The Happy Man 1. The author of the extract under analysis. The author of the extract under analysis is William Somerset Maugham (1874-1966), a well-known English novelist, short-story writer, playwright and essayist, was the son of a British diplomat. He was educated at King's School in Canterbury, studied painting in Paris, went to Heidelberg University in Germany and studied to be a doctor at St. Thomas Hospital in England. Although Somerset Maugham did not denounce the contem- porary social order, he was critical of the morals, the narrow-mindedness and hypocrisy of bourgeois society. It was his autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage (1951) and the novel The Moon and Sixpence (1919) based on the life of the French artist Paul Gauguin, that won him fame. Somerset Maugham was also a master of the short story. Somerset Maugham's style of writing is clear and precise. He does not impose his views on the reader. He puts a question and leaves it to the reader to answer it. When criticizing something he sounds rather amused than otherwise. 2. The source of the extract. The text under analysis is running under title “The happy man”. In this story a visit to the narrator is described. We have the theme of uncertainty, happiness, change, humility, and gratitude. 3. The choice of the point of view. The short story represents a 1st Person Narration intermingled with the dialogues, character drawings, a description and the inner monologue of the leading character. 4. The plot of the extract under analysis. The story starts with the narrator thinking and telling the reader about his attitude to giving advice to somebody. He thinks it to be quite difficult and even impossible to give the right advice as "we know nothing of the others". Than appears a visitor. 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. 5. The form of speech. The whole text of the novel is a narrative as it tells us about different events, which follows one another in chronological order: I heard a ring bell at the door; I led him into my sitting room; achieved this feat; he reached out for his hat; he left me; many years later; I happened to be in Seville, etc. We can divide the novel into three logical parts in order to understand it better: The key in the first part is rather pessimistic, and sometimes we can say that it is rather negative. This could be proved if we look at the metaphors the author use: he compares every man to “a prisoner in a solitary tower”, life to “a difficult business”. Another metaphor is used when he says that “some people flounder at the journey’s start”. So we see that the author tries to make us ready for the future accidents, and to show us the difference between the past “wrapped in the dark cloud of Destiny” and the future. The second part was written in the form of a dialogue between the patient and our hero. We can see the despair of a stranger, because he uses “short, sharp sentences”, to emphasize it the author told us that they had “a forcible ring”. The visitor seems to be very tired of life, he is passive, but he wants to change something in it, that is why to show us the antagonistic character of the visitor, the author uses an oxymoron “bright dark eyes”. The third part is lyrical, and a bit romantic. In the third part, our main character comes to Seville, and tries to find that stranger. He lived in an ordinary Spanish house, his room was littered with papers, books, medical appliances and lumber but he was really happy. It could be seen from his description: a dissipated, though entirely sympathetic appearance, and of course from his murmuring “Life is full of compensations”. 6. Character drawing. The author presents characters indirectly, namely through actions, thoughts, feelings, emotions, words, attitude to each other people. 7. Traits of characters. The first character is the narrator. The Narrator is described through figurative language, even though he himself tells us about his views on life and happiness. Stephens, apart from being described directly in terms of appearance, is also described indirectly through his actions and through his dreams and desires. The main character of the story is Stephens. His character is dynamic as he becomes fully another person to the end of the story. Somerset Maugham characterizes Stephens indirectly, but it isn’t very difficult to understand what kind of person he is. In the beginning of the story Stephens is described as a diffident, disillusioned, disappointed person. He tells only a few words about his life as if there were not any pleasant memories. He doesn’t say too much about his wife, job and it is clear that he isn’t satisfied with his marriage and job. He wants to start a new life but still hesitates. But in the end of the story we can see completely different person. He becomes more confident. The author writes about Stephens that “we couldn’t imagine a better person to drink a glass of wine with”. He changed so much that even his manner of speaking becomes different. He doesn’t say, but murmur, and his eyes twinkle gaily. As for the narrator, the author doesn’t try to draw the reader’s attention to him. The author uses the first-person narrator. The first-person narrator is a reliable one because the events of the story are told us as if we are the persons with whom the narrator has a kind of a dialogue and tells us what has happened and we believe him to be the witness of Stephens’s changes. Braithwaite treats the characters in a serious tone. He uses only the words which are all connected with the main problem, he doesn’t tell any unnecessary word which would prevent us to concentrate on it. It’s quite easy to read the story as is written in simple language. The language is emotional and expressive. The author writes about bullet-shaped head to make the reader imagine how funny and comical Stephens looks. While talking with the narrator, Stephens gives an apologetic laugh and that fact proves him to be unconfident and doubtful whether to tell the narrator all his problems or not. 8. Functional style of speech. Since the text presents a story, it belongs to belles-lettres style, emotive prose substyle. 9. Type of speech. The extract is told in a mixture type of speech. The types of speech have peculiarities at each language level. 