her
dining t,able, Pomona was requested to pour out a glass
of the nectar. Johnny handed this gravely to his parent,
saying:
"Many happy returns of the day, Mrs. Flynn!"
"0 dear, dear!" gasped his mother merrily, "you drink
first!"
"Excuse me, no, Mrs. Flynn," rejoined her son, "many
happy returns of the day!"
When the toast had been honoured Pomona and J ohnny
looked tremendously at each other.
"Shall we?" exclaimed Pomona. "Oh, yes," decided
J ohnny; "Come on mum, in the garden, something marvel-
lous!"
She followed her children into that dull little den, and
by happy chance the sun shone grandly for the occ.asion.
146
Behold, the dauntless evergreen bush had been stripped of
its leaves and upon its blossomless twigs the children had
hung numerous couples of rip~ cherries, white and red
and black.
"What do you think of it, mum?" they cried, snatching
some of the fruit and pressing it into her hands, "what do
you think of it?"
"Beautiful!" replied Mrs. Flynn in a tremulous voice.
The children stared silently at their mother until she
could bear it no longer. She turned and went sobbing into
the kitchen.

ACROSS THE BRIDGE

by Graham Greene

"They say he's worth a million," Lucia said. He sat

there in the little hot damp M!?xican square, a dog at his
feet, with an air of immense and forlorn patience. The
dog attracted your attention at once; for it was very nearly
an English setter, only something had gone. wrong with
the tail and the feathering. Palms wilted over his head,
it was all shade and stuffiness round the bandstand, radios
talked loudly in Spanish from the little wooden sheds where
they changed your pesos into dollars at a loss. I could tell
he didn't understand a word from the way he read his
newspaper - as I did myself picking out the words which
were like English ones. "He's been here a month," Lucia
said. "They turned him out of Guatemala and Honduras."
You couldn't keep any secret for five hours in this bor-
der town. Lucia had only been twenty-four hours in the
place, but she knew all about Mr. Joseph Calloway. The
only reason I didn't know about him (and I'd been in the'
place· two weeks) was because I couldn't talk the language
any more th·an Mr. Calloway could. There wasn't another
soul in the place who didn't know the story- the whole
story of the Hailing Investment Trust and the proceedings
for extradition. Any man doing dusty business in any of
the wooden booths in the town is better fitted by long
observation to tell Mr. Calloway's tale than I am, except
that I was in - literally - at the finish. They all watched
the drama proceed with immense interest, sympathy and
respect. For, after all, he had a million.
Every once in a while through the long steamy day, a boy
came and cleaned Mr. Galloway's shoes: he hadn't the
147
 right WOI'ds to resist them - they pretended not to know
his English. He must have had his shoes cleaned the day
Lucia and I watched him at least half a dozen times. At
midday he took a stroll across the square to the Antonio
Bar and had a bottle of beer, the setter sticking to heel
as if they were out for a country walk in England (he had,
you may remember, one of the biggest estates in Norfolk).
After his bottle of beer, he would walk down between the
money-changers' huts to the Rio Grande and look across the
bridge into the United States: people came and went con-
stantly in cars. Then back to the square t_illluncn time. He
was staying in the best hotel, but you don't get good hotels
in this border town: nobody stays in them more than a
night. The good hotels were on the other side of the bridge;
·you could see their electric signs twenty storeys high from
the little square at night, like lighthouses marking the
United States. ·
You may ask what I'd been doing in so drab a spot
for a fortnight. There was. no interest in the place for anyone;
it was just damp and dust and poverty, a Kind of shabby
replica of the town across the river: both had squares in
the same spots; both had the same number of cinemas.
One was cleaner than the other, that was all, and more
· expensive, much more expensive. I'd stayed across there
a couple of nights waiting for a man a tourist bureau said
was driving down from Detroit to Yucatan and would sell
a place in his car for some fantastically small figure-
twenty dollars, I think it was. I don't know if he existed
or was invented by the optimistic half-caste in the agency;_
anyway, he never turned up and so I waited, not much
caring, on the cheap side of the river. It didn't much matter;
I was living. One day I meant to give up the man from
Detroit and go home or go south, but it was easier not to
decide anything in a hurry. Lucia was just waiting for a
car going the other way, but she didn't have to wait so
long. We waited together and watched Mr.Calloway waih
ing- for God knows what. .
I don't know how to treat this story -'- it was a tragedy
for Mr. Calloway, it was poetic retribution, I suppose, in
the eyes of the shareholders he'd ruined with his bogus
transactions, and to Lucia and me, at this stage, it was pure
comedy- except when he kicked the dog. I'm not a sen-
timentalist about dogs, I prefer people to be cruel to ani-
mals rather than to human beings, but I couldn't help
148
 being revolted at the way he'd kick that animal -with
a hint of cold-blooded venom, not in ·anger but as if
he were getting even for some trick it had played him a
long while ago. That generally happened when he returned
from the bridge: it was the only sign of anything resembling
emotion he showed. Otherwise he looked a small, set,
gentle creature with silver hair and a silver moustache,
and gold-rimmed gl(lsses, and one gold tooth like a
flaw in character.
Lucia 'hadn't been accurate when she said he'd been
turned out of Guatemala and Honduras; he'd left volun-
tarily when the extradition proceedings seemed likely to
go through and moved north. Mexico is still not a very
centralized state, and it is possible to get round governors
as you can't get round cabinet ministers or judges. And
so he waited there on the border for the next move. That
earlier part of the story is, I suppose, dramatic, but I
didn't watch it and I can't invent what I haven't seen-
the long waiting in ante-rooms, the bribes taken and
refused, the growing fear of arrest, and then the flight -
in gold-rimmed glasses -covering his tracks as well
as he could, but this wasn't .finance and he was an amateur
. at escape. And so he'd washed up here, under my eyes
and Lucia's eyes, sitting all day under the bandstand, noth-
ing to read but a Mexican paper, nothing to do but look
across the river at the United States, quite unaware, I
suppose, that everyone knew everything about him, once
a day kicking his dog. Perhaps in its semi-setter way
it reminded him too much of the Norfolk estate- though
that, too, I suppose, was the reason he kept it.
And the next act again was pure comedy. I hesitate
to think what this man wprth a million was costing his
country as they edged him out from this land and that.
Perhaps somebody was getting· tired of the business, and
careless; anyway, they sent across two detectives, with
an old photograph. He'd grown his silvery moustache since
that had been taken, and he'd aged a lot, and they couldn't
catch sight of him. They hadn't been. across the bridge
two hours when everybody knew that there were two foreign
detectives in town looking for Mr. Calloway- everybody
knew, that is to say, except Mr. Calloway, who couldn't
talk Spanish. There were plenty of people who could have
told him in English, but they didn't. It wasn't cruelty,
it was a sortof awe and. respect: like a bul1, he was on show,
149
sitting mournfully in the plaza with his dog, a magnificent
spectacle for which we all had ring-side seats.
I ran into one of the policemen in the Bar Antonio.
He was disgusted; he had had some idea that when he crossed
the bridge life was going to be different, so much more
colour and sun, and - I suspect - love, and all he found
were wide pmd streets where the nocturnal rain lay in
pools, and mangy dogs, smells, and cockroaches in his
bedroom, and the nearest to love, the open door of the
Academia Comercial, where pretty mestjzo girls sat all
the morning learning to typewrite. Tip-tap-tip-tap-tip-
perhaps they had a dream, too.- jobs on the other side
of the bridge, where life was going to be so much more
luxurious, refined and amusing.
We got into conversation; he seemed surprised that
I knew who they both were and what they wanted. He said,
"We've got information this man Calloway's in town."
"He's knocking around somewhere," I said.
"Could you point him out?"
"Oh, I don't know him by sight," I said.
He drank his beer and thought a while. "I'll go out
and sit in the plaza. He's sure to pass sometime."
I finished my beer and went quickly off and found
Lucia. I said, "Hurry, we're going to see an arrest." We
didn't care a thing about Mr. Calloway, he was just an
elderly man who kicked his dog and swindled the poor,
and who deserved anything he got. So we made for the
plaza; we knew Calloway would be there, but it had never
occurred to either of us that the detectives wouldn't recog-
nize him. There was quite a surge of people round the
place; all the fruit-sellers and boot-blacks in town
seemed to have arrived together; we had to force our way
through, and there in the little green stuffy centre of the
place, sitting on adjoining seats, were the two plain-
clothes men and Mr. Calloway. I've never known the place
so silent; everybody was on tiptoe, and the plain-cleithes
men were staring at the crowd looking for Mr. Calloway,
and Mr. Calloway sat on his usual seat staring out over the
money-changing booths at the United States.
"It can't go on, it just can't," Lucia said. But it did.
It got more fantastic still. Somebody ought to write a
play about it. We sat as close as we dared. We were afraid
all the time we were going to laugh. The semi-setter
scratched for fleas and Mr. Calloway watched the U. S. A. ·
150
The two detectives watched the crowd, and the crowd
watched the show with solemn satisfaction. Then one of the
detectives got up and went over to Mr. Calloway. That's
the end, I thought. But it wasn't, it was the beginning.
For some reason they had eliminated him from their list
of suspects. I shall never know why. The man said:
"You speak English?"
"I am English," Mr. Calloway said.
Even that didn't tear it, and the strangest thing of
all was the way Mr. Calloway came alive. I don't think
anybody had spoken to him like that for weeks. The Mexi-
cans were too respectful -he was a man with a million-
and it had never occurred to Lucia and me to treat him
casually like a human being; even in our eyes he had been
magnified by the colossal theft and the world-wide pursuit.
He said, "This is rather a dreadful place, don't you
think?" '
"It is," the policeman said.
"I can't think what brings anybody across the bridge."
