DISCUSSION OF THE TEXT

1. Characterize the text under study. Say whether it presents a piece of narration, a description, character-drawing, etc. If it contains different elements, name all of them.

2. Ito what parts does it fall? Characterize each of them.

3. What is the general slant of the text? Is it satirical, humorous, pathetic, unemotional? How you can prove it?

4. What kind of boy was little Rawdon?

5. What is the author’s method of describing him? Does Thackeray use direct characterization amply or sparingly? Point out the instances of direct characterization. How does Thackeray describe the boy otherwise (through his actions, feelings, attitude towards other people)?

6. Could you trace where the author’s sympathy lies? Comment on the words chosen by the novelist to describe little Rawdon.

7. What role did the ear-boxing incident play in the formation of Rawdon’s character and in his relations with the mother? What sides of his character are revealed through his intense dislike of Lord Steyne?

8. How is Rebecca presented in the extract under discussion? What artistic means does the author employ to make the reader understand what kind of woman she was? What were her feelings towards her son?

9. Comment on the words “free and artless” used by the author in description of Becky’s temper? Do you feel a ring of irony here? [13]

10. Do you find any instances of the author's digression in this extract? What role does it play? How is the effect it produces on the reader heightened?

11. Comment on the syntax of this part. Find sentences with par­allel constructions and speak of their use.

12. In what way does Thackeray attain a high degree of general­ization? How does the use of pronouns contribute to it?

13. What sentences in particular show how scandal and gossip could undo a man in Vanity Fair? Does Thackeray want to impress upon the reader that all layers of society are infected by scandal? If so, prove it by references to the text.

14. What is the symbolic significance of the last lines? Aren't there any meeting points in the fate of a man "pushing-onward" and a spider laboriously laying its thread? Don't they come to the same end? What is the role of this image of the spider?

15. Comment on the use of the expressive means of the language— particularly such as epithet and metonymy. Say how they tie in with the main line of thought.

16. Study the sentence "Bon Dieu! it is awful, that servants' in­quisition!" Don't you think it sounds more like the words of a fretting lady than the utterance of the novelist himself? If so, what is the pur­pose of this device? Why does Thackeray catch the intonation of a lady of society?

17. How does Thackeray cloak his ridicule?

18. Give a summary of your comments on the text.

WORDS AND WORD COMBINATIONS TO BE MEMORIZED

Open-faced (a)

Artless (a)

Glow (v)

Gasp out (v)

Cram (v)

Wind up (v)

Fade away (v)

Bleed (v)

Measles (n)

Resistance (n)

hooping-cough (n)

Guilty (a)

Bore (v)

Writhe (v)

Creep (v)

Crawl (v)

Violently (adv.)

Sweep away (v)

To have charge of something or somebody

To strike somebody a box on the ear

To burst into (an agony of grief)

To stare someone in the face

To square (double) one's fists

To make one's appearance

To have a care of appearances

To get credit

To push onward

A position in society

Tokeep somebody up

To lay the thread [14]

EXERCISES

I. Explain and expand on the following:

1. The beautiful mother-vision had faded away after awhile.

2. The cook looked at the housemaid; the housemaid looked know­ingly at the footman — the awful kitchen inquisition that sits in judgement in every house, and knows everything — sat on Rebecca at the moment.

3. You see a woman in a great party in a splendid saloon, surround­ed by faithful admirers, distributing sparkling glances, dressed to perfection, curled, rouged, smiling and happy.

4. Discovery walks respectfully up to her, in the shape of a huge powdered man with large calves and a tray of ices — with Calumny (which is as fatal as truth) — behind him, in the shape of the hulking fellow carrying the Wafer-biscuits.

5. Some people ought to have mutes for servants in Vanity Fair — mutes who could not write.

6. If you are guilty, tremble ... If you are not guilty, have a care of appearances; which are as ruinous as guilt.

II. Paraphrase the following sentences from the text:

1. He was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving flaxen hair, sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart: fondly attaching . himself to all who were good to him.

