By Susan Lewis

Read the extract bellow and answer the following questions:

1. How is the extract opened? What does the advantage of the first sentence lie in?

2. What did the newcomer look like? What stylistic devices make the man’s description vivid? Give your commetary on every case.

3. Which sentences prove that the narrator had a very rich imagination? Whom did the narrator associate the newcomer with? How is the association achieved?

4. Enlarge upon the role of similes in the given extract.

5. What compositional device rounds up the second paragraph? Specify the synonyms which intensify the effect.

6. Why did the narrator try to sound humorous in the third paragraph of the extract?

7. How are further events likely to develop? Support your viewpoint.

8. Is bigamy a crime? What’s your attitude to it?

Rachel and I teurned to find a tall blond man standing on the pavement outside, shuffling uncomfortably from one foot to the other as if he were more than ready to move on. The collar of a purplish check shirt appeared above the neck of his fur-lined leather jacket, and his jeans, which had seen better days, were stuffed inside the legs of what looked like size fourteen cowboy boots. All he needed to complete his appearance was a corck-dangled hat and a can of lager.

“I think I’ll be on my way,” Rache said. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. And she ran off down the steps. The man smiled pleasantly as she passed him, and doffed the invisible hat. I followed her down the steps and asked what he might want with Lizzie. He hooked his thumbs through his jeans loops, as if trying to give himself a confidence he was clearly far from feeling, and leaned against the pillar of the proch. I listened in stupefied silence as this stranger, who had appeared out of the darkness on a cold and windy March night, told me who he was, and why he was looking for my sister-in-law. I was dumbfounded. I was astonished. In the end I asked him to wait, and went inside to fetch Henry, Lizzie’s husband.

I let him take a good look at the man standing at the door before I made the introduction. “Henry Clive, meet John Roseman. Or should I put it another way. Henry, meet Lizzie’s husband.”

From Rage of Angels by Sidney Sheldon

1. Read the extract bellow and. state whether it is narration, description or exposition. Is it the first-person, the third-person or anonymous?

2. Consider how Mary Beth Warner is portrayed by the author:

a) Is she presented in a negative or positive light?

b) What means of characterization does the author resort to for the purpose?

c) What stylistic devices does he select to achieve the effect?

d) Group the epithets used in the extract and say what purpose they serve.

e) How does the setting contribute to the description of Mary Beth Warner?

f) What is the role of the last sentence of the extract?

The following morning, Jennifer drove out the Saw Mill River Parkway, headed upstate. It was a crisp, clear morning, a lovely day for a drive. Jennifer turned on the car radio and tried to forget her nervousness about the meeting facing her.

The Warner house was a magnificently preserved house of Dutch origin, overlooking the river at Croton-on-Hudson, set on a large estate of rolling green acres. Jennifer drove up the driveway to the imposing front entrance. She rang the bell and a moment later the door was opened by an attractive woman in her middle thirties. The last thing Jennifer had expected was this shy southern woman who took her hand, gave her a warm smile and said, “I’m Mary Beth. Adam didn’t do you justice. Please come in.”

Adam’s wife was wearing a beige wool skirt that was softly full, and a silk blouse opened just enough to reveal a mature but still lovely breast. Her beige-blond hair was worn long and slightly curling about her face, and was flattering to her blue eyes. The pearls around her neck could never be mistaken as cultured. There was an air of old-world dignity about Mary Beth Warner.

The interior of the house was lovely, with wide, spacious rooms filled with antiques and beautifu paintings.

A butler served tea in the drawing room from a Georgian silver tea service.

From Whispers by Dean Koontz

1. Read the extract bellow and formulate its theme.

2. State whether it is narration, description or exposition. Is it the first-person, the third-person or anonymous?

3. Divide it into logical parts. Say whether they are logically connected or set in contrast.

4. Read the opening sentence of the extract again. How does it introduce the author's purport?

5. Analyse the next part of the extract:

a) Whose collective image is portrayed by the author here? What stylistic device does he resort to for the purpose?

b) What is the rank and file's opinion of Hollywood public life?

c) What is the function of segmentation at the end of this paragraph? What effect does it produce?

6. Analyse the last paragraph of the extract:

a) How does the first sentence of the paragraph set contrast to what was described previously? What is the function of anaphora here?

b) What is the real life of people in movie and television industries? Find as much evidence as you can to illustrate the contrast between the established image and the real one.

c) Does the extract end climatically or anticlimatically? What effect does the ending produce?