"Duty," the policeman said gloomily. "I suppose you
are passing through."
"Yes," Mr. Calloway said.
"I'd have expected over here there'd have been- you
know what I mean - life. You read things .about Mexico."
"Oh, life," Mr. Calloway said. He spoke firmly and pre-
cisely, as if to a committee of shareholders. "That begins
on the other side."
"You don't appreciate your country until you leave it."
"That's very true," Mr. Calloway said. "Very true."
At first it was difficult not to laugh, and then after
a while there didn't seem to be much to laugh at; an old
man imagining all the fine things going on beyond the
international bridge. I think he thought of the town opposite
as a combination of London and Norfolk- theatres and
cocktail bars, a little shooting and a walk round the
field at evening with the dog- that miserable imita-
tion of setter- poking the ditches. He'd never been across,
he couldn't know that it was just the same thing over
again - even the same layout; only the streets were paved
and the hotels had ten more storeys, and life was more
expensive, and everything was a little bit cleaner. There
wasn't anything Mr. Calloway would have called living-
no galleries, no book-shops, just Film-Fun and the
local paper, and Click and Focus and the tabloids.
151
 "Well," said Mr. Calloway, "I think I'll take a stroll
before lunch. You need an appetite to swallow the food
here. I generally go down and look at the bridge about
now. Care to come, too?"
The detective shook his head. "No," he said, "I'm on
duty. I'm looking for a fellow." And that, of course, gave
him away. As far as Mr. Calloway could understand,
there was only one "fellow" in the world anyone was look-
ing for - his brain had eliminated friends who were
seeking their friends, husbands who might be waiting for
their wives, all objectives of any search but just the one.-
The power of elimination was what had made a financier-
he could forget the people behind the shares.
That was the last we saw of him for a while. We didn't
see him going into the Botica Paris to get his aspirin, or
walking back from the bridge with his dog. He simply
disappeared, and when he disappeared, people began to
talk, and the detectives heard the talk. They looked silly
enough, and they got busy after the very man they'd been
sitting next to in the garden. Then they, too, disappeared.
They, as well as Mr. Calloway, had gone to the state capital
to see the Governor and the Chief of Police, and it must
have been an amusing sight there, too, as they bumped
into Mr. Calloway and sat with him in the waiting-rooms.
I suspect Mr. Calloway was generally shown in first, for
everyone knew he was worth a million. Only in Europe
it is possible for a man to be a criminal as well as a rich
man.
Anyway, after about a week the whole pack of them
returned by the same train. Mr. Calloway travelled Pull-
man, and the two polic~men travelled in the day coach.
It was evident that they hadn't got their extradition
order.
Lucia had left by that time. The car came and went
across the bridge. I stood in Mexico and watched her get
out at the United States Customs. She wasn't anything
in· particular, but she looked beautiful at a distance as
she gave me a wave out of the United States and got back
into the car. And I suddenly felt sympathy for Mr.. Callo-
way, as if there were something over there which you couldn't
find here, and turning round I saw him back on his old
beat, with the dog at his heels.
I said "Good afternoon", as if it had been all a1ong
our habit to greet each other. He looked tired and ill and
152
dusty, and I felt sorry for him - to think of the kind of
victory he'd been winnit;,g, with so much expenditure of
cash and care - the pnze this dirty and dreary town,
the booths of the money-changers, the, awful little beauty
parlours with their wicker chairs and sofas looking like
the reception rooms of brothels, that hot and stuffy garden
by the bandstand. _
He replied gloomily, "Good morning", and the dog
started to sniff at some ordure and he turned and kicked it
with fury, with depression, with despair. .
And at that moment a taxi with the two policemen
in it passed us on its way to the bridge. They must have
seen that kick; perhaps they were cleverer than I had
given them credit for, perhaps they were just sentimental
about animals, and thought they'd do a good deed, and
the rest happened by accident. But the fact remains -
those two pillars of the law set about the stealing of Mr.
Calloway's dog.
He watched them go by. Then he said, "Why don't
you go across?"
"It's cheaper here," I said. ·
. "I mean just for an evening. Have a meal at that place
we car1 see at night in the sky. Go to the theatre."
"There isn't a chance."
He said angrily, sucking his gold tooth, "Well, anyway,
get away from here." He stared down the hill and up the
other side. He couldn't see that that street c;limbing up
from the bridge contained only the same· money-changers'
booths as this one.
I said, "Why don't you go?"
· He said evasively, "Oh- business."
I said, "It's only a question of money. You don't have
to pass by the bridge."
He said with faint interest, "I don't talk Spanish."
"There isn't a soul here," I said, "Who doesn't talk
English." -
He looked at me with surprise. "Is that so?" he said.
"Is that so?"
It's as I have said; he never tried to talk to anyone,
and they respected him too much to talk to him - he was
worth a million. I don't know whether I'm glad or sorry
that I told him that. If I hadn't he might be there now,
sitting by the bandstand having his shoes cleaned - alive
and suffering.
7 B. B. CocHoBCKaH 153
 Three days later his dog disappeared. I found him
looking for it, calling it softly and shamefacedly between
the palms of the garden. He looked embarrassed. He said
in a low angry voice, "I hate that dog. The beastly mon-
grel," and called "Rover, Rover" in a voice which didn't
carry five yards. He said, "I bred setters once. I'd have shot
a dog like that." It reminded him, I was right, of Norfolk,
and he lived in the memory, and he hated it for its imper-
fection, He was a man without a family and without
friends,·and his'only enemy was that dog. You couldn't call
the law an enemy; you have to be intimate with an enemy.
Late that afternoon someone told him they'd seen the
dog walking across the bridge. It wasn't true, of course,
but we didn't know that then- they'd paid a Mexican
five pesos to smuggle it across. So all that afternoon and
the next Mr. Calloway sat in the garden having his shoes
cleaned over and over again, and thinking how a dog could
just walk across like that, and a human being, an immortal
soul, was bound here in the awful routine of the little
walk and the unspeakable meals and the aspirin at the
botica. That dog was seeing things he couldn't see- that
hateful dog. It made him mad - I think literally mad.
You must remember the man had been going on for months.
He had a million and he was living on two pounds a week,
with nothing to spend his money on. He sat there and
brooded on the hideous injustice of it. I think he'd have
crossed over one day in any case, but the dog was the last
s~aw. ·
Next day when he wasn't to be seen, I guessed he'd
gone across and I went too. The American town is as small
as the Mexican. I knew I couldn't miss him if he was
there, and I was still curious. A little sorry for him, but
not much.
I caught sight of him first in the only drug-store,
having a Coca-Cola, and then once outside a cinema look-
ing at the posters; he had dressed with extreme ·neatness,
as if for a party, but there was no party. On my third •time
round, I came on the detectives- they were having Coca-
Colas in the drug-store, and they must have missed
Mr. Calloway by inches. I went in and sat down at the bar.
"Hello," I said, "You still about?" I suddenly felt
anxious for Mr. Calloway, I didn't want them to meet.
One of them said, "Where's Calloway?"
"Oh," I said, "he's hanging on."
!54
 "But not his dog," he said, and laughed. The other
looked a little shocked, he didn't like anyone to talk cyni-
cally about a dog. Then they got up - they had a car
outside.
"Have another?" I said.
"No, thanks. We've got to keep moving."
The men bent close and confided to me, "Calloway's
on this side."
"No!" I said.
"And his dog."
"He's looking for it," the other said.
''I'm damned if he is," I said, and again one of them
looked a little shocked, as if I'd insulted the dog.
I don't think Mr. Calloway was looking for his dog,
but his dog certainly found him. There was a sudden hila-
rious yapping from the car and out plunged the semi-
setter and gambolled furiously down the street. One of the
detectives- the sentimental one- was into the car before
we got to the door and was off after the dog. Near the
bottom of the long road to the bridge was Mr. Calloway -
I do believe he'd come down to look at the Mexican side
when he found there was nothing but the drug-store
and the cinemas and the paper-shops on the American.
He saw the dog coming and yelled at it to go home - "home,
home, home", as if they were in Norfolk- it took no notice
at all, pelting towards him. Then he saw the police car
coming and ran. After that, everything happened too
quickly, but I think the order of events was this - the
dog started across the road right in front of the car, and
Mr. Calloway yelled," at the dog or the car, I don't know
which. Anyway, the detective swerved -he said later,
weakly, at the inquiry, that he couldn't run over a dog, and
down went Mr. Calloway, in a mess of broken glass and
gold rims and silver hair, and blood. The dog was on to
him before any of us could reach him, licking and whim-
. pering and licking. I saw Mr. Calloway put up his hand,
and down it went across the dog's neck and the whimper
rose to a stupid bark of triumph, but Mr. Calloway wa$
dead-shock and a weak heart. ·
"Poor old geezer," the detective said, "I bet he really
loved that dog," and'it's true that the attitude in which
he lay looked more like a caress than a blow. I thought it
was meant to be a blow, but the detective may have been
right. It all seemed to me a little too touching to be true
7• 155
- as the old crook lay there with his arm over the dogs neck,
dead with his million between the money-changers' huts,
but it's as well to be humble in the face of human nature.
He had come across the river for something, and it may,
after all, have been the dog he was looking for. It sat
there, baying its stupid and mongrel triumph across his
body, like a piece of sentimental statuary: the nearest he
could get to the fields, the ditches, the horizon of his home.
It was comic and it was pitiable, but it wasn't less comic
because the man was dead. Death doesn't change comedy
to tragedy, and if that last gesture was one of affection,
I suppose it was only one more indication of a human
being capacity for self-deception, our baseless optimism
that is so much more appalling than our despair.

