1. The dead sleep cold in Spain tonight.

Sleep cold is a double predicate, which is a kind of fusion of a simple verbal and a compound nominal predicate. The adjective cold serving as a predicative is related to the subject. This adjective, however, is associated with other words of the passage bearing the notion of cold and death. One must also bear in mind that the use of adjectives with Hemingway is of particular importance. Generally he uses them sparingly, though when he does use them, they are mostly short one-syllable words carrying factual objective information or implicative value.

2. The Lincoln Battalion.

The Lincoln Battalion formed part of an international brigade. American volunteers had secretly left for Spain, since the U. S. A. declared neutrality, thus refusing to help the Spanish republic. Betrayed by pro-fascist generals, the republic was actually left without its regular army. It was then that the volunteers from 54 countries rushed to Spain, organizing international brigades.

3. There is forever for them to remember them in.

The adverb forever is used here in a noun position. Opposed to passing time, it may be understood as a synonym for eternity, a word belonging to elevated vocabulary. Besides the word forever enters a set of repeated keywords of the text.

4. The fascists may spread over the land, blasting their way with weight of metal brought from other countries.

The sentence alludes to the fact that the Spanish fascists acted in alliance with the already established fascist dictatorships of Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy, who supplied them with arms. The neutrality of the U.S.A., Britain and France strengthened the fascist force.

5. For the earth endureth orever.

The sentence contains a biblical allusion. It is a modification of a line from Ecclesiastes (a book of the Old Testament traditionally attributed to king Solomon): “One generation passeth away, another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever.” The allusion enhances the symbolic meaning of the image of the earth as of everlasting life. The use of the verb endure instead of the obsolete abide makes the image more vivid, whereas the retainment of the archaic and poetic form –th for –s adds to the solemnity and forcefulness of expression.

*Commentary is borrowed from Gilyanova A.Y., Ossovskaya M.I. Analytical Reading. Leningrad, 1978, pp. 67-68.

Understanding the selection

1. Comment on the title of the story, i.e. say what the title is suggestive of. How does the opening paragraph couple with it and what mood does it create?

2. Account for the suspense the author resorts to, mentioning the Lincoln Battalion for the first time only in the second paragraph.

3. Speak about the role of the opening sentence in the third paragraph. Does in contribute to the change of the mood? Why?

4. What means make the contrast between winter and spring obvious to the reader?

5. Speak of the symbolic value of winter and spring. Is the interplay of tenses in keeping with the contrast of life and death?

6. Speak of the author's love for Spanish people, his belief in international solidarity and hatred of fascism. Pay attention to the interplay of pronouns, the interplay of modal verbs, parallel constructions.

7. What language means contribute to the solemnity of the story and make it an epitaph commemorating the deceased?

8. Do you share the opinion that the story is a poem in prose arranged as a dead march? What adds rhythm to it?

9. Find stylistic devices and means of foregrounding revealing the idea of the text (thematic groups of words, antithesis, compositional coupling, suspense, implication, climax, repetition, defeated expectancy, parallel constructions, alliteration, biblical allusion, metaphors, epithets etc.)

Old Man at the Bridge*

An old man with steel rimmed spectacles 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.

It was my business to cross the bridge, explore the bridgehead beyond and find out to what point the enemy had advanced. I did this and returned over the bridge. There were not so many carts now and very few people on foot, but the old man was still there.

“Where do you come from?” I asked him.

“From San Carlos”, he said, and smiled.

That was his native town and so it gave him pleasure to mention it and he smiled.

“I was taking care of animals,” he explained.

“Oh,” I said, not quite understanding.

“Yes,” he said, “I stayed, you see, taking care of animals. I was the last one to leave the town of San Carlos.”

He did not look like a shepherd nor a herdsman and I looked at his black dusty clothes and his gray dusty face and his steel rimmed spectacles and said, “What animals were they?”

“Various animals,” he said, and shook his head. “I had to leave them.”

I was watching the bridge and the African looking country of the Ebro Delta and wondering how long now it would be before we would see the enemy, and listening all the while for the first noises that would signal that ever mysterious event called contact, and the old man still sat there.

“What animals were they?” I asked.

“There were three animals altogether,” he explained. “There were two goats and a cat and then there were four pairs of pigeons.”

“And you had to leave them?” I asked. “Yes. Because of the artillery. The captain told me to go because of the artillery.”

“And you have no family?” I asked, watching the far end of the bridge where a few last carts were hurrying down the slope of the bank.