The public image of Hollywood life had very little to do with the facts. Secretaries, shopkeepers, clerks, taxi drivers, mechanics, housewives, waitresses, people all over the country, in everyday jobs of all kinds came home weary from work and sat in front of the television and dreamed about life among the stars. In the vast collective mind that brooded and murmured from Hawaii to Maine and from Florida to Alaska, Hollywood was a sparkling blend of wild parties, fast women, easy money, too much whiskey, too much cocaine, lazy sunny days, drinks by the pool, vacation in Acapulco and Palm Springs, sex in the back seat of a fur-lined Rolls-Royce. A fantasy. An illusion. She supposed that a society long abused by corrupt and incompetent leaders, a society standing upon pilings that had been rotten by inflation and excess taxation, a society existing in the cold shadow of sudden nuclear annihilation, needed its illusions if it were to survive. In truth, people in the movie and television industries worked harder than almost anyone else, even though the product of their labour was not always, perhaps not even often, worth the effort. The star of a successful television series worked from dawn till nightfall, often fourteen or sixteen hours a day. Of course, the rewards were enormous. But in reality, the parties were not so wild, the women no faster than women in Philadelphia or Hackensack or Tampa, the days sunny but seldom lazy, and the sex exactly the same as it was for secretaries in Boston and shopkeeper in Pittsburgh.

From Whispers by Dean Koontz

1. Read the extract bellow and say what it about.

2. State whether it is narration, description or exposition. Is it the first-person, the third-person or anonymous?

3. Divide the extract into logical parts and explain your choice.

4. Analyse the first paragraph of the extract:

a) What mood is imposed in it? What stylistic devices is this mood realized through?

b) What is wrong with the character?

c) Pick out different metaphors which illustrate the character's fear of loss? Why does she think that she did not deserve what she has?

d) How does the gradation of similes enhance her anxiety?

5. Analyse the second paragraph of the extract:

a) Is the mood of this paragraph the same? What stylistic device is responsible for this effect?

b) Speak of the character's childhood to explain why she was so afraid to lose what she had. Pick out all the necessary tropes and figures of speech for illustration of your conclusions.

c) What is the function of the represented speech at the end of the paragraph? How does it change the mood of the whole extract?

5. What is the message of the extract in your opinion?

She knew exactly what was wrong with her. Her jumpiness was a symptom of the I-don’t-deserve-all-this-happiness disease, a mental disorder with which she was intimately acquainted. She had come from nowhere, from nothing, and now she had everything. Subconsciously, she was afraid that God would take notice of her and decide that she didn’t deserve what she’d been given. Then the hammer would fall. Everything she had accumulated would be smashed and swept away: the house, the car, the bank accounts… her new life seemed like a fantasy, a marvelous fairytale, too good to be true, certainly too good to last.

No. Dammit, no! She had to stop belittling herself and pretending that her accomplishments were only the result of good fortune. Luck had nothing to do with it. Born into a house of despair, nurtured not with milk and kindness but with uncertainty and fear, unloved by her father and merely tolerated by her mother, raised in home where self-pity and bitterness had driven out all hope, she had of course grown up without a sense of real worth. For years she had struggled with an inferiority complex. Bit that was behind her now. Se had been through therapy. She understood herself. She didn’t dare those doubts rise again within her. The house and car and money would not be taken away; she did deserve them. She worked hard, and she had talent.

From Man and Boy by Tony Parsons

1. Read the extract bellow and formulate its theme.

2. What narrative method and techniques are used in it? Come out with the examples from the extract to prove your opinion.

3. Does the opening sentence set the mood for the whole fragment? What mood is this? How do the first two paragraphs enhance it?

4. Why do Gina’s things “have to go”? Pick out the tropes that show the character’s attitude to them?

5. Find the paragraph, in which the character’s wife is described. What effect does she produce on the reader? What stylistic devices serve this purpose?

6. Analyse the part about the character’s removing Gina’s things:

a) Is it an easy job for him? Give evidence from the extract.

b) Find the metaphor which portrays the bookshelves after sorting out. How does it contribute to the general mood of the extract?

c) Analyse the paragraph, which begins with “Starting to sweat hard…” What device is used to show that there were a lot of Gina’s thigns around? Find the trope that expresses the man’s desire to rid of his wife’s possessions. Why are the things described “all trash now”?

d) Provide the figure of speech, which shows the man’s amazement at the quick result of his job.

e) Why do you think the man spent another two hours putting everything back in place? What stylistic devices are used by the author to show it? How do they contribute to the description of the character’s despair?