BABBITT
by Sinclair Lewis
Chapter XIV
I
This autumn a Mr. G. Harding, of Marion, Ohio, was
appointed President of the United States, but Zenith was
less interested in the national campaign than in the local
election. Seneca Doane, though he was a lawyer~ and a
graduate of the State University, was candidate for mayor
of Zenith on an alarming labor ticket. To oppose him the
Democrats and Republicans united on Lucas Prout, a
mattress-manufacturer with a perfect record for sanity.
Mr. Prout was supported by the banks, the Chamber of
Commerce, all the decentnewspapers, and George F. Bab- ·
bitt.
Babbitt was precinct-leader on Floral Heights, but
his district was safe and he longed for stouter battling.
His convention paper had given him the beginning of a
reputation for oratory, so ·the Repllblican-Democratic
Central- Committee sent him to the Seventh Ward and
South Zenith, to address small audiences of workmen and
clerks, and wives uneasy with their new votes. He acquired
a fame enduring for weeks. Now and then a reporter was
present at one of his meetings, and the headlines (though
they were not very large) indicated that George F. Babbitt
had addressed Cheering Throng, and Distinguished Man
of Affairs had pointed, out the Fallacies of Doane. Once,
156
in the rotogravure section of the Sunday Advocate-Times,
there was a photograph of Babbitt and a dozen other
business men, with the caption "Leaders of Zenith Finance
and Commerce Who Back Prout".
He d~served his glory. He was an excellent campaigner.
He had faHh; he was certain that if Lincoln were alive,
he would be electioneering for Mr. W. G. Harding-
unless he came to- Zenith and electioneered for Lucas
Prout. He did not confuse audiences by silly subtleties;
Prout represented honest industry, Seneca Doane repre-.
sented whining laziness, and you· could take your choice.
With his broad shoulders and vigorous voice, he was obvi-
ously a Good Fellow; and, ra'rest of all, he really liked
people. He almost liked common workmen. He wanted
them to be well paid, and able to afford high rents -
though, naturally, they must not interfere with the rea-
sonable profits of stockholders. Thus nobly endowed, and
keyed high by the discovery that he was a natural orator,
he was popular with audiences, and he raged through the
campaign, renowned not only in the Seventh and Eighth
Wards but even in parts of the Sixteenth.