“No,” he said, “only the animals I stated. The cat, of course, will be all right. A cat can look out for itself, but I cannot think what will become of the others.”

“What politics have you?” I asked. “I am without politics,” he said. “I am seventy-six years old. I have come twelve kilometers and I think now I can go no further.”

“This is not a good place to stop,” I said. “If you can make it, there are trucks up the road where it forks for Tortosa.”

“I will wait a while,” he said, “and then I will go. Where do the trucks go?”

“Towards Barcelona,” I told him.

“I know no one in that direction,” he said “but thank you very much. Thank you again very much.”

He looked at me very blankly and tiredly, then said, having to share his worry with someone, “The cat will be all right, I am sure. There is no need to be unquiet about the cat. But the others. Now what do you think about the others?”

“Why they'll probably come through it all right.”

“You think so?”

“Why not,” I said, watching the far bank where no there were no carts.

“But what will they do under the artillery when I was told to leave because of the artillery?”

“Did you leave the dove cage unlocked?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Then they'll fly.”

“Yes, certainly they'll fly. But the others. It's better not to think about the others,” he said.

“If you are rested I would go,” I urged. “Get up and try to walk now.”

“Thank you,” he said and got to his feet, swayed from side to side and then sat down backwards in the dust.

“I was taking care of animals,” he said dully, but no longer to me. “I was only taking care of animals.”

There was nothing to do about him. It was Easter Sunday and the Fascists were advancing toward the Ebro. It was a gray overcast day with a low ceiling so their planes were not up. That and the fact that the cats know how to look after themselves was all the good luck that old man would ever have.

*Hemingway E. Selected Stories. Moscow, 1981, pp. 311-313.

Discussion of the text

1. Speak of the main talking point of the story.

2. Account for the title of the story. Is it in keeping with the opening paragraph?

3. Was the situation dangerous? What contributes to the danger of the situation?

4. What war is described here? Justify your opinion.

5. Single out the thematic group of words pertaining to the description of military actions.

6. How is the tragic position of the old man accentuated?

7. The old man was old, helpless, lonely and exhausted. How is it brought home to the reader?

8. Can we guess what is in store for the old man? What is in keeping with his unhappy future?

9. Comment on the role of the American officer. Was he sympathetic for the old man?

10. The events are presented through the eyes and mind of one of the characters, who participated in the events. Does it increase the immediacy and freshness of the description?

11. How is the reader stimulated to make his own judgements?

12. The protagonists have no names. They are referred to as «the old man» and «I». What does this anonymity contribute to?

13. What means is the story built on?

In Another Country*

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 charcoal fire, and the chestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket The hospital was very old and very beautiful, 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 straight 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 tricycle. 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 bounced 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 almost as small as the 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 asked. “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 three 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 we were finished with the machines, sometimes we walked back together to the Cafe Cova, which was next door to the Scala. We walked the short way through the communist 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 any medals. The tall boy 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. Although, 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 Cova 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 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, I 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 closed, trying to keep near the street lights, 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 complimented me on how I spoke Italian, and we talked together very easily. One 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 grammar?” 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 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 lose. 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 lose 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 who ran the machines. “Come and turn this damned thing off.”

He went back into the other room for the light treatment 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 shoulder.

“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.” He stood there biting his lower lip. “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 choked. 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 definitely 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 major used were, three photographs of hands like his that were completely 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.

*Hemingway E. Selected Stories. Moscow, 1981, pp. 83-89.

Discussion

1. Study the opening paragraph of the story. Com­ment on the atmosphere of emotional tension it creates. Pay attention to the definite article, the personal pronoun «we», the adverbs «always» and «any more» that serve to create the atmosphere. (See: В.А. Кухаренко. Практикум по интерпретации текста. Москва, Просвещение, 1987, pp. 10-11)

2. When does the reader understand what war is referred to and what had happened to the characters? Make a list of military and medical terms.

3. None of the three men turned out what they had intended to be. What means testify to their tragic fates?

4. Comment on the meaning of the word «detached» is charged with in the story. It goes hand in hand with the oxymoron «lived with death». Speak of its function.

5. Account for the attitude of the civilians to the wounded officers. Observe the repetition of the words «cold» and «warm» and the implied meaning they carry.

6. The American officer differed from the Italian fellow-officers, who underwent machine treatment in the hospital. How is the contrast made obvious to the reader? Find cases of simile, metaphorical periphrasis, climax.