7. Speak about the message of the extract

Gina was gone and she was everywhere. The house was full of CDs I would never listen to (sentimental soul music about love lost and found), books I would never read (women struggling to find themselves in a world full of rotten men) and clothes I would never wear (skimpy M&S underwear)

And Japan. Lots of books about Japan. All the classic texts that she had urged me to read – Black Rain, Pink Samurai, Barefoot Gen, Memories of Silk and Straw – and a battered old copy of Snow Country, the one I had actually read, the love story she said I had to read if I was ever going to understand.

Gina’s things, and they chewed up my heart every time I saw them.

They had to go.

I felt bad about throwing it all out, but then if someone leaves you, they really should take their stuff with them. Because every time I saw one of her Luther Vandross records or Margaret Atwood novels or books about Hiroshima, I felt all the choking grief rise up inside me again. And in the end I just couldn’t stand it any more.

Gina, I thought, with her dreams of undying love and hard-won independence, Gina who could happily accommodate Naomi Wolf’s steely, post-feminist thoughts and Whitney Houston’s sweet nothings.

That was my Gina all right.

So I got to work, stuffing everything she had left behind into rubbish sacks. The first one was quickly full – did the women never throw anything away? – so I went back into the kitchen and got an entire roll of heavy-duty bin-liners.

When I had finished removing all her paperbacks, the bookshelves looked like a mouth full of broken teeth.

Throwing away her clothes was much easier because there was no sorting involved. Soon her side of our wardrobe was empty apart from mothballs and wire coat hangers.

I felt better already.

Starting to sweat hard, I prowled the house mopping up what was left of her presence. There were all the Japanese prints from her single days. A painting she had bought on our holiday to Antigua when Pat was a baby. A pink razor on the edge of the bath. A couple of Gong Li videos. And a photograph of our wedding day with her looking like the most beautiful girl in the world and me grinning like a happy, dopey bastard who never believed he could get so lucky.

All trash now.

Finally, I looked in the laundry basket. Among Pat’s Star Wars pajamas and my faded Calvins there was the old Cap T-shirt that Gina liked to sleep in. I sat on the bottom of the stairs holding that T-shirt for a while, wondering what she was sleeping in tonight. And then I threw it into the last rubbish sack.

It’s amazing how quickly you can remove the evidence of someone’s life from the house. It takes so long to put your mark on a home, and so little time to wipe it away.

Then I spent another two hours fishing it all of the rubbish sacks and carefully returning the clothes, the CDs, the books, the prints and everything else to exactly where I had found them.

Because I missed her. I missed her like mad.

And I wanted all her things to be just as she had left them, all ready and waiting for her in case she ever felt like coming back home.

From Man and Boy by Tony Parsons

1. Read the extract bellow and say what it is about. What stylistic device is used to introduce the theme in the opening sentence?

2. Speak about the narrative method and techniques used in the extract. How do they characterize the narrator?

3. What method of characterization does the author use to portray the man?

4. What is the character’s attitude to his thirtieth birthday at the beginning of the extract?

5. Is the mood set in the extract optimistic or pessimistic? Find evidence from the extract to prove your opinion.

6. Prove that the man can’t choose how to celebrate this birthday. What images arise in his mind? How do they contribute to your impression about him?

7. Analyse the last two paragraphs of the extract and say why the man can’t choose a definite way of celebration. (What does he think of becoming thirty?) What stylistic devices serve the purpose?

8. Sum up everything and say what idea runs through the extract.

Thirty should be when you think – these are my golden years, these are my salad days, the best is yet to come – all that old crap.

You are still young enough to stay up all night, but you are old enough to have a credit card. All the uncertainties and poverty of your teens and twenties are finally over – and good riddance to the lot of them – but the sap is still rising.

Thirty should be a good birthday. One of the best.

But how to celebrate reaching the big three-oh? With a collection of laughing single friends in some intimate bar or restaurant? Or surrounded by a loving wife and adoring small children in the bosom of the family home?

There has to be a good way of turning thirty. Perhaps they are all good ways.

All my images of this particular birthday seemed to be derived from some glossy American sitcom. When I thought of turning thirty, I thought of attractive thirty-nothing marrieds snogging like teens in heat while in the background a gurgling baby crawls across some polished parquet floor, or I saw a circle of good-looking, wisecracking friends drinking latte and showing off their impressive knitwear while wryly bemoaning the dating game. That was my problem. When I thought of turning thirty, I thought of somebody else’s life.

That’s what thirty should be – grown-up without being disappointed, settled without being complacent, worldly wise, but not so worldly wise that you feel like chucking yourself under the train. Time of your life.