II

Crowded in his car, they came driving up to Turnve-

rein Hall, South Zenith- Babbitt, his wife, Verona, Ted,
and Paul and Zilla Riesling. The hall was over a delica-
tessen shop, in a street banging with trolleys and smelling
of onions and gasoline and fried fish. A new appreciation
of Babbitt filled all of them, includiHg Babbitt.
"Don't know how you keep it up, talking to three
bunches in one evening. Wish I had your strength," said
Paul; and Ted exclaimed to Verona, "The old man cer-
tainly does know how to kid these roughnecks along!"
Men in black sateen shirts, their faces new-washed
but with a hint of grime under their eyes, were loitering
on the broad stairs up to the hall. Babbitt's party po-
litely edged through them .and into the whitewashed room,
at the front of which was a dais with a red-plush throne
and a pine altar painted watery blue, as used nightly by
the Grand Masters and Supreme Potentates of innumerable
lodges. The hall was full. As Babbitt pushed through the
fringe standing at the back, he heard the precious tribute,
"That's him!" The chairman bustled down the center
15.1
aisle with an impressive, "The speaker? All ready, sir!
Uh - let's see - what was the name, sir?"
Then Babbitt slid into a sea of eloquence:
"Ladies and gentlemen of the sixteenth Ward, there is
one who cannot be with us here to-night, a man than
whom there is no more stalwart Trojan in all the politi-
cal arena- I refer to our leader, the Honorable Lucas
Prout, standard-bearer of the city and county of Zenith.
Since he is not here, I trust that you will bear with me if,
as a friend and neighbour, as one who is proud to share
with you the common blessing of being a resident of the
great city of Zenith, I tell you in all candor, honesty,
and sincerity how the issues of this critical campaign appear
to one plain man of business- to one who, brought up
to the blessings of poverty and of manual labor, has, even
when Fate condemned him to sit at a desk, yet never
forgotten how, it feels, by heck, to be up at five-thirty
and at the factory with the ole dinner-pail in his hardened
mitt when the whistle blew at seven, unless the owner
sneaked in ten minutes on us and blew it early! (Laughter).
To come down to the basic and fundamental issues of this
campaign, the great error, insincerely promulgated by
Seneca Doane -"
There were workmen who jeered-young cynical work-
men, for the most part foreigners, Jews, Swedes, Irishmen,
Italians - but the older men, the patient, bleached,
stooped carpenters and mechanics, cheered him; and
when he worked up to his anecdote of Lincoln their eyes
were wet.
Modestly, busily, he hurried out of the hall on delicious
applaus~, and sped off to his third audience of the evening.
"Ted, you better drive," he said. "Kind of all in after that
spiel. Well, Paul, how'd it go? Did I get 'ern?"
"Bully! Corking! You had a lot of pep."
Mrs. Babbitt worshiped. "Oh, it was fine! So clear and
interesting, and such nice ideas. When I hear you orating
I realize I don't appreciate )low profoundly you think
and what a splendid brain and vocabulary you have.
Just- splendid."
But Verona was irritating. "Dad," she worried, "how do
you know that public ownership of utilities and so on and
so forth will always be a failure?" ·
Mrs. Babbitt reproved, "Rone, I should think you
could see and realize that when your father's all worn
158
out with orating, it's no time to expect him to explain
these complicated subjects. I'm sure when he's rested
he'll be glad to explain it to you. Now let's all be quiet
and givePapa a chance to get ready for his next speech.
Just think! Right now they're gathering in Maccabee
Temple, and waiting for us!"
Ill
Mr. Lucas Prout and Sound Business defeated Mr.
Seneca Doane and Class Rule, and Zenith was again saved.
Babbitt was offered several minor appointments to distrib-
ute among poor relations, but he preferred advance infor-
mation about the extension of paved highways, and this a
grateful administration gave to him. Also, he was one
of only nineteen speakers at the dinner with which the
Chamber of Commerce celebrated the victory of right-
eousness.
His reputation for oratory established, at the dinner
of the Zenith Real Estate Board he made the Annual
Address. The Advocate-Times reported this speech with
unusual fullness:
"One of the livest banquets that has recently been
pulled off occurred last night in the annual Get-Together
Fest of the Zenith Real Estate Board, held in the Venetian
Ball Room of the O'Hearn House. Mine host Gil O'Hearn
had as usual done himself proud and those assembled
feasted on such an assemblage of plates as could be rivaled
nowhere west of New York, if there, and washed down the
plenteous feed with the cup which inspired but did not
inebriate in the shape of cider from the farm of Chandler
Mott, president of the board and who acted as witty and
efficient chairman.
"As Mr. Matt was suffering from slight infection and
sore throat, G. F. Babbitt made the principal talk. Besides
outlining the progress of Torrensing real. estate titles,
Mr. Babbitt spoke in part as follows:
"'In rising to address you, with my impromptu speech
carefully tucked into my vest pocket, I am reminded of
the story of the two Irishmen, Mike and Pat, who were
riding on the Pullman. Both of them, I forgot to say, were
sailors in the Navy. It seems Mike had the lower berth
and by and by he heard a terrible racket from the upper, and
when he yelled up to find out what the trouble was, Pat an-
swered, "Shure an' bedad an' how can I ever get a night's
159
sleep at all, at all? I been trying to get into this darned
little hammock ever since eight bells!"
'"Now, gentlemen, standing up here before you, I
feel a good deal like Pat, and maybe after I've spieled
along for a while, I may feel so darn small. that I'll be able
to crawl into a Pullman hammock with no trouble at
all, at ._all!
'"Gentlemen, it strikes me that each year at this annual
occasion when friend and foe get together and Jay down
the battle-ax and Jet the waves of good-fellowship
waft them up the flowery slopes of amity, it behooves us,
standing together eye to eye and shoulder to shoulder
as fellow-citizens of the best city in the world, to consider
where we are both as regards ourselves and the common weal.
'"It is true that even with our 361,000, or practically
362,000, population, there are, by the last census,_ almost
a score of larger cities in the United States. But, gentlemen,
if by -the next ,census we do not stand at least tenth, then
I'll be the first to request any knocker to remove my shirt
and to eat the same, with the compliments of G. F. Bab-
bitt, Esquire! It may be true that New York, Chicago,
and Philadelphia will continue to keep ahead of us in size.
But aside from these three cities, which are notoriously so
overgrown that no decent white man, nobody who loves
his wife and kiddies and God's good out-o' -doors and
likes to shake the hand of his neighbor in greeting, would
want to live in them - and let me tell you right here arid
now, I wouldn't trade a high-class Zenith acreage_ -devel-
opment for. the whole length and breadth of Broadway
or State Street! - aside from these three, it's evident to
any one with a head for facts that Zenith is the finest examp-·
le of American life and prosperity to be found anywhere.
'"I dn't mean to say we're perfect. We've got a lot to
do in the way of extending the paving of motor boulevards,
for, believe me, it's the fellow with four to ten thousand
a year, say, and an automobile and a nice little family in
a bungalow on the edge of town, that makes the wheels
of progress go round! ·- ,
"That's the type of fellow that's ruling America today:
in fact, it's the ideal type to which the entire world must
tend; if there's to be a decent, well-balanced, Christian,
go .ahead future for this little old planet! Once in a while
1 just naturally sit back and size up this Solid American
Citizen, with a whale of a lot of satisfaction. ·
160
 '"Our Ideal Citizen - I picture him first and foremost
as being busier than a bird-dog, not wasting a lot of good
time in day-dreaming or going to sassiety teas or kicking
about things that are none of his business, but putting
the zip into some store or profession or art. At night he
lights up a good cigar, and climbs into _the little old bus,
and maybe cusses the carburetor, and shoots out home.
He mows the lawn, or sneaks in some practice putting,
and then he's ready for dinner. After dinner he tells the
kiddies a story, or takes the family to the movies, or plays
a few fists of bridge, or reads the evening paper, and a
chapter or two of some good lively Western novel if he
has a taste for literature, and maybe the folks next-door
drop in and they sit and visit about their friends and the
topics of the day. Then. he goes happily to bed, his con-
science clear, having contributed his mite to the prosperity
of the city and to his own bank-account.
"'In politics and religion this Sane Citizen is the canni-
est man on earth; and in the arts he invariably has a natural
taste which. makes him pick out the best, every time.
In no country in the world will you find so many repro-
ductions of the Old Masters and of well-known paintings
on parlor walls as in these United States. No country has
anything like our number of photographs, with not only
dance records and comic but also the best operas, such
as Verdi, rendered by the world's highest-paid singers.
'"In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot
of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and
spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture- .
painter is indistinguishable from any other decent business
man; and I, for one, am only too glad that the man who
has the rare skill to season his message with interesting
reading matter and who shows both purpose and pep in
handling his literary wares has a chance to drag down his
fifty thousand bucks a year, to mingle with the biggest
executives on terms of perfect equality, and to show as big
a house and as swell a· car as any Captain of Industry!
But, mind you, it's the appreciation of the Regular Guy
who I have been depicting which has made this possible,\
and you got to hand as much credit to him as to the authors
themselves.
'"Finally, but most important, our Standardized Citizen,
even if he is a bachelor, is a lover of the Little Ones, a
supporter of the hearthstone which is the basic foundation
161
of our civilization, first, last, and all the time, and the
thing that most distinguishes us from the decayed nations
of Europe.
"'I have never yet toured Europe- and as a matter
of fact, I don't know that I care to such an awful lot, as
long as there's our own mighty cities and mountains to
be seen -but, the way I figure it out, there must be a
good many of our own sort of folks abroad. Indeed, one
of the most enthusiastic Rotarians I ever met boosted the
tenets of one-hundred-per-cent pep in a burr that
smacked o' bonny Scutlond and all ye bonny braes o'
Bobby Burns. But same time, one thing that distinguishes
us from our good brothers, the hustlers over there, is that
they are willing to take a lot off the snobs and journalists
and politicians, while the modern American business man
knows how to talk right up for himself, knows how to make
it good and plenty clear that he intends to run the works.
He doesn't have to call in some highbrow hired-man
when it's necessary for him to answer the crooked critics
of the sane and efficient life. He's not dumb, like the old-
fashioned merchant. He's got a vocabulary and punch. a
"'With all modesty, I want to stand up here as a rep-
resentative business man and gently whisper, "Here's our
kind of folks! Here's the specifications of the Standardi.zed
American Citizen! Here's the new generation of Americans:
fellows with hair on their chests and smiles in their eyes and
adding-machines in their offices. We're not doing any
boasting, but we like ourselves first-rate, and if you don't
like us, -look out -better get under cover before the
cyclone hits town!"
'"So! In my clumsy way I have tried to sketch the ·
Real He-m[m, the fellow with Zip and Bang. And it's
because Zenith has so large a proportion of such 111en that
it's the most stable, the greatest of our cities. New York
also has its thousands of Real Folks, but New York is
cursed with unnumbered foreigners. So are Chicago and
San Francisco. Oh, we have a golden roster of cities -
Detroit and Cleveland with their renowneq factories,
Cincinnati with its great machine-tool and soap products.
Pittsburgh and Birri1ingham with their steel, Kansas City
and Minneapolis and Omaha that open their bountiful
gates on the bosom of the oceanlike wheatlands, and count-
less other magnificent sister-cities, for, by the last census,·
there were no less than sixty-eight glorious American
162
 burgs with a population of over one hundred thousand!
And all these cities stand together for power and purity,
_ and against foreign ideas and communism- Atlanta
with Hartford, Rochester with Denver, Milwaukee with
Indianapolis, Los Angeles with Scranton, Portland, .Maine
with Portland, Oregon. A good live wire from Baltimore or
Seattle or Duluth is the twin-brother of every like fellow
booster from Buffalo or Akron, Fort WorJh or Oskaloosa!
"'But it's here in Zenith, the home for manly men and
womanly women and bright kids, that you find the largest
proportion of these regular Guys, and that's what sets
it in a class by itself; that's whyZenith will be recommen-
ded in history as having set the pace for a civilization that
shall endure when the old time-killing ways are gone
forever and the day of earnest efficient endeavor shall
have dawned all round the world!
"'Some time I hope folks will quit handing all the credit
to a lot of moth-eaten, mildewed, out-of-date, old,
European dumps, and give proper credit to the famous
Zenith spirit, that clean fighting determination to win
Success that has made the little old Zip City celebrated
in every land and clime, wherever condensed milk and
pasteboard cartons are known! Believe me, the world has
fallen too long for these worn-out countries that aren't
producing anything but bootblacks and scenery and booze,
that haven't got one bathroom per hundred people, and
that don't know a loose-leaf ledger from a slip-cover;
and it's just about time for some Zenithite to gefhis back up
and holler for a show-down!
'"I tell you, Zenith and her sister-cities are producing
a new type of civilization. There are many resemblances
between Zenith and these other burgs, and I'm darn glad
of it! The extraordinary, growing, and sane standardization
of stores, offices, streets, hotels, clothes, and newspapers
throughout the United States shows how strong and en·
during a type is ours."'

