Анализ "The Passionate Year"

Linguo-stylistic analysis of "The Passionate Year"

Богачевой О.А.

     The extract under analysis comes from the novel "The Passionate Year" by James Hilton.

     The basic theme of the given text is the first lesson conducted by a young master and describing teacher's behavior in nonstandard situation. Idea is relationships between students and teacher, teacher should be tolerant everytime.

     The genre of the story is novel. The text has a closed plot structure. In the exposition the author describes the scene of action - the Big Hall of Millstead Boarding School for boys (it is very important fact); the behavior of the pupils before the lesson and at its beginning; the inner state of the young master at the time. The story starts with indication of the beginning of the collision - a banging of desk-lids at the far end of the Hall. The episodes that follow: the young master's discovery of the mischief-maker's name; his doubts regarding the way the name should be pronounced; his decision to say two variants of pronouncing the name lead to the climax of the plot. The teacher's talk with the mischief-makers makes up the denouement of the plot. The text has one more component of plot structure - the epilogue. In the epilogue K. Speed and Clanwell discuss the outcome of the first Speed's lesson.

     The form of narration in the text mainly is represented be indirect speech, the third person narration, but in the story itself  and denouement we see a dialogue.

     There is one main character – teacher Speed, and some minor characters, they are students Worsley and Naylor, teacher Clanwell.

     Emotional atmosphere changes during the text. The beginning and the middle of it is written in dramatic and emotional key, and the end of it is in humorous one. Dramatic and emotional atmosphere is maintained by plenty number of emotional words (stared, grinned, eager), intensifies (very, keenly, little)...

     The author shows us the lesson as a some kind of a battle. And that's why there are a lot of stylistically colored words of military themes. The similar " as if he were sitting on a powder-magazine" gives the first suggestion of a classroom as a battlefield or an enemy's territory. The metaphor " the most dangerous weapon in a new Master's armoury, and the one most of all likely to recoil on himself" vividly presents the master as a warrior heavily armed for the battle.

     The young master loves children and we can proof it by epithets which reveal the teacher's attitude towards the pupils. In the mischief-makers he saw " a bright, rather pleasant-faced boy", and "a lean, rather clever-looking boy".