2. Molly ... crammed him with ghost stories at night, and with good things from the dinner.

3. He plagued and laughed at Briggs.

4. His mother ... struck him violently a couple of boxes on the ear.

5. He gasped out at various intervals these exclamations of rage and grief.

III. Find in the text the sentences of which the following ones are periphrases:

1. Lord Steyne could not stand the sight of the boy

2. Of all the people who visited their house, this one roused the boy's most bitter hatred.

3. After that day of the boxes on the ear the mother's feelings for the boy grew more and more bitter.

4. Rawdon would meet his gaze without flinching.

5. The image of the beautiful mother had gradually disappeared.

IV. Paraphrase the following sentences using the vocabulary and phraseology of the text:

1. Molly used to tell him ghost stories at night.

2. His natural innocent ways attracted people to him.

3. Rawdon was very well built.

4. He was enraptured by Rebecca's singing.

5. He would continuously poke fun at Briggs. [15]

6. Rebecca did not spare efforts to climb up the social ladder.

7. The little boy was attached to the groom who looked after his pony.

V. Give definitions of the following words using an English-English dictionary:

Exhibition

Judgment

Notion

Motley-colored

Sparkling

Glow

Plague

Wind up

Bawl

Writhe

VI. Give corresponding colloquial variants for the following:

1. That officer imparted it to Lord Steyne's gentleman. 2. It was the sight of the Marquis of Steyne's carriage-lamps at her door, contem­plated by Haggles... "that kept him up".

VII. (a) Give Russian equivalents for the following:

Sturdy in limb; soft in heart; to glow all over; to have charge of somebody or something; to strike (give) somebody a box on the ear; to square one's fists; to have a care of appearances; to get credit; to keep someone up; a position in society; to lay the thread

(b) Translate the sentences containing the above expressions into Russian.

VIII. Give English equivalents for the following:

пощечина; дать пощечину; привязываться к кому-либо; пичкать; сжимать кулаки; появиться; положение в обществе; плести паутину; заботиться о соблюдении приличий

IX. Make up sentences using the following expressions:

a box on the ear; to double one's fists; to get credit for something; to have charge of something; to stare someone in the face; to lay the thread; to keep someone up; to push onward

X. Make up several short dialogues using the following words and word combinations:

To glow all over; to have a care of appearances; to crawl; to tremble; to be rapt in delight; to bore resistance

XI. Make the following sentences emphatic by placing "it is" or "it was" at the beginning. Follow the model from the text.

Model: It was the boy's heart that was bleeding.

1. The boy resented the offence, not the pain. 2. Lord Steyne was amused by Becky's behaviour. 3. He disliked the boy heartily. 4. Re­becca was craving after a position in society.

XII. Find instances in the text where a repeated action in the past is expressed. Pattern your own sentences after these. [16]

XIII. Transform the following complex sentences into simple ones by using the Subjective Infinitive Construction.

Model: It was thought that he had been generous and soft in heart. - He was thought to have been generous and soft in heart.

1. It seemed that the boy was rapt in delight. 2. It was said that his hobby had often kept him up. 3. It was not likely that she would burst into tears in the presence of strangers. 4. It was known that she had charge of the baby. 5. It was said that they had got credit for faultless service.

XIV. Make up your own sentences with the Subjective Infinitive Construction.

XV. Make up your own sentences after the model.

Model: She would not have got credit had they not believed her to be guilty.

XVI. Pick out sentences with compound adjectives from the text under study.

XVII. Recast the following sentences so as to use compound adjec­tives instead of the italicized words.

Model: He was a boy with blue eyes and fair hair. He was a blue-eyed and fair-haired boy.

1. Her brother was short, strong and had broad shoulders. 2. The girl was short for her age and had bowlegs. 3. She had a beautiful face of oval shape. 4. Dobbin had a very kind heart. 5. He was known as a man of a broad mind.

XVIII. Pick out the sentence from the text in which the word "anger" is used. State what part of speech it is. Make your own sentences with the same word used as another part of speech.

XIX. Recast the following sentences substituting the parts of speech indicated in brackets for the italicized words. Make necessary changes.

Mode 1: She disliked him. (noun).

She felt a strong dislike for him.

