The short story under analysis written by Saki and entitled A Defensive Diamond begins with a description of Treddleford, a member of a club who wants to spend a bleak October evening reading an interesting book. However, Amblecope, another member of the club, wants to involve him in a typical club conversation, which Treddleford finds boring. Amblecope starts talking about three different topics, and every time Treddleford interrupts him with a fantastic story on the same theme. Finally, Amblecope gives up and leaves him alone. After half an hour of reading Treddleford comes across Amblecope at a doorway. Amblecope tries to go first, but Treddleford waves him back, because he thinks he is superior now.

At the beginning the mood of the text is rather dull and monotonous, but peaceful, which is achieved by using suitable epithets like 'easeful arm-chair', 'slumberous fire', then the sound of the rain outside is added with the help of ... Читать дальше »

The short story under analysis entitled The Storyteller is written by Saki, who tells us about a bachelor who happens to share the compartment in the carriage with three children and their aunt. The children bother the woman with too many questions, so she decides to tell them a moralistic story about one good girl whose life has been saved because of her goodness. The children do not like the story much, and at this point the bachelor starts telling his own story about a good girl. He is very eloquent and he inculdes many succulent detailes in his story, and he can answer any question the children ask him. However, the end of the story, as logical it may be, is rather inappropriate for the aunt and the teaching purposes of her storytelling, because in the end the good girl is killed in spite of her goodness. Nonetheless, the children think that this story is the best they have ever heard.

The tone of the story is rather sarcastic. The first case of sarcasm can be f ... Читать дальше »

The short story under analysis is entitled The Verger and written by W. Somerset Maugham. The author tells us about a man named Albert Foreman who has been verger of his church for sixteen years and he has done his job well. A new vicar appears and finds out that the verger can neither read nor write. He thinks that it can be inappropriate and dangerous for the church, so he makes the verger to leave his duty. Foreman does not know what to do and accidentally becomes a shopkeeper. He succeeds and earns a lot of money. A banker wants him to invest this money and asks to sign some papers. Foreman admits that he is not able to read them. The banker is astonished. He wonders what kind of success Foreman could have achieved if he were educated. Foreman answers that he would be verger of his church.

The atmosphere of the story is ironical. First of all, the irony lies in the fact that it took 16 years of Foreman's service as verger for people to under ... Читать дальше »

The short story under analysis is called The Dream and is written by William Somerset Maugham.

One day the narrator travels from New York to Petrograd and changes for a train in Vladivostok. At the station restaurant he meets a fat Russian man, who tells him the story of him and his wife. She is a possessive woman and, being jealous of everyone and everything around her husband, she makes his life unbearable. Once she has a dream that he kills her and tells him that. He starts to think about it a lot. Then she has this dream again. Finally, she dies the same way it has been in her dream, but it remains a mystery for the narrator if the Russian has had something to do with it.

The atmosphere in the story is dramatic and somewhat ironical, which is typical of Maugham. We face the irony at the very beginning, when the author portrays the Russian, creating a comical and grotesque image of him. For that purpose Maugham uses epithes ... Читать дальше »

The Man of Destiny is a play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1895. Shaw (1856–1950) was a prominent playwright who was born of an impoverished middle-class family in Dublin. He became a socialist in 1882 and two years later joined the Fabian Society, an organization of petty bourgeois intellectuals. In his plays he criticized the vices of bourgeois society. He is famous for his brilliant dialogues, full of witty paradoxes and often bitterly satirical.

In The Man of Destiny Shaw depicts Napoleon as a practical business-like man who makes his career at the cost of human lives. The action takes place in a little inn in North Italy. First, we see a lieutenant who has been sent for the letters and dispatches, but has been wound round his little finger by an unknown youth. It turns out that the unknown youth is actually a lady. Napoleon tries to get the letters from her by all means, but she is strong. Finally, she gives him the letters, but asks for one ... Читать дальше »

The Happy Man is a short story written by a well-known English novelist William Somerset Maugham. His famous works include Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, and The Theater. His style of writing is clear and precise, the language is simple and all the words are used only in their direct meaning. His speech is not ornamented, which helps the reader concentrate not on the form, but on the meaning. He always puts a question and leaves it to the reader to answer it.

In the short story under analysis a visit to the narrator is described. The visitor is a doctor who wants to ask whether he should leave for Spain or not, to succeed in his life. The narrator answers that it can be difficult for him, but he should do that. The visitor leaves. Fifteen years later, the narrator goes to Spain where he meets his visitor and hears from him, that his life is really good, though he is not rich.

From the story, we can see that we should not ... Читать дальше »

The Apple Tree (1917) is a long short story written by a prominent English novelist, playwright and short story writer John Galsworthy. His most famous novels are The Man of Property, A Modern Comedy and The Forsyte Saga. In his works, he gives a truthful picture of English bourgeois society at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. The Apple Tree is called "most finely crafted, most symbolic, and most poetic tale".

The extract under analysis shows us two no-longer-students Frank Ashurst and Robert Garton who want to get to Chagford, Ashurst having an aching knee. On their way, they decide to put up for a night on some farm. They see a girl who invites them in her aunt's farm and whom Ashurst find quite attractive. On the farm, they ask for a stream to have a bath and are told about one near an apple tree.

In the given extract, there is no conflict; it is only an exposition of the story, ... Читать дальше »

The story Art for Heart's Sake was written by Reuben Lucius Goldberg (1883-1970), an American sculptor, cartoonist and writer. His best works include Is There a Doctor in the House? (1929), Rube Goldberg’s Guide to Europe (1954) and I Made My Bed (1960).

The story under analysis is uncomplicated in its essence. Mr. Ellsworth is in hospital after suffering from heart attack, which was caused by the purchase of a railroad. He does not want to fulfil his doctor's prescriptions. Then Doctor Caswell decides to engage him in drawing and hires a young man for teaching him. Mr. Ellsworth is encouraged, he draws things, but does it bad, and asks about museums and galleries. One day he decides to exhibit one of his drawings in the gallery. To everybody's surprise, the drawing gets the first prize, because Mr. Ellsworth has bought the gallery.

What does this story tell us about? It comprises a number of ideas. First of all, ... Читать дальше »

E.R. Braithwaite was born in 1912 in British Guyana. After the war colour prejudice precluded him from obtaining the kind of job for which his scientific qualifications fitted him, so he decided to work as a school teacher. In 1959 Braithwaite won the Ainsfield Wolff Literary Award for To Sir, with Love, a book about his experiences as a teacher in a school in London's East End. He also is an author of such books as A Kind of Homecoming (1961), Paid Servant (1962), A Choice of Straws (1965), and Reluctant Neighbours (1972). His writings primarily deal with the difficulties of being an educated black man, a black social worker, a black teacher, and simply a human being in inhumane circumstances.

The extract under analysis, Chapter 8 of the book To Sir, with Love, is about a black man, as well, who begins teaching at a reform school in London's East End. Once a week the whole school writes a review, where they can p ... Читать дальше »

Isaac Asimov was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University and a famous American science fiction writer. There are a lot of works which have come from under his pen: I, Robot, The Gods Themselves, Foundation's Edge and so on. He was one of the most prolific writers, having written or edited more than five hundred books. Amongst the stars there is even an asteroid named after him.

The Fun They Had is one of the short stories written by Isaac Asimov. In this story the author touches the problem of technology influence on the teaching process, showing us a future we will never see - the story takes place in 2157. A boy and a girl find an old book about school. They discuss what they have read in there and compare these things from the past with those they have now. At the end, it is time for them to go to their mechanical teachers, but they still want to learn more about the school of old times, because they like it.

The te ... Читать дальше »