CAT IN THE RAIN

by 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
163
 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 rain-
ing. 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.
"11 piove," the wife said. She liked the hotel-keeper.
"Si, si, Signora, brutto tempo. 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 ..She liked
the way he wanted to serve her. She liked the way he
felt about being a hotel-keeper. 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 eaves. As she
stood in t)1e doorway an umbrella opened behind her. It
was the maid who loo~ed after their room. ·
164
 "You must not get wet," she smiled, speaking Italian.
Of course, the hotel-keeper 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?"
"There was a cat," said the American girl.
"A cat?"
/ , "Si, il gatto."
"A cat?" the mai<i 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.
"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 mirrqr of the dres-
sing table looking at herself with the hand glass. She studied
her profile, first one side and then the other. Then she stu-
died the back of her head and her neck.
"Don't you think it would be a good idea if I Jet 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. -
165.
 "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 knocl<ed at the door.
"Avanti," 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." ·

THE GRASS FIRE

by Erskine Caldwell

During the last week of April nobody with any sense

at all woUld have gone out and deliberately set fire to a hay
field. There had been no rainfall since the March thaw and
the country was as dry as road dust in midsummer. The
farmers who had. fields that needed burning over were
166
 waiting for a heavy shower of rain to come and soak the
ground thoroughly before they dared begin the spring firing.
Carl Abbott had been in the habit of burning over his
fields the last week of April for the past thirty years and
he said that he was not going to start that late in his life
letting his new crop hay be ruined by raspb'erry bushes
and gray birch seedlings if he knew anything about it.
The people in the town thought he was merely talking
to himself again to make himself heard, and that he really
had the good sense to keep fire away from dry grass until
a hard rain had come. Carl was always talking about the
way he stuck to his lifelong habits, and people never paid
much attention to him any more, anyway.
It was late in the afternoon when Carl .got ready to
fire the field on the north side of his farm. He carried two
buckets of water with him, and a broom, and went up the
side road to the north field.
When he reached the gate, he saw Jake Thorripson come
driving down the backroad. Carl tried to get through the
gate and behind the stonewall before J ake saw him, but
he could not hide himself quickly enough because of the
two buckets of water he was carrying, and his wooden leg.
"Hey there!" J ake cried, whipping up his horse.
"What you doing in that hay field?"
Carl waited until J ake drove up to the gap in the wall.
He put the buckets down and leaned against the broom
handle.
"I'm standing here looking at you," Carl told him.
"But I'm already tired of doing that, and so now I'm going
in here and fire my hay field."
"Why! you damned old fool," Jake said, "don't you
know that you'll burn up your whole farm if you do that
now? Feel that wind- it'll carry flame down across that
. meadow and into that woodlot before you know which
way to look. Nobody with any sense would fire a hay field
until after a good heavy rain comes and soaks the ground."
"I didn't ask for the loan of any of your advice," Carl
said.
"And I don't generally pass it around to every damn
fool I meet, either," Jake said, "but I hate to have sit here
and see a man burn up all he's got and ever will have. The
town's not going to raise money to waste on supporting
you. There's too many just like you living on the town
already."
167
 "Guess I can live on the town if I've a mind to. Been
paying taxes for thirty years and more."
"If it was left up to me," Jake said, "I'd dig a big hole
in the ground and cover you up in it. And I'm man enough
left to do it, too."
Carl stooped over and picked up the water buckets.
"Didn't you hear about that grass fire over in the east
part of town day before yesterday?" J ake asked. "A man
over there set fire to his hay field and it got loose from
him and burned up his wife."
"That's nothing to concern me," Cart said. "Haven't
got a wife, and never felt the need for one. It's people with
wives who do all the fool things in the world, anyway."
"Guess you're right about that," J ake said. "I was about
to let it slip my mind that your daddy had a wife."
Carl turned around with the water buckets and walked
a dozen yards out into the field. The dead grass was almost
waist high, and it crae-ked and waved in the wind like a chaff
in a hay barn. Each time Carl took a step in the dead grass
a puff of dust rose up behind him an~ blew away in the
wind. Carl was beginning to believe that J ake was right
after all. He had not realized how dry the country really was.
J ake drove his horse and buggy to the sided the road
and crossed his legs. He sat back to wait and see hqw big
a fool Carl Ab bott really was. .
"If you go and fire that hay field, you'd, better to take
out some insurance on your stock and buildings. They
won't be worth a dime otherwise; though I guess if I _was
hard put to it, I could give you a dollar for the ashes, in-
cluding yours. They'd make the finest kind of top dres-
sing for my potato field this year."
"If you've got any business of your own, why don•t
you go and attend to it?" Carl said. "Didn't invite you to
stay here."
"By God, I pay just as many taxes for the upkeep of
the town's roads as you do, Carl Abbott. Shall stand here
until I get good and ready to go somewhere else."
Carl always said something or did something to make
J ake angry whenever they got within sight or hearing
distance of each other. ·.
J ake crossed his legs again and snapped the leaves off
a birch seedling with his horse whip.
The· wind was coming down from the northeast, but
it shifted so frequently that nobody could have deter-
168
 mined its true direction. In the month of April there was
no way of finding out which way the wind was blowing.
J ake had said that in April the wind came in all directions,
except straight up, and that if man were to dig a hole in
the ground it would come that way, too.
Car! stooped over in the grass and struck a match on
the seat of his pants. He held fhe flame close to a tuft of
grass and weathered it with his hands.
The flame flared up so quickly and so suddenly that
it jumped up through his arms and singed his whiskers
before he could get out of the way. The wind was true in the
east just then, and it was blowing at about thirty miles
an hour. The flame died down almost as suddenly as it
had flared up, and a column of white smoke coiled straight
upward for a few feet before it was caught in the wind and
carried down over the meadow. The fire was smoldering
in the dead grass, and the white smoke showed that it was
feeding on the crisp dry tufts that grew around the stems
like powder puffs. A hay field could never be burned over
completely if it were not for the small coils of grass that
curled in tufts close to the ground. When the tufts blazed,
the long waist-high stems caught and burned through.
Then the tall grass fell over as if it were being mown with
a scythe, and the fire would be under way, feeding itself
far faster than any number qf men could l:Iave done ..
Jake Thompson watched the white smoke boil and curl
in the air. He saw Carl walk over to one of the buckets
and souse the broom in the w;ater, taking all the time he
wished. Then he went ba'ck to the fire and stood looking
at it smolder in the tufts.
A fairly new, well-sewn house broom and a pail or
two of water was the finest kind of fire-fighting equip-
ment in a hay field. But farmers who burned over the hay
. fields rarely undertook such a task without having three
or four men to help keep the fire under control. Six men
who knew how to souse a broom in a bucket of water at
the proper time, keeping it sufficiently wet so the broom-
straw would not catch on fire, could burn over the largest
hay field in the state. Water alone would not even begin to
put out a grass fire; it was the smothering of the flame
with the broad side of the broom that kept it from spread-
ing. But nobody with any sense at all would have thought
of firing a field that year until a rain had come and made
the ground moist and dampened the grass tufts. Under
169
 those conditions a field would have burned so slowly that
one man could have kept it under control.
Jake knew that earl did not have a chance in the world
of being able to check that fire once it had got under·
wayThe white smoke was boiling upward in a column the
size of a barrel-head by that time. The wind had shifted
again, circling amund earl's back and blowing down
across the meadow from a new angle. The grass tops bowed
under the force of the wind, and the wind was changing so
frequently that it kept the field waving first in one and
then in some other direction. earl looked around and
overhead as if by that he were doing something that would
cause the wind to die down into a breeze. ·
J ake crossed his legs again and waited to see what was
going to happen next. earl Abbott was without doubt the
biggest fool he had ever known.
Suddenly the flames shot into the air higher than earl's
head and began leaping across the field towards the meadow
like a pack of red foxes Jet loose. earl jumped backward,