7. Study the major's attitude to the mechanotherapy. Find cases of irony.

8. Compare the major's behaviour in the first part with that in the second part of the story. What in his behaviour and speech betrayed his nervousness?

9. Why did the major come to the hospital after his wife's death? Do you think it was not the machine treatment the major came for? Justify your opinion.

10. Prove that the title of the story is ambivalent. Show that the title can be understood in the context of the whole story. How can you interpret the title after reading the story?

11. The characters have no names. How are they referred to? What does this anonymity testify to?

12. The story has an open end: the impending fates of the characters remain unknown. Is it possible to prognosticate their future? Why?

13. Analyse the story from the point of view of:

    1. contrast;

    2. strong position and emotional tension.

JAMES B. HENDERSON

Scottish by birth, James B. Henderson has spent most of his life in Australia and is frequently published in Australian magazines. He has pursued a successful career as a writer, at the same time serving as a clerk, a teacher, a miner. In 1960-1963 he worked as a war correspondent in Vietnam. Henderson is best known for his short stories in which he describes the working people of Australia with true warmth and sympathy.

The story under analysis contains a realistic description of the hard life of Australian miners.

Fear*

The dirty sweat poured from his face and dripped from his nose. It stood out like small black grapes on the bent bare back and along his ribs. There was a squelching in his boots where the coal dust mixed with the perspiration.

The powerful arms and knee drove the shovel deep into the heap and the biceps bulged as he tossed the coal into the skip.

On the opposite side his mate kept pace with him, shovel for shovel, both lights bobbing up and down alternately, up and down, like parts of a machine.

As each head rose with the lift of the shovel the slender beam of light from the lamp shot into the haze of dust hanging over the skip, became diffused and lost.

Outside the narrow shafts of light was the impenetrable darkness.

The light dropped low, the shovel scraped along the floor, the light rose and the coal fell into the skip.

There was a rhythmic beat linking mate to mate.

The sounds of the shovel and the falling of coal were hemmed in by the deep darkness. It stood close up to them, like resilient folds of black velvet. The blackness retreated at each puny advance of the lamp, but flowed back immediately to bandage the thrust mark made by the rapier of light.

It was a thousand times darker than the darkest night; not merely the absence of light but a seeping something that penetrated everywhere and covered everything. Something tangible.

And Eric was afraid. Afraid for the first time in the twelve months he had worked «on the coal» as a contract miner.

The sweat that gushed from every pore was not only the measure of the weight of the shovel and the inadequate air flow, but, more than that, it was the outpouring of the fear that had been gnawing at his brain and knotting in his plexus for a long month past.

Eric and George were pinpoints of light on a blackened stage: performers without an audience.

A thousand feet above, the blazing sun wilted the leaves of the stunned box trees where the peewees lay cooling in the mud at the horse trough. The skip filled, George stood erect.

“She'll do,” and cocked his ear to listen to the roof. Eric straightened slowly, listening as he did so, listening not with ears alone but with his whole body. Listening with his finger tips.

A low sound like a gentle protesting sigh grew to a moan and built up and up and up till it thundered out, the groans of a monster in agony.

The knot in Eric's stomach tightened and his throat contracted as he crouched instinctively. He wanted to run, to run screaming, to get miles away from it, to get into the light of day. Wondrous, beautiful sun.

The awful groaning and the shroud of darkness were pressing in on him, squeezing him, making it hard to breathe.

But the bravery of cowardice held him silent and hobbled his feet as it had done for four fearsome weeks.

George looked intently at the roof.

“While she's talking to us, we know what she's doing,” he said in a loud whisper. “No danger yet awhile. When she's silent you never know, you never know.” His calm broke. “To hell with stripping pillars anyway, to hell with it! Gnawing away support that's protecting you!”

As the groaning died away to a low grinding, a new terror gripped the younger man.

He didn't want it to stop “talking”, talking to George who could understand it.

It didn't talk to him, it terrified him and yet the silence terrified him even more.

He bent his back and pushed the full skip along the rails into the darkness.

Two specks now shone in the darkness, one moving rapidly away from the groan that was turning to silence. A vivid shrieking silence! The near rumble of the skip blotted out all other noise so that he couldn't tell if the roof still talked or not.

He wanted to stop, to stop and listen. But outside lay safety, the horse-driver and rope runner to talk with, and the friendly electric light of the winch in the distance.

