The text under analysis is written by Christopher Morley. He was born in 1890. He is an American author, received unusual recognition early in his career. Among his widely known novels are "Kitty Foyle" and "The Trojan Horse". In his popular short play "Thursday Evening", Christopher Morley opposes the common mother-in-law stereotype with two very likable and charming women.
The play " Thursday Evening " is about Laura and Gordon, a married couple. The scene is set in the small kitchen of the modest suburban home of Mr and Mrs Gordon Johns. A meal has recently been cooked and Laura has served a dinner for four as both the grandmothers are visiting. Both husband and wife are washing up. They are in good humour at first but every time one or the other refers to his or her mother the atmosphere becomes tense. A fierce conflict breaks out between Laura and Gordon when he begins hunting for the plate with a lot of perfectly good stuff he saved.
The play is devoted to the problem of relations between generations. This play is an example of epic genre. It is a story with social significance. The play is written in neutral style. But the author used the elements of colloquial style:
*ph. verbs: come back, bring up, leave out, pick over, go out, clean up
*direct address: Gordie, Creature, my gracious [e1], darling, ducky
*contractions: I'll, don't, can't
*elliptical sentences: The expectant mother-in-law! Very sensible. Splendid. Exactly. Now listen! Fine!
*parenthesis: of course,
*fillers: you know, well,
The general mood is very emotional, satirical, sometimes tense.
The text can be divided into 3 logically complete parts. In the 1st part we learn about the quarrel between Laura and Gordon. The 2nd part can be entitled as, a treaty of peace between the two mothers. The 3rd part is admission (признание) of mistakes and a happy end.
There are different SD employed by the author to reveal main character’s feelings. At the beginning of the 1st part the atmosphere is tense. Gordon always points to her being wasteful. To show his feelings the author makes use of the anadiplosis: My Lord, it's no wonder we never have any money to spend if we chuck half of it in waste. Waste! Look at that piece of cheese and those potatoes. To express Gordon’s tiredness Morley resorts to the simile: It makes me wild to think of working and working like a dog. In the sentence “ Look at this, just look at it!” he employs lex. repetition to show the atmosphere becomes tenser. To express Laura’s feelings Morley uses parallel construction: you attend to your affairs and I’ll attend to mine. To make the speech more colloquial he employs aposiopesis: Your mother – Of course, I wasn’t an only daughter – Oh, this is too absurd - Now listen – In the sentence “You get a charming, aristocratic wife and expect her to grub along like a washerwoman” to characterize Laura he resorts to epithets(charming, aristocratic) & simile.
In the 2nd part to show Laura’s weakness the writer resorts to oxymoron “dreadfully sensitive”. To describe mothers’ attitude to(wards) their children Morley makes use of epithets: dreadfully stubborn and tactless (G), undisciplined little thing (L).
If you love the garbage pail better than you do your wife, you can live with it.
To reveal Mrs Johns’ feelings simile: Being a mother-in-law is almost as painful as being a mother.
Metaphor: her (Laura’s) face is buried in the cushions
In the 3rd part he also resorts to Epithets when they speak about themselves: (about Gordon) obstinate, disagreeable, brute, (about Laura): spoiled, silly, extravagant
In conclusion I’d like to say that the l-ge of the text is quite easy to understand. The author’s choice of vocabulary is rich.
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