stumbling and overturning one of the buckets of water. The
. flames bent over under the force of the wind until they
looked as if they were lying flat on top of the grass. That
made the field burn even faster still, the leaping flame
setting fire to the grass quicker than the eye could follow.
It had been burning no longer than two or three minutes,
but in that short time it had spread out into the shape of
a quarter cut of pie, and it was growing larg~r and larger
each second. earl ran around in circles, his wooden leg
sticking into the ground and tripping him with nearly every
step: He would have to stop every step or two and take
both hands to pull the wooden peg out of the ground.
"Hey there, earl Ab bott!" J ake shouted at him above
the roar of the burning grass. "What in hell are you doing
out there! Get away from that fire!"
earl heard J ake but he paid no attention to what he
said., He was trying to beat out the fire with his wet broom,
but his work was not checking the flames in any direction.
He was so excited that, instead of beating at the flames,
most of the time he was holding the broom in the
fire, and hitting the water buckets with his wooden leg.
The broom caught on fire, and then he did not know which
way to turn. When he did succeed in hitting at the fire
with the broom, as fast as he smothered one tuft of grass
170
 it caught fire again almost immediately. In the meantime
two or three fresh ones blazed up beside it.
. ''Come out of there, you damn fool!'' J ake shouted at
him. "You'll be cooked and ready to eat if you don't get
out of that fire!"
Carl 's hat had fallen off and had already burned into a
handful of gray ashes. His whiskers were singed close to
his face, making him appear at a distance as if he had a
shave, and his peg leg was charred. If he had stood still
all the time he would not have been hurt, because the
fire would have burned away from him; but Carl ran right
into the hottest part of it, almost out of sight in the smoke
and flame. His woolen pants were smoking, his coat was
dropping off in smoking pieces, and a big black circle
was spreading on his shirt where a spark had ignited the
blue cotton cloth.
Jake jumped out of his buggy and ran into the hay
field calling Carl. He could not sit there and see a
man burn himself alive, even if the man was Carl Ab-
bott.
He grabbed Carl and dragged him away from the flame
and threw him down on the ground where the grass had
already burned over. Carl's wooden leg was burned com-
pletely through, and as he fell to the ground it broke off
in half. All that was left of it was a charred pointed
stub about six br.. eight inches long. Carl had made the
peg himself, and, instead of using oak as J ake had advised
him to do, he had made it out of white pine because, he
said, it would be lighter to carry around. J ake dragged
him by the collar to the gap in the stonewall and crumped
him in the road. Carl tried to stand up, forgetting the
burned-off peg, and he tumbled over into the drain ditch
and lay there helplessly.
"You would go ahead and act like a damn fool, after
all, wouldn't you?" J ake said. "It's a pity I didn't let
you stay out there and make ashes. They would have been
worth more than you are alive. Meat ashesmake the finest
kind of dressing for any kind of crop."
Carl sat up and looked through the gap in the stonewall
at the smoking hay field. The fire line had already reached
the woodlot, and flame was beginning to shoot from the
top of the pines and hemlocks. Two hundred yards farther
away were Carl's buildings. He had a team of horses in
·the barn, and a cow. There would be no way in the world
171
 to save them once the fire had reached the barn and caught
the dry hay.
J ake tossed Carl a stick and watched him hobble. the best
he could down the road towards his house and buildings.
"What are we going to do?" he begged Jake. "We can't
let my stock and buildings burn up, too."
"What we?" J ake said. "You and who else? You're
not talking to me, because I'm having nothing to do with
all this mess. I told you what not todo when you came up
here a little while ago, but you were so damn smart I·
couldn't get anything through your head. That's why
I'm having nothing at all to do with all this mess."
Car! protested feebly. He tried to get up and run down
the road, but he fe!l each time he attempted to stand up.
"Why! do you think I'd have people saying that they
passed your place and saw me helping you put out a grass
fire when nobody with any sense at all would ever have
started one in this kind of weather? People in this town
know I don't associate with crazy men. They know me
better than that. That's why I don't want them to think
I've lost my mind and- gone plumb crazy with you."
Car! opened his mouth, but J ake had not finished.
"I wouldn't even spit on a blade of witch-grass now
if I thought it would help check that fire you started.
Why! the townspeople would think I had a hand in start-
ing it, if I went and helped yeu check it. Nobody would
believe me if I tried to tell them I begged you not to jire
your field in the beginning and then went right out and
helped you fight it. The townspeople have got better
sense than to believe a tale like that. They know I wouldn't
do a fool thing like you went and did. They know that
I have better sense than to go out and start a fire in a
hay field when it hasn't rained yet this spring. I'm no
fool, Carl Abbott, even if it does appear that I'm associa-
ting with one now."
. "But you can't let my stock and ouildings burn up,"
Carl said. "You wouldn't do that, would you, Jake? I've
been a fair and honest friend of yours all my life, haven't
I, J ake? And didn't I cast my vqte for you when you want-
ed to be road commissioner?" ·
"So I can't, can't I? Well, you just stand there and
watch me try to save your stock and buildings! And this is
not time to be talking politics, either. Wquldn't help you,
anyway, not after the way you did there in that hay field.
172
I told you not to go and fire that field, and you went right
ahead like a damn fool and struck a match to it, just as
if I had been talking to myself away over in another part
of town. No! I'm not going to do anything about it -
except talk. When the townspeople ask me how your farm
and buildings came to catch on ·fire and burn up your
stock and woodlot, I'll tell them you fired it".
Carl found a heavier stick and hobbled down the road
towards his house and buildings. The fire had already
run through the woodlot by that time, and, as they came
around the bend in the road, flame was licking at the
house and barn.
J ake walked behind Carl, coming down the road, and
led his horse instead of riding in the buggy. He watched
Carl try to run, and he thought once of putting him into
the buggy, but he did not like the idea of doing that.
Townspeople would say he was riding Carl around in his
horse and buggy while the stock and buildings burned up.
When they got closer to the house, the roof was ablaze,
and the barn was smoking. The hay in there was dry, and
it looked as if it would burst into flame any second. Carl
hobbled faster when he saw his buildings burning.
"Help me get my stock out, J ake," he begged. "You
won't let my stock burn up.. will you, J ake?"
J ake tied his horse to a tree beside the road and ran
across the yard to the barn. He could not stand there and
see a team of horses and a cow burn alive, even if they did
belong to Carl Abbott. He ran to the barn and jetked open
the stall doors.
An explosion of smoke, dust, and flame burst into his
face,. but the two horses and the cow bounded out the mo- +
ment the stall doors were thrown open. The horses and
cows ran across the yard and leaped over .the brush by
the roadside and disapreared into the field on the other
side.
J ake knew it was a stroke of chance that enabled him
to save the stock, because if the horses and cow had been
farther in the barn, nothing could have induced them to
leave it. The only way they could have been saved would
have been to blindfold them and lead them out, and there
would have been no time for that. The flame had already
begun to reach the stalls. Carl realized by that time that
there was no chance of saving anything else. He saw the
smoke and flame leap through the roof of the barn the
173
moment that J ake had opened the stall doors. He felt
terribly sick all over.
J ake went over to the tree and untied his horse. He
climbed into the buggy and sat down. Car! stood looking
at his burning buildings, and he was trying to lean on
the big stick he had found up the backroad.
J ake whipped up his horse and started home. Carl turned
around and saw him leave, but he had nothing to say.
"Whoa!" J ake said to his horse, pulling on the reins.
He turned around in the buggy seat and called to Car!,
"Well, I guess you'll have better sense than to do a thing like
that again, won't you? Next time maybe you will be anxi-
ous to take some advice."
Carl glared at J ake, and turned with nothing to say to
stand and watch the fire. Then sudden! y he shouted at J ake.
"By God, the hay field is burned over, ain't it?" he
said, hobbling away. "Well, that's what I set out to do at
the start."
Jake whipped up his horse and started for home. When
he looked back for the last time, he saw Car! whittling
on a pole. Carl had cut down a young pine and he was
trimming it to replace the peg that had burned off in the
hay field. He wished to make the new one out of oak, but
oak was the kind of wood that J ake had told him to use in
the first place.
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Caldwell, Erskine (born 1903)