George wasn't scared, he knew what the roof said. Roofs had spoken to him many times before but he never liked what they said. And George was careful these days, very, very careful. He saw everything. He noticed the props bent this morning that were straight last night; the props cracked this morning that were bent last night.

As he methodically stripped slices from the pillar he saw small bursts of coal shoot out as the weight of thousands, hundreds of thousands of tons pressed down on the ever narrowing column.

And he listened. Listened as he shovelled; listened as he moved about; listened, listened.

Listened in a calm careful manner that almost drove Eric frantic.

Yet the young man knew that George's ears and eyes were his ears and eyes, and he trusted him and drew comfort from his sweaty nearness.

A terrifying comfort, but comfort.

He wanted to stay outside and talk, to keep his ears from the awful groaning and grinding, to be out of the sound of that awful silence.

But in no time he was back and the lights again bobbed up and down, up and down in unison. And they listened as they worked.

A third light joined them and for a time the matter of fact voice of the deputy seared the ends of his bleeding nerves.

The safety man walked with calm deliberation deep into the danger area, his light disappearing round a bend.

Eric wanted to yell to him, to hold him, to rush after him and pull him back.

But George was working quietly and Eric kept pace with him. And the sweat welled up and out.

Somewhere distant in the pit a shot was fired; its dull muffled reverberations, which one time would have passed unnoticed, were now the ominous voice of destruction.

He could hardly catch his breath as his diaphragm squeezed up on his heart.

The deputy's return startled him.

“There's not a prop standing. I don't know why we don’t get a fall all inside! It's about time we did, to relieve the pressure.”

Yes, that was it. A fall inside to relieve the pressure. That's what was needed. A fall.

But he didn't want a fall. The thought filled him with terror. Not a little fall nor a big fall. The groaning, grinding, moaning wasn't the voice of a child's bucketful of pebbles but the agonising cry of a million tons disturbed in its sleep, disturbed in the bed where it had rested for countless years.

And he and George and other calloused-handed miners were sweating in the darkness directly beneath nibbling, nibbling, nibbling away like white ants, and the monster was speaking its protests. Speaking to George, but not to him. As yet, to him it was a foreign tongue.

To the contract miner the measure of time is the number of skips filled, but for Eric time moved on from morning to afternoon in a welter of dirt, sweat and fear. Especially fear.

The dust-laden brattice cloth parted as he pushed his sixteenth skip through, and as it dropped behind him he felt safer immediately, as if the brattice had shut the danger behind.

Here was safety, plenty of support for the roof and the friendly hissing of the moving haulage rope.

As he turned to look back the floor beneath his feet seemed to shiver and heave; rolling clouds of dust belched out from inside; the brattice disappeared and a roaring, tearing crescendo of destructive noise careered along after the dust, overtook it and rushed ahead.

Silence swept in and took its place. Eric stood enveloped in dust, unhearing and unfeeling; unthinking; as if afraid to break the stillness.

Away inside, a hundred-ton boulder fell with a thud, the sound muted by distance and the blankets of dust.

Once again Eric knew fear. A new, more terrible fear. A fear, far greater than the agony he had suffered over the past weeks. It shot through him like a red hot knife thrust. George!

Fear for himself had made him want to flee from the danger, flee from the awful noise and fearsome silence, flee to the light. But this fear took on a different quality- rising above and blotting out all else. Fear not for himself.

This fear sent him reeling, stumbling into the choking dust, to the jaws of the monster lying ominously silent.

George!

“George!”

“It's all right, Eric. I heard it coming.”

The steady voice from the dust was followed by a ghostly pinpoint of light and the sound of familiar steps.

Eric stepped aside to let George pass, and overflowing with a great contentment, walked out behind his mate.

*Henderson J.B. Fear: Australian Short Stories. Moscow: Progress publishers, 1975, pp. 297-300.

Understanding the text

1. Speak of the role of the third person pronoun he.

2. Define the place of the action.

3. How are the conditions of the work of the miners depicted?

4. In what way is the degree of darkness in the mine created? Point out the thematic group of words, metaphors, sustained personification, similes, epithets, climax, semantic and compositional coupling, terms, alliteration, parallel constructions, elliptical sentences, lexical pairs.

5. Single out two main thematic groups of words:

1. pertaining to the description of the condition of the mine;

2. the state of the miners, i.e. Eric and George.