1.On the phonological level: WRITTEN: Full forms of modal and auxiliary verbs prevail: ะต.g. «I shall be very glad» e.g. «I have been forced to point the finger of late... » SPOKEN: Contracted forms of the functional words prevail: e.g. «I’m not going to tell you the story of my life» e.g. «I’ve been married for six years» 2. On the morphological level: WRITTEN: The extract is characterized by the use of past-tense forms, which are mostly used in narrations and descriptions: e.g «He hesitated when he caught sight of me» SPOKEN: In the extract present and future forms prevail. They are mostly used in conversations or dialogues: e.g. «My name is Stephens and I am a doctor» e.g. «I shall be very glad» 3. On the syntactic level: WRITTEN: Full sentences direct word order: e.g. «I heard the ring at the bell» SPOKEN: Short, simple sentences, omission of parts of speech: e.g. «She’s willing» 4. On the lexical level: WRITTEN: Bookish, literary words (Patio, infirmary, shabby, sombrero, voluptuously, etc.) SPOKEN: Neutral words: Have a fancy for sth., came out, drove up Colloquial words: people, so, men, around, they, he Now I would like to analyze the text from grammatical point of view: Tense forms: - We sometimes use the Present Simple to talk about the past when we are: • «Don’t you remember me» - The Simple Present can indicate the speaker believes that a fact was true before, is true now, and will be true in the future. Present Continuous: «He was looking at me intently»- Use the Present Continuous to express the idea that something is happening now, at this very moment. It can also be used to show that something is not happening now. Present Perfect: «I’ve been married for six years» - We use the Present Perfect to say that an action happened at an unspecified time before now. The exact time is not important. Present Perfect is used to express personal experience e.g. «I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one advice another how to act unless one knows that other as well as one knows himself? » - Present Perfect Continuous is not observed - Future Continuous is not observed - Future Perfect isn’t observed - Future Perfect Continuous is not observed - Present Simple Passive: “Every house is smothered in roses”. Past Simple: «I took a cab and as I drove up to the house a little fat man came out of it»- Use the Simple Past to express the idea that an action started and finished at a specific time in the past. Sometimes, the speaker may not actually mention the specific time, but they do have one specific time in mind. Past Continuous: «He was looking at me intently»– Use the Past Continuous to express an action in progress at a certain moment in the past. `To be going to` is used to talk about smth that will definitely occur e.g. «When people say this to me I always know that it is precisely what they are going to do.» There are a lot of countable and countable nouns in the text. Countable: book, people, hat, children, man, house, umbrella, glass, cigarette, door, cloak, room, chair and others. Uncountable: memory, life, money, chance, heaven, smile, world, moment and others. In the text under analysis we can also observe the following usages of articles: Article The indefinite is used when we to refer to a particular member of a group or class with name of jobs e.g. «I am a doctor.»; «I’m a medical officer.» The definite article is used when it is a clear from the situation which one(s) we mean e.g. «I opened the door to a total stranger.» We use no article before the names of countries e.g. «I’ve just read a book of yours about Spain. Modal verbs • We use `can` when we are talking about unpossibility (negative only) e.g. «I can’t stick it any more.» • We use ` would` when we are talking about refusal to perform an action (negative only) e.g. «I wouldn’t exchange the life.” • We use `must` when we are talking about strong obligation, necessity e.g. «You must decide for yourself» • We use ‘might’ when we are talking about reproach e.g. «You might have hesitated to let him remove your appendix» • We use` have to` when we are talking about necessity e.g. «I’ve got to look forwards to for the rest of my life» • We use `should` when we are talking about certainty something naturally expected e.g. «I should earn just enough money» 10. The main sphere of words. 1) as the text is about the problem of human’s ability to change life; • The bulk of the vocabulary helps the author to disclose the topic. e.g. life- it is the existence of an individual human being; • point of view- a particular attitude or way of considering a matter; • compensation- something, typically money, awarded to someone as a recompense for loss; • soul- the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being. 11. Some words of special interest. Heaven (n) 1) the place where God is believed to live and where good people are believed to go when they die e.g. He believed that he and his wife would one day be together in heaven. 2) Informal and extremely enjoyable situation or place; SYN paradise e.g. Sitting by the pool with a good book is my idea of heaven. Spoken phrases For heaven’s sake: used to show that you are annoyed or angry e.g. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mark, do you have to make everything into a joke? Heaven knows: used to emphasize that you do not know something e.g. He won’t tell me what he thinks. Heaven knows why. Heaven forbid: used to say that you very much hope something will not happen e.g. What would you do financially if, heaven forbid, your husband died? 1) [only before noun] biblical existing in or belonging to heaven e.g. God’s heavenly kingdom/Heavenly Father=God/The Heavenly Host= all the angles. 2) literary existing in or relating to the sky or starts: heavenly bodies (= the Moon, Planets, and stars) Heavily (adv) 1) in large amounts, to a high degree, or with great severity SYN very e.g. I became heavily involved in politics. Phrases Sleep heavily e.g. If you sleep heavily, you cannot be woken easily. Breathe heavily: to breathe slowly and loudly e.g. Breathing heavily, I stopped and sat down to rest. Be heavily into something: to do something a lot or be very interested in it e.g. Sid was heavily into drugs by the time he left school.