An American writer, born in the South of the USA. His novels

and short stories tell of ordinary men and women of America, the
Negro and the white. With a peculiar blend of comedy and tragedy
he writes about their misery, rightlessness, degradation ("Tobacco Road"
(1932); "God's Little Acre" (1933); "We are the Living" (1933); "Geor-
gia Boy" (1943) and others).
Coppard, Alfred (1878-1957)
An English short story writer and poet. Had tried many ways
of earning a living when yet a boy. The early years of his life were
later described in such stories as "The Presser", "Pomona's Babe",
"The Cherry Tree". Followed the Dickens-Hardy tradition depict-
ing the common man with impassioned concern and warm humour.
Was a staunch fighter for peace. Collections of short stories: "Adam
and Eve and Pinch me" (1921), "Clorinda Walks in Heaven" (1922),
"Fishmonger's Fiddle" (1925), "Silver Circus" (1928) and others.
Faulkner, William (1897-1962)
An American novelist and short story writer, a Nobel Prize winner.
Himself a Southerner wrote almost exclusively .about the South: the
hard and hostile world of Southern aristocrats, Negroes and poor whites.
His works mirror the decline and degradation of old families ("The
Sound and the Fury", 1929) and the emergence in the South of hateful
new men with their capitalistic morals and ways ("The Hamlet",
1940; "The Town", 1957; "The Manson", 1959).
The contradictions of W. F aulkner's outlook expressed in his
intricately involved writing have given him the reputation of a diffi-
cult writer.
His other works include: "As I Lay Dying" (1930); "Sanctuary"
(1931); "Go Down, Moses, and Other Stories" (1942); "Intruder in
the Dust" (1948).
Greene, Graham (born 1904)
An English writer keenly concerned with the burning ethical,
moral and political issues of the day. His novels and short stories
always based on an entertaining intrigue are remarkable for the social
impact they carry. _
His better-known works include: "The Heart of the Matter"
(1948), "England Made Me" (1935), "The Quiet American" (1955),
"Burnt-out Case" (1961), "Comedians" (1964).
175
Hemingway, .Ernest (1899-1961)
An American writer who h'as exercised a most profound influence
on many writers and readers the world over. His name is associated
with the so called "lost generation" of the twenties, the war in Spain
and the antifascist movement. He has created the "Hemingway hero",
a character of complete honesty, virility and great sensitiveness. His
style, known as the "Hemingway style", is marked by simplicity,
terseness and intense objectivity.
E. Hemingway has written a number of novels and-short story
collections, among them such as: "In Our time" (1924), "A Farewell
to Arms" (1929), "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1940), "The Old Man
and the Sea" (1952), the latter has occasioned his receiving the Nobel
Prize.
Lewis, Sinclair (1885-!951)
An American writer, satirist. Bitterly criticized the American
way of life, its standardization of cultural values, its money-worship.
In 1930 was awarded the Nobel Prize for the novel "Babbitt" (1922).
Its main character (of the same name) personifies the typical American
businessman, ignorant, loud-mouthed, self-satisfied and money-
grabbing.
Wrote numerous novels and short stories. Some of the better-
known novels are: "Main Street" (1920); "Arrowsmith" (1925); "Elmer
Gantry" (1927); "It Can't Happen Here" (1935); "Kingsblood Royal"
(1947).
O'Casey, Sean (1884-1964)
An Irish writer, dramatist. Actively participated in Irish public
life, was an ardent fighter for peace and a staunch communist. His
plays are dedicated, as a rule, to burning social issues. In them he
often resorts to symbolism and generalization. Has written a six-
volume autobiography ("I Knock at the Door", 1939, "Pictures in
the Hallway", 1942, "Drums under the Windows", 1945, "Inishfallen
Fare Thee Weii", 1949, "Rose and Crown", 1952, "Sunset and the
Evening Star", 1954). The general title of all the six volumes is "Mir-
ror in My House". Warm lyricism gives a peculiar tint to the work.
- Some of his plays: "J uno and the Peacock" (1924), "The Silver
Tassie" (1928), "The Star Turns Red" (1940), "Red Roses for Me"
(llt42), "The Bishop's Bonfire" (1955), "Behind the Green Curtains"
(1961).
Snow, Charles (born 1905)
An English writer and a prominent public figure. His principal
theme is the man of science and his responsibilities in the contemporary
world. He has written a series of novels under the general title of
"Strangers and Brothers". All these novels are united by the image of_
Lewis Eliot, the narrator. -
 INDEX OF TERMS

aesthetic (art) function 3, 9 denouement 39, 40, 43

aesthetic information 7 • 28 description 47
alliteration 62 detail (poetic) 29, 30, 33
allusion 57 dialectism 14
anadipl03is 59 dialogue 46
analogy 3!, 32, 38, 41, 50, 51, digressive address 53
53, 56, 57 drama 48, 49
anaphora 59 dram,atic monologue 46
anticlimax (bathos) 61 ellipsis 68
antithesis 63, 64 emotive component of meaning
antonomasia 54 (emotive charge) 11, 12, 14
aposiopesis 67, 68 epic 47
apostrophe 53 epiphora 59
archaic (word, meaning) 10, 13, 23 epithet 55, 56
asyndeton 60 epoch characterization 23
barbarism 13 exposition 39
character (literary) 8, 22, 23, figure of speech 50, 58
29, 30, 31,34, 35,39, 45,48 framing (ring repetition) 60
climax (gradation) 61 functional style 12
climax 39, 40 genre 5, 29, 40
cohesion 26, 27 idea (poetic) 37, 38
colloquialism 13 image 6, 7, 25, 26, 27,
comedy 48, 49 28, 30
composition 25, 45, 47, 49 imagery (tropes) 49, 50
connotation (connotative mean- imitation style 21
ing, effect) 11, 14, 15, 16, implication (implied idea, mean-
17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24 ing, undercurrent meaning) 17,
content (poetic) 3, 4, 25, 27, 36, 19, 41 .
39, 41, 42, 45, 47, 49 incomplete representation (gap-
contrast 31, 32, 50, 62, 63, 64 ping) 28, 29, 50, 58
denotation (denotative meaning) interior monologue 46
10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 64 jargonism 14
177
leit-motif 33, 34
Jinguo-stylistics 3
literary (poetic) time 41, 42
litotes 66
local colour 24
lyric (genre, poetry) 47
metaphor (metaphoric) 37, 38,
50, 51' 52, 53, 54, 57
metonymy 53, 54
narration (narrative) 44, 45,
46
narrative prose 19, 42, 47,
60
narrator 43, 46
novel 5, 43, 44, 45
obsolete 10, 13, 23
overstatement (hyperbole) 66
oxymoron 64
paradox 65
parallelism 58, 59
periphrasis 56, 57
personification 53
plot 8, 17, 25, 37, 38,.39, 41
plot structure 40, 41
poem (poetry) 5, 61, 63
poeticism 13
poetic structure 25, 26, 27, 32,
34, 36, 37
polysyndeton 60
professionalism 13
pun (paranomasia, a play on
words) 65, 66
recurrence 32, 33, 34, 50
repetition 59, 60
reported (represented) speech 23
rhythm 34, 49
short story 5, 40, 41, 49
simile 36, 51
slangism (slangy word) 13, 22
sonnet 47
speech characterization 22, 23
story 37, 38, 39
style 34, 69-74
stylistic norm (neutrality) 70
stylistic reference 12
stylistically marked 12
supraverbal (layer) 25
surface (plot) layer 37
suspense {retardation) 61, 62
s.ymbolic (layer) 37, 38
synechdoche 54
theme 17, 37
tragedy 48, 49
trope 32, 50, 51, 56, 58
understatement 66
verbal art 3, 5, 10
verbal layer 25, 32
vulgarism (vulgar) 14, 22
word -choice 24
zeugma 62
 CONTENTS