6. Find in the text sustained metaphors depicting the condition of the mine, cases of personification, epithets, simile.

7. State the role of the interchange of sounds and its influence upon the miners. Account for the means reflecting it (syntactical and lexical repetition, climax, convergence of stylistic devices, represented speech, oxymoron).

8. Define the state of the miners - in what way it is brought home to the reader (anadiplosis, metaphors, epithets, climax, coupling, repetition).

9. Comment on how the contrasting feelings of the main characters are represented. Pay special attention to the oxymoron.

10. Speak of the difference of Eric and George's state. Mind the changed type of print.

11. Study the condition of the mine and the state of the miners.

12. Point out the contrast between the state of George and that of Eric, explain why Eric relied on George.

13. Underline the atmosphere of growing tension in the mine. Account for it.

14. How is the industry of the miners brought home to us? Alongside with other devices draw your attention to cases of polysendeton.

15. Explain the implied meaning of the word «fear» in the sentence «A new more terrible fear».

16. Speak of the stylistic value of Eric's direct and represented speech.

JOHN CHEEVER.

John Cheever is a shrewd observer and critic of American middle class, deeply penetrating into the realities of the disintegration of its manners and morals, seeing beneath the glossy surface of prosperous America where the imminent danger of failure lies like lead in the heart of a successful man, where bright surfaces conceal the tensions, disorders, anxieties and frustrations of life.

The story which follows was published in the 1965 collection "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow". It is the narrator's recollection about his formative years, which reflects the complexity of "fathers — sons" relations. Pay attention to Cheever's sad and subtle irony.

Reunion

The last time I saw my father was in Grand Central Station. I was going from my grandmother's in the Adirondacks to a cottage on the Cape that my mother had rented, and I wrote my father that I would be in New York between trains for an hour and a half, and asked if we could have lunch together. His secretary wrote to say that he would meet me at the information booth at noon, and at twelve o'clock sharp I saw him coming through the crowd. He was a stranger to me — my mother divorced him three years ago and I hadn't been with him since — but as soon as I saw him I felt that he was my father, my flesh and blood, my future and my doom. I knew that when I was grown I would be something like him; I would have to plan my campaigns within his limitations. He was a big, good-looking man, and I was terribly happy to see him again. He struck me on the back and shook my hand. “Hi, Charlie,” he said. “Hi, boy. I'd like to take you up to my club, but it's in the Sixties, and if you have to catch an early train I guess we'd better get something to eat around here.” He put his arm around me, and I smelled my father the way my mother sniffs a rose. It was a rich compound of whiskey, after-shave lotion, shoe polish, woolens, and the rankness of a mature male. I hoped that someone would see us together. I wished that we could be photographed. I wanted some record of our having been together.

We went out of the station and up a side street to a restaurant. It was still early, and the place was empty. The bartender was quarreling with a delivery boy, and there was one very old waiter in a red coat down by the kitchen door. We sat down, and my father hailed the waiter in a loud voice. “Kellner!” he shouted. “Garcon! Cameriere! You!” His boisterousness in the empty restaurant seemed out of place. “Could we have a little service here!” he shouted. “Chop-chop.” Then he clapped his hands. This caught the waiter's attention, and he shuffled over to our table.

“Were you clapping your hands at me?” he asked.

“Calm down, calm down, sommelier,” my father said. “It isn't too much to ask of you — if it wouldn't be too much above and beyond the call of duty, we would like a couple of Beefeater Gibsons.”

“I don't like to be clapped at,” the waiter said.

“I should have brought my whistle,” my father said. “I have a whistle that is audible only to the ears of old waiters. Now, take out your little pad and your little pencil and see if you can get this straight: two Beefeater Gibsons. Repeat after me: two Beefeater Gibsons.”

“I think you'd better go somewhere else,” the waiter said quietly.

“That,” said my father, “is one of the most brilliant suggestions I have ever heard. Come on, Charlie, let's get the hell out of here.”

I followed my father out of that restaurant into another. He was not so boisterous this time. Our drinks came, and he cross-questioned me about the baseball season. He then struck the edge of his empty glass with his knife and began shouting again. “Garсon! Kellner! Cameriere! You! Could we trouble you to bring us two more of the same.”

“How old is the boy?” the waiter asked.

“That,” my father said, “is none of your God-damned business.”

“I'm sorry, sir,” the waiter said, “but I won't serve the boy another drink.”

“Well, I have some news for you,” my father said. “I have some very interesting news for you. This doesn't happen to be the only restaurant in New York. They've opened another on the corner. Come on, Charlie.”

