William Saroyan. The War in Spain.

HOME-READING.

William Saroyan. The War in Spain.

The aim of the lesson is to teach you to explain by what means the writer achieves his purpose in the story. You are to analyze the behaviour of the characters, the state they are in and the mood of the story in general judging by the techniques and details the author employs.

1. Reproduce the poem “The Song of Spain” by Langston Hughes:

….A bombing plane’s

The song of Spain.

Bullets like rain’s

Poison gas is Spain.

A knife in the back

And its terror and pain is Spain.

2. Look through the adjectives below and choose the ones that may help you characterize the mood of the story, the atmosphere created in it and the state of the characters. Read the given adjectives and add some more adjectives of you own.

Scared, desperate, disappointed, fearless, upset, sultry, nervous, calm, desolate, dark, empty, mixed-up, lonely, sorry, broken, crushed, serious, hopeless, at a loss, shocked, indifferent, distressed, …………………………………..

PS. The Atmosphere of the story is very closely connected with the mood of the story, the difference may be formulated in the following way: Mood is the feeling created in you by the story, and atmosphere exists within the story and is created by means of the setting, the characters, the plot, the symbols. We may say that atmosphere is the overall mood of the story, the feeling or emotion shared by all the characters.

3. Explain how the main characters felt and behaved using the table:

Enoch [`i:nok] Paula Mother Father

remained calm and reserved cried bitterly stopped talking Drake out of going to the war cried and asked Drake not to leave

Because

she he

was sure that Drake would be killed. couldn’t prevent Drake from going to the war. thought that nothing could happen to Drake. felt some danger for Drake. didn’t believe that Drake could change his mind.

4. Make up the summary of the story finishing the given sentences:

Enoch’s elder brother Drake, an … year old student, once calls him into his room and says that………

Enoch doesn’t want to believe him at first but feeling that Drake is quite serious about going to the war he grows scared and ……………..

But in spite of Enoch’s crying and prays not to leave Drake isn’t going to change his mind. He …………

The mother is no less shocked by Drake’s decision than Enoch and tries together with the father to talk him out of it, saying that ……

Only Paula, drake’s twin-sister, doesn’t seem sorry at all because……………….

But all crying and prays are absolutely in vain and Drake goes to the war. He never returns and ……………………………………………………………………………………………………...

5. Though there’s no war in the story we can almost feel its “great unseen weight”. There’s no escape from it even if you don’t want to believe it you feel from the very beginning that “everything will break to pieces and everybody die, drowning and suffocating or being crushed” by it.

The atmosphere of tension is being created by the writer from the very beginning of the story. Explain how the writer makes the reader feel it. (In what way does he describe things and the characters’ actions? What is the role of the pieces of interior monologues (thoughts) of the characters? What words does Saroyan choose to make us feel the characters’ state and mood? Etc.) What is the meaning of repetition in the story? Mind that sometimes the writer may repeat words and phrases and even sentences. But there are cases when he repeats the ideas using synonyms of words and paraphrasing sentences. He may also repeat the characters’ actions.

USE THE TEXT TO SUPPORT YOUR IDEAS!

6. a) Cultural point: The War in Spain: prepare a short speech about this war mentioning its dates, the participants, the main reasons for it.

b) Read the following extract from E. Hemingway’s novel “A farewell to arms”. The main character of the novel Frederic Henry who is an American, takes part in the First World War fighting with the Italian Army on the territory of Italy.

“How do you do”, Miss Barkley said. “You are not an Italian, are you?”

“Oh, no.”

“What an odd thing – to be in the Italian Army.”

“It’s not really the Army. It’s only the ambulance.”

“It’s very odd, though. Why did you do it?”

“I don’t know.” I said. ”There isn’t always an explanation for everything.”

“Oh, isn’t there? I was brought up to think there was.”

As you see from the extract below the main character has also nothing to do with the war but still he takes part in it. It isn’t his land that he is defending and it isn’t his people he is trying to save. Besides there is no ideal that he could be fighting for.

The situation seems to be the same with Drake. And still try to explain why he decides to go to the war. What does he feel about it? Sum up the things Drake says concerning his decision and analyze the ways he acts. But mind that many things are expressed in the dialogue, but even more things are implied though you can understand the psychological situation judging by the characters’ actions and by the cues of the other characters not only by Drake’s.

Explain all these things in detail giving the necessary arguments.

7. As you’ve noticed dialogue dominates in the story. There are few descriptions of people’s actions, no long monologues though the writer mentions that the characters talked for a long time. (E.G. “He talked a long time. I sat up and looked at him….”; “Pa and Ma were in Drake’s room talking to him”.)

Explain why the writer doesn’t give any long monologues. How would the story change if he gave some? Would the story gain or lose something? In order to explain it you should formulate the writer’s purpose in this story, to answer what he wants to show, to make you understand by means of this story and what the means he uses to achieve his purpose are!

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04