Foreword • . • . . . . • . . 3
Part One
A Reader's Guide to Imaginative Literature
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . • 5
C h a p t er I. LANGUAGE, THE MEDIUM OF LITE-
RATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Preliminary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Meanings of Linguistic Units . . . . • • . . . . 10
a) Denotative Meaning of the Word . . . . 10
b) Connotative Meaning of the Word . . . 11
Connotation· in the Word's Dictionary Meaning . 11
An Emotive Component of Meaning . 11
Stylistic Reference . • . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Words of Literary Stylistic Layer . . . . . 13
Words of Non-Literary Stylistic Layer . . . . . . . . . . 13
Denotation and Connotation in Verbal Communication Other
Than Imaginative Literature . . • . . . • . . . . . . . . 14
Denotation and Connotation in Imaginative Literature . . 16
Connotative Function of Speech-Soun'd Clusters . . . 18
Connotative Function of Grammar Categories . . . . 19
Connotative Function of Word Stylistic Reference . . . 22
C h a p t er 11. LITERARY TEXT AS POETIC STRUC·
TURE • . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . ·. . • • . . 25
Verbal and Supraverbal Layers of the Literary Text . 25
Principles of Poetic Structure Cohesion . . . . . 27
Principle of Incomplete Representation . . 28
Principle of Analogy and Contrast . 31
Principle of Recurrence . . • . • • . • . . . 32
COMPONENTS OF POETIC STRUCTURE • , •••••• , • 34
179
Macro-Components of Poetic Structure 34
Literary Image . . . . . . . . . . 34
Theme and Idea . • . . . . . . . . 37
Plot Structure and Literary Time . . . . . . . . 41
Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 45
Genre . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • . • . • . • . 47
Micro-Components of Poetic Structure. Tropes and Figures
of Speech . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Types of Tropes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Types of Figures of Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Style . . . . . . . . . . • • • • . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Style in Imaginative Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Pad Two
Analytical Reading
I Knock at the Door (from S. O'Casey's "Autobiographies') 75
Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -. 81
Tribute by A. Coppard . . . . . ,_ . . • . . . . . 81
Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Time of Hope (Chapter 5) by C. P. Snow . 86
Tasks . . . . . • • • • . . . 92
Special Duties by G. Greene . . . . . . . . . 93
Tasks . . . . • . • • • . . . . . • . • . . 99
Americans in Italy. Mr. Eglantine by S. Lewis 101
Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
That Evening Sun by W. Faulkner . . . . 105
Tasks . . . . -. . . . _. . . . . . . . . . 122
In Another Country by E. Hemingway .. 123
Tasks . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Wild Flowe'ts by E. Caldwell . . . . . . . . 130
Tasks . . . . : . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • . . . . • 137
Supplementary Re~ding
The Red above the Green (from S. O'Casey's "Autobiogra-
phies") . . . . . . . . . . . · · · 139
The Cherry Tree by A. Coppard .. 143
Across the Bridge by G. Greene . . . 147
Babbitt (Chapter XIV) by S. Lewis 156
Cat in the Rain by E. Hemingway . . -.. . 163
The Grass Fire by E. Caldwell . . . . . . -. 166
Biographical Notes .. 175
Index of Terms • • • • . . • . . • . • . . • • . . • 177
 Вита Борисовна С (}С н о в с к а я

АНАЛИТИЧЕСКОЕ ЧТЕНИЕ

(на английском языке)

Редактор В. И. Киселева.. Издательский редактор

И. А. Краснова. Технический редактор С. П. Передерий.
Художественный редактор Э. А.· Марков, Художник
В, И, Пономаренко,
Сдано в набор 23/I 1974 г. Подп. к печати 25NI 1974 г.
Формат 84Х108 1 /32 • Бум. тип. ·N• 3. Объем 5,75 печ. л. Уел.
п. л. 9,66, Уч.-изд. л. 10,38. Изд. N• А-374. Тираж 63 000'
экз. Заказ N• 1235. Цена 36 коп.

План выпуска литературы издательства «Высшая школа:о·

(вузы и техникумы) на 1974 год. Позиция N• 202
Москва, I<-51, НеглинпаЯ. у л., д. 29/14,
Издательство .«Высшая школа».

Ордена Трудового Красного Знамени Ленинградская ти­

пография N• 1 «Печатный Двор» .имени А. М. Горького
Соющюлиграфпрома при Государственном .комитете Сове­
та Министров СССР по делам . издателЬств, полиграфии
и книжной торговли, 197136, Ленинград, П-136, Гатчин-
ская ул,. 26,
 ИЗДАТЕЛЬСТВО
«ВЫСШАЯ ШКОЛА»
ВЫПУСТИТ В СВЕТ
В 1975 ГОДУ
ДЛЯ СТУДЕНТОВ ИНСТИТУТОВ
И ФАКУЛЬТЕТОВ
ИНОСТРАННЫХ ЯЗЫКОВ
СЛЕДУЮЩИЕ УЧЕБНЫЕ ПОСОБИЯ:

Д а вы д о в М. В. Пособие по интонации англий­

ского языка. Учебное пособие. 10 л., 60 к.
П-особие состоит из трех частей. В первой части
автор останавливается на структурном аспекте англий­
ской интонации, знакомит студентов с тонической
транскрипцией. В упражнениях отрабатывается про­
изношение гласных звуков и дифтонгов с соблюде­
нием правильной позиционной долготы звука в удар­
ном слоге. Во второй части с помощью большого ко­
личества упражнений отрабатьtвается воспроизведе­
ние мелодических контуров английской речи при
сохранении постоянного ритма. Третья часть пред­
ставляет собой разнообразную по своим стилям хрес­
томатию английских текстов с тонической транс­
крипцией.
Пособие ставит своей целью помочь студентам
в выработке правильной английской интонации.
Предназначается для студентов институтов и фа­
культетов иностранных языков.

По т а по в а И. А., К а щ е е в а М. А. Пособие
по переводу английского литературного текста. Учеб­
ное пособие. 10 л., 60 к.
Пособие представляет собой сборник текстов, подо­
бранных из современной английской художественной
литературы. Тексты сопровождены комментариями
методико-филологического характера. В пособиевклю­
чены также упражнения на преодоление трудностей
художественного перевода с английского языка на
русский.
Предназначается для студентов старших курсов
институтов и факультетов иностранных языков и
филологических факультетов университетов.
 Учебник английского языка для II курса институ­
тов и факультетов иностранных языков. Учебник.
23 л., 1 р. 16 к. В пер. Авт.: Шевцова С. В., Бранду­
коваМ. А., Кузьмина И. С. (и др.).
Данный учебник является органически~1 продол­
жением учебника английского языка, для I курса
институтов и факультетов иностранных языков, напи­
санного тем же коллективом авторов.
Состоит из 10 уроков, каждый из которых включает
учебный текст, комментарий к тексту, учебный сло­
варь, лексика-грамматические упражнения и спе­
циальные упражнения на развитие устной речи.
Тексты взяты из произведений современных ан­
глийских и американских авторов и представляют
значительный тематический и страноведческий инте­
рес. По-новому решается проблема комплексного
обучения языку и развития устной и письменной
речи. ·
Предназначается для студентов II курса инсти­
тутов и факультетов иностранных языков. Может
быть использован всеми лицами, изучающими англий-
ский язык самостоятельно. ·

УВАЖАЕМЫЕ ЧИТАТЕЛИ!

Издательство «Высшая Шf«JЛа» выпускает для вас

учебники, учебные и методические пособия.
Подробнее познакомиться с нашей учебной литера­
турой вам поможет аннотированный план издатель­
ства на 1975 год (вузы и техникумы), который имеется
в книжных магазинах.
Предварительный заказ на книги J'rtoжнo оформить
в магазинах книготорга или потребительсf«Jй коопе­
. рации.