He paid the bill, and I followed him out of that restaurant into another. Here the waiters wore pink jackets like hunting coats, and there was a lot of horse tack on the walls. We sat down, and my father began to shout again. “Master of the hounds! Tallyhoo and all that sort of thing. We'd like a little something in the way of a stirrup cup. Namely, two Bibson Geefeaters.”

“Two Bibson Geefeaters?” the waiter asked, smiling.

“You know damned well what I want,” my father said angrily. “I want two Beefeater Jibsons, and make it snappy. Things have changed in jolly old England. So my friend the duke tells me. Let's see what England can produce in the way of a cocktail.”

“This isn't England,” the waiter said.

“Don't argue with me,” my father said. “Just do as you're told.”

“I just thought you might like to know where you are,” the waiter said.

“If there is one thing I cannot tolerate.” my father said, “it is an impudent domestic. Come on, Charlie.”

The fourth place we went to was Italian. “Buon giorno,”* my father said. “Per favore, possiamo avere due cocktail americani, jorti, forti. Molio gin, poco vermut.”**

“I don't understand Italian,” the waiter said.

“Oh, come off it.” my father said. “You understand Italian, and you know damned well you do. Vogliamo due cocktail americani. Subito.”***

The waiter left us and spoke with the captain, who came over to our table and said, “I'm sorry, sir, but this table is reserved.”

“All right,” my father said. “Get us another table.”

“All the tables are reserved,” the captain said.

“I get it,” my father said. “You don't desire our patronage. Is that it? Well, the hell with you. Vada all'inferno. Let's go, Charlie.”

“I have to get my train,” I said.

“I'm sorry, sonny,” my father said. “I'm terribly sorry.” He put his arm around me and pressed me against him. “I'll walk you back to the station. If there had only been time to go up to my club.”

“That's all right, Daddy,” I said.

“I'll get you a paper.” he said. “I'll get you a paper to read on the train.”

Then he went up to a newsstand and said. “Kind sir, will you be good enough to favor me with one of your God-damned, no-good, ten-cent afternoon papers?” The clerk turned away from him and stared at a magazine cover. “Is it asking too much, kind sir,” my father said, “is it asking too much for you to sell me one of your disgusting specimens of yellow journalism?”

“I have to go, Daddy.” I said. “It's late.”

“Now, just wait a second, sonny." no said. "Just wait a second. I want to get a rise out of this chap.”

“Goodbye, Daddy.” I said, and I went down the stairs and got my train, and that was the last time I saw my father.

*Buon fiorno (Ital.) - Good afternoon

**Per favore, possiamo avere due cocktail americani, forti, forti. Molto gin, poco vermut. (Ital.) – Please two Beefeater Gibsons, quickly.

***Vofliamo due cocktail americani. Subito. (Ital.) – American cocktail, please, quickly.

Discussion of the text.

1. Speak about the title, i.e. if it sets a definite expectation of the possible development of events.

2. Look for the means that lead the reader to infer that the boy looked forward to the meeting with exuberant expectation.

3. Speak of the impression the father made on the boy when they met. Account for the boy’s admiration.

4. The true nature of the father becomes known gradually. What kind of man does the father seem to be? What judgement can be made from the actions and speech of the father? Does he arouse admiration or resentment of the reader?

5. Find details that become important in retrospect, or upon rereading the story.

6. Think about the contrasting moods of the boy, that is the change from expectation to embarrasement and disappointment.

7. Point out how the boy’s attitude to the father changes by the end of the story.

8. Speak about the importance of the story’s climax.

9. The author never appreciates or condemns the father. How is the reader made to feel his attitude to the father? Find cases of the author’s sad irony.

10. The events are described through the eyes of the boy. Why do you think the narration is entrusted to a naive narrator?

11. Account for the atmosphere that pervades the text.

12. Comment on the title in the context of the whole story.

STEPHEN CRANE.

Stephen Crane, poet, novelist, and short-story writer, was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1871. He began his writing career as a free-lance writer in New York. His second novel, “The Red Badge of Courage”, the story of a young soldier during the Civil War, brought Crane international recognition.

The Open Boat

A TALE INTENDED TO BE AFTER THE FACT.

BEING THE EXPERIENCE OF FOUR MEN FROM

THE SUNK STEAMER "COMMODORE."

None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks. Many a man ought to have a bathtub larger than the boat which here rode upon the sea. These waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each froth top was a problem in small-boat navigation.