1. He heard a laugh from the marquis. (Verb). 2. When he was eight years old his attachments may be said to have ended, (noun). 3. His sobs stifled the words, (verb) 4. The cook looked at the house­maid, (noun). 5. The mother's dislike increased to hatred, (verb). 6. The consciousness that the child was in the house was a pain to her. (Verb). 7. Lord Steyne was amused by the exhibition of Becky's temper, (noun). 8. He bored her. (Noun) 9. He attached himself to all who were good to him. (Noun). 10. His very sight annoyed her. (Noun). 11. He made sarcastic bows to the child. (Verb). [17]

XX. Translate the following sentences into English:

(A) 1. Мальчик был крепкого сложения. 2. Ребекка очень оскорбила ребенка, надавав ему пощечин. 3.Мальчик сжал кулаки и молча уставился на своего врага. 4. Домашние дела часто заставляли ее засиживаться допоздна. 5.Заботы о ребенке лежали на мисс Бриггс. 6. Мальчик перенес корь и коклюш. 7. Родон подкрался к двери, где мать пела лорду Стейну. 8. Он съежился не от боли, а от стыда.

(B) 1. Он всегда появлялся неожиданно. 2. Она, как правило, подходила, когда ее меньше всего ждали. 3. Говорят, она очень любит музыку. 4. Говорят, она очень любила музыку. 5. Казалось, ребенок сразу же привязался к нему.

XXI. Fill in the blanks prepositions or adverbs if necessary:

(a) 1. The child’s grief was so tense, that he burst __ passionate tears. 2. He easily attached himself __ people. 3. The woman that had charge the baby was anything, but softhearted. 4. The way the boy stared him__ the face was most disconcerting. 5. This proposition will be talked __ tonight. 6. They discussed the news__ their coffee. 7. She slept the thread laid__ the spider.

(b) 2. A day or two __ Christmas, Becky, her husband and her son, made ready and went to pass the holydays __ the seat __ their ancestors __ Queen’s Crawley. Becky would have liked to have a little brat __ and would have done so but for Lady Jane’s urgent invitations __ the youngster: and the symptoms __ revolt and discontent which Rawdon manifested __ her neglect her son. “He’s the finest boy __ England,” the father said __ a tone __ reproach __ her, “and you don’t seem to care __ him, Becky, as much as you do __ your spaniel. He shan’t bother you much __ the home he will be away __ you __ the nursery, and he shall go outside __ the coach __ me”.

(From “Vanity Fair” by W. M. Thackeray).

XXII. Fill in the blanks with the definite or indefinite article where required:

While — present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to — great iron gate of Miss Pinker-ton's academy for — young ladies, on — Chiswick Mall, — large family coach with two fat horses in — blazing harness, driven by — fat coach­man in — three-cornered hat and wig, at — rate of four miles — hour. — Black servant, who reposed on — box beside — fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as — equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinker-ton's shining brass plate, and as he pulled — bell at least — score of — young heads were seen peering out of — narrow windows of — state­ly old brick house. Nay, — acute observer might have recognized — little red nose of — good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself [18] rising over some geranium-pots in — window of that lady's own drawing-room.

(From "Vanity Fair" by W. M. Thackeray)

XXIII. Retell the ear-boxing incident as if you were (a) little Rawdon; (b) one of Rebecca's servants; (c) Lord Steyne.

XXIV. Write a brief summary of the extract.

XXV. Write an essay on mother and child relations as described by Thackeray. [19]

Lesson 2

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

By Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens is one of the world’s greatest novelists. He belongs to the brilliant school of 19-century critical realists.

What we value most in Dickens’ works is his criticism of the English bourgeois society of his time with its evils and contrasts of wealth and poverty, his unique humour and mastery of character drawing.

The world he describes is that of the middle and lower classes particularly of London. Being great humanist he viewed human’s nature from all sides. It may be that some of his characters are exaggerated, yet they play their part so consistently that we feel, they are as real as the actual world and the people we meet every day.