By thirty you have finally realised that you are not going to live forever, of course. But surely that should only make the laughing latte-drinking present taste even sweeter? You shouldn’t let your inevitable death put damper on things. Don’t let the long, slow slide to the grave get in the way of a good time.

From Cold Fire by Dean Koontz

1. Read the extract below and say what it is about outline the situation described.

2. Which narrative techniques are used in the extract? How do they render its atmosphere and the character’s state.?

3. Divide the extract into logical parts and say what they touch upon.

4. Analyse the first paragraph. How does the rhyme “Snuggle down in my cocoon, be a butterfly soon ” hint at the changes the character has undergone. What device does the author resort to for the purpose?

5. What changes are these? What expressive means and stylistic devices are used to reveal them? What events brought these changes about?

6. What kind of emotions were fighting in her mind when she saw the CNN reporter at the airport? What tropes and figures of speech help to express them?

7. What conclusion did the woman come to? How did she feel about it?

8. Analyze the paragraph, which begins with “She was free…” What was she free from? Was it good riddance? Give your reasons, providing illustrations from the text.

9. What is her attitude to journalism and her place in it?

10. Look through the last paragraph. How does it explain the woman’s career choice? What stylistic devices does the author use to portray her childhood and adolescence? How does the paragraph account for her present free-spiritedness?

11. Why did she laugh like a kid?

12. Formulate the message of the extract and comment upon it.

Earlier in the night, tongue lubricated by beer, she had spoken a truth as she had slipped off the precipice of sleep: “Snuggle down in my cocoon, be a butterfly soon. ” Now she knew what she had meant, and she understood the changes that she had been going through, changes that she had only begun to realize were under way when she had been in the VIP lounge at the airport after the crash.

She was never going back to the Portland Press.

She was never going to work on a newspaper again.

She was finished as a reporter.

That was why she had overreacted to Anlock, the CNN reporter at the airport. Loathing him, she was nevertheless eaten by guilt on a subconscious level because he was chasing a major storythat she was ignoring even though she had been a part of it. If she was a reporter, she should have been interviewing her fellow survivors and rushing to write it up for the Press. No such desire touched her, however, not even for a fleeting moment, so she took the raw cloth of her subconscious self-disgust and tailored a suit of rage with enormous shoulders and wide, wide lapels; then she dressed herself in it and strutted and seethed for the CNN camera, all in frantic attempt to deny that she was going to walk away from the career and a commitment that she had once thought would last all her life.

Now she got out of bed and paced, too excited to sit still.

She was finished as a reporter.

Finished.

She was free. As a working-class kid from a powerless family, she had been obsessed by a lifelong need to feel important, included, a real insider. As a bright child who grew into a brighter woman she had been puzzled by the apparent disorderliness of life, and she had been compelled to explain it as best she could with the inadequate tools of journalism. Ironically, the duel quest for acceptance and explanations – which had driven her to work and study seventy- and eighty-hour weeks for as long as she could remember – had left her rootless, with no significant lover, no children, no real friends, and no more answers to the difficult question of life than those with which she had started. Now she was suddenly free of those needs and obsessions, no longer concerned about belonging to any elite club or explaining human behaviour.

She had thought she hated journalism. She didn’t. What she hated was her failure at it; and she had failed because journalism had never been the right thing for her.

To understand herself and break the bonds of habit, all she had needed was to survive a devastating airline tragedy. […]

She laughed. She sat in one of the two armchairs, drew her legs up under her, and laughed as she had not laughed since she had been a giddy teenager.

No, that was where the problem began: she had never been giddy. She had been a serious minded teenager, already hooked on current events, worried about World War III because they told her she was likely to die in a nuclear holocaust before she graduated from high school; worried about overpopulation because they told her that famine would claim one and a half billion lives by 1990, cutting the world population in half, decimating even the United States; worried because man-made pollution was causing the planet to cool down drastically, insuring another ice age that would destroy civilization within her own lifetime!!!, which was front-page news in the late seventies, before the Greenhouse Effect and worries about planetary warming. She had spent her adolescence and early adulthood worrying too much and enjoying too little. Without joy, she had lost perspective and had allowed every news sensation – some based on genuine problems, some entirely fraudulent – to consume her.

Now she laughed like a kid.

CHECKING YOUR PROGRESS

The fragments in this section have no helping questions, which means that it is time for you to use your own analytical thinking and skills. Still to give you further guidance, we offer a scheme of extract analysis; besides, the most important elements in these fragments are printed in bold type.

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