The cook squatted in the bottom and looked with both eyes at the six inches of gunwale which separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were rolled over his fat forearms, and the two flaps of his unbuttoned vest dangled as he bent to bail out the boat. Often he said: "Gawd! That was a narrow clip." As he remarked it he invariably gazed eastward over the broken sea.

The oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the boat, sometimes raised himself suddenly to keep clear of water that swirled in over the stern. It was a thin little oar and it seemed often ready to snap.

The correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and wondered why he was there.

The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to even the bravest and more enduring when, willy-nilly, the Firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down. The mind of the master of a vessel is rooted deep in the timbers of her, though he commanded for a day or a decade, and this captain had on him the stern impression of a scene in the grays of dawn of seven turned faces, and later a stump of a topmast with a white ball on it that slashed to and fro at the waves, went lower and lower, and down. Thereafter there was something strange in his voice. Although steady, it was deep with mourning, and of a quality beyond oration or tears.

"Keep 'er a little more south, Billie," said he.

"A little more south, sir," said the oiler in the stern.

A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking bronco, and by the same token, a bronco is not much smaller. The craft pranced and reared, and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for it, she seemed like a horse making at a fence outrageously high. The manner of her scramble over these walls of water is a mystic thing, and, moreover, at the top of them were ordinarily these problems in white water, the foam racing down from the summit of each wave, requiring a new leap, and a leap from the air. Then, after scornfully bumping a crest, she would slide, and race, and splash down a long incline, and arrive bobbing and nodding in front of the next menace.

A singular disadvantage of this lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats. In a ten-foot dinghy one can get an idea of the resources of the sea in the line of waves that is not probable to the average experience which is never at sea in a dinghy. As each slatey wall of water approached, it shut all else from the view of the men in the boat, and it was not difficult to imagine that this particular wave was the final outburst of the ocean, the last effort of the grim water. There was a terrible grace in the move of the waves, and they came in silence, save for the snarling of the crests.

In the wan light, the faces of the men must have been gray. Their eyes must have glinted in strange ways as they gazed steadily astern. Viewed from a balcony, the whole thing would doubtless have been weirdly picturesque. But the men in the boat had no time to see it, and if they had had leisure there were other things to occupy their minds. The sun swung steadily up the sky, and they knew it was broad day because the color of the sea changed from slate to emerald-green, streaked with amber lights, and the foam was like tumbling snow. The process of the breaking day was unknown to them. They were aware only of this effect upon the color of the waves that rolled toward them.

In disjointed sentences the cook and the correspondent argued as to the difference between a lifesaving station and a house of refuge. The cook had said: “There's a house of refuge just north of the Mosquito Inlet Light, and as soon as they see us, they'll come off in their boat and pick us up."

"As soon as who see us?" said the correspondent.

"The crew," said the cook.

"Houses of refuge don't have crews," said the correspondent. "As I understand them, they are only places where clothes and grub are stored for the benefit of shipwrecked people. They don't carry crews."

"Oh, yes, they do," said the cook.

"No, they don't," said the correspondent.

"Well, we're riot there yet, anyhow," said the oiler, in the stem.

"Well," said the cook, "perhaps it's not a house of refuge that I 'm thinking of as being near Mosquito Inlet Light. Perhaps it's a lifesaving station."

"We're not there yet," said the oiler, in the stern.

Discussion of the text.

1. Prove that the title and the subtitle create a tragic mood and the events are described in retrospect.

2. The story opens with the description of ocean waves. Notice how the atmosphere of impending tragedy is created in the opening paragraph.

3. The reader is made to infer that all the four men on the boat realized that the catastrophe was inevitable. Think if their actions, thoughts and speech reveal it.

4. Instify that the boat was too small to win the battle.

5. Find details that testify to the nervous state of the crew.

6. Note the numerous repetition of the word “colour” throughout the whole text. What is the function of the repetition?

7. Try to prove that the cook, the oilmen and the correspondent still hoped to survive. Point out means that contribute to it.

8. Find evidence that tension and suspense mount gradually in the text.

9. Find cases of the author’s opinion of the coming catastrophe. Do they add to the atmosphere of suspense?

10. Though the characters are not judged by the author their characteristic can be assembled from their actions, thoughts and remarks. Who of them does the author’s sympathy lie with?

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL TO BE USED

FOR INDEPENDENT ANALYSIS