Analysis of the text From W.S

                                       Kristina Kudrevatykh

Year 4, Group 4

                                      Analysis of the text From W.S.

By L.P. Hartley

The text under study was written by outstanding British writer, Leslie Poles Hartley (30 December 1895 – 13 December 1972). He is known for novels and short stories. His best-known work is The Go-Between (1953), which was made into a 1970 film. Hartley was born in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, where he lived with his parents. He was educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. It`s important to say that he was a fiction reviewer more than twenty years. So we can find critical remarks in his works toward writers and himself.

Success came with having his first writing published and becoming a reviewer after his Oxford degree. Though this gave him rapid social elevation his life remained very strained, and in 1922 he suffered a nervous breakdown. So he knew with his own experience what the underworld of fears was like and thus his stories were so true to live. L.P. Hartley was a highly skilled narrator and all his stories are admirably told.

We can identify the genre of the text as a psychological story because we find the study of the humans mind and behavior in the text. We can also call W.S a detective story as we have mysterious postcards and murder here.

The tone is sarcastic, humorously biting   presentation of characters. It changes from light to heavy satirical.

Narration prevails in the story with the elements of the interior monologue ( The Me and the Not Me..) . Walter Streeter is developing character as he changes his attitude toward his readers.

The extract under study is complete in itself and it is interesting from the point of view of its idea. The excerpt is not homogeneous: the narration is interrupted by the elements of description; inner thoughts and feelings of the main character are imperceptibly interwoven with the narration. The type of the narration is author’s narrative. Also we can observe non-personal direct speech. The type of character drawing is direct because while reading this very excerpt we get information about the character and it may be said that the author tries to thrust his opinion on the readers.

The very structure of the story adds to the effect of implication but the actual meaning of what is going on is not clear at the beginning of the story as he feelings suggested by the writer are not precisely determined. The reader however feels that something had happened and the character is strained and full of hidden apprehension and suppressed emotions.

What strikes one’s eye at the first glance is that the tension of the atmosphere in this excerpt is gradually increasing and gets its top at the end of it. The extract can be logically divided into only three parts: the first one Walter Streeter - gets one of the other four postcards with messages from anonymous and starts thinking them over.

Second part is due his meditation over these postcards and talk with the friend of him. In the third part Walter Streeter goes to the police.

Let's see what devices the author used. The first one which strikes the eye is anaphora. It's used very widely in order to improve emphasis on some facts:

"You have always been interested in Scotland, and that is one reason why I am interested in you."

"But the words came haltingly, as though contending with an extra-strong barrier of self-criticism. And as the days passed he became uncomfortably aware of self-division, as though someone had taken hold of his personality and was pullling it apart."

"I know you are interested in cathedrals. I'm sure this isn't sign of megalomania... I'm seeing a good many churches on my way south..."

"It was true that Walter Streeter was interested in cathedrals... And it was also true that he admired mere size and was inclined to under-value parish churches."

"And was it really a sign of megalomania? And who was W.S. anyhow?"

"They were Gilbert's, they were Maugham's, they were Shakespeare's ..."

"He tried to put the thought away from him; he tried to destroy the postcard as he had the others."

Besides we can meet such an epithet in the text:

"November fire ‘; ‘other worldly’ - makes us be closer to the time everything happened"

Metaphor: "fruitful conflict" ; ‘a wave of panic’- makes us guess the words and the deeds following the conflict.

A beautiful antithesis as "perfection of ordinariness" doesn't let us calm to Walter's style.

The author uses simile with skill: "A woman, a little mouse-like creature, who had somehow taken a fancy to him!"

   We can also pint out some puns : ‘ to send to Coventry ‘ ; ‘ to come to grips with’.; ‘a borderline case’. These phrases have double meaning and the author plays with its direct and metaphoric meaning very skillfully.

Also we notice irony of the situation in the text when Walter Streeter comes to police so frightened by the coming cards.

We can say that the title suits the story pretty well as it keeps the reader in tension while reading and draws attention at the beginning.

The message of the story is the responsibility of the writers for their work. So the story teaches us to be more confident and think about our actions thoroughly as it may influence other people lives.