Dickens’ novels are full of optimism. He sincerely believes that an honest and virtuous man is sure to get his small share of happiness even in a capitalist world. And though he is a representative of the petty bourgeoisie, Dickens still cherishes some illusions concerning the possibility of reforming the world within the existing conditions. Even if the majorities of his works are tinged with sentimentality and are crowned with happy endings, the Soviet reader highly appreciates Dickens’ unquenchable spirit of optimism, which is an expression of his democratic views, his love for the common people and his staunch belief in the final victory of good over evil.

Dickens’ humour is to be found on every page and in characters and incidents of the greatest diversity. Sometimes his humour is mixed with satire.

Dickens possesses a great dramatic instinct, and through the melodramatic is prominent enough in some places his dramatic situations are nonetheless real for that.

The extract below is proof of that.

The main character of “Great Expectations” (1860 – 1861), Pip is orphan. He is brought up by his elder sister in mystery. His childhood is hard and mirthless.

Quite suddenly Pip comes into possession of a great fortune. He does not know who is his benefactor is, but [20] his coming into fortune does not only change the way of his life, but his views as well. Now he looks down on his former friends and aspires to becoming a real gentleman.

The extract below presents the scene of Pip’s encounter with his mysterious benefactor – a convict, whom he had helped to escape from pursuit when a little boy. The revelation is a terrible blow to a “new” Pip, for all his great expectations are crushed in a moment.

Chapter XXXIX

It was wretched weather; stormy and wet; mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East there was eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the guests,¹ that high buildings in town had the lead stripped on their roofs; and in the country, threes had been torn up, and the sails of windmills carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages of the wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read had been the worst of all.

I read with my watch upon the table, purposing to close my book at eleven o’clock. As I shut it, Saint Paul’s* and all many churches in the City – some leading, some accompanying, some following – struck that hour. The sound was curiously flawed by the wind; and I was listening, and thinking how the wind assailed and tore it, when I heard a footstep on the stair.

What nervous folly made me start, and awfully connect it with the footstep of my dead sister, matters not.** It was past in a moment and I listened again, and heard the footstep stumble in coming on.² Remembering then that the staircase lights were blown out, I took my reading lamp, and went out to the stair-head. Whoever was below had stopped on seeing my lamp, for all was quit.

“There is someone down there, is there not?” I called out, looking down.

“Yes,” said a voice from the darkness beneath.

“What floor do you want?”

“The top. Mr. Pip.”

“That is my name. There is nothing the matter?”³

I stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and he came slowly within the light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon a book, and its circle of the light was very contracted; so that he was in it for a mere instant, and the out of it. In the instant I had seen a face that [21] was strange to me, looking up with an incomprehensible air of being touched and pleased by the sight of me.⁴

Moving the lamp, I made out that he was substantially depressed, but roughly; like a voyager by sea. That he had a long iron-grey hair. That his age was about sixty. That he was a muscular man, strong on his legs, and that he was browned and hardened by exposure to weather. As he ascended the last stair or two, and the light of my lamp included us both, I saw, with a stupid kind of amazement, that he was holding both his hands to me.

“Pray* what is your business?” I asked him.

“My business?” he repeated, pausing “Ah! I will explain, by your leave.”

“Do you wish to come in?”

“Yes,” he replied; “I wish to come in, Master”**.

I had asked him the question inhospitably enough, for I resented the sort of bright and gratified recognition that still shone in his face. I resented it, because it seemed to imply that he expected me to respond to it. But I took him into the room I had just left, and, having set the lamp on the table, asked him as civilly as I could to explain himself.

He looked about him with the strangest air – an air of wondering pleasure, as if he had some part in the things he admired – and he pulled off a rough outer coat, and his hat. Then I saw that his head was furrowed and bald, and that the long iron-grey hair grew only on his sides. But saw nothing that in the least explained him. On the contrary, I saw him next moment once more holding both his hands to me.

“What do you mean?” said I, half suspecting him to be mad.

He stopped in his looking at me, and slowly rubbed his right hand over his head. “It’s disappointing to a man”, he said in a coarse broken voice, “after having looked forward so distant, and come so fur; but you are not to blame for that – nether on us is to blame for that.⁵ I’ll speak in half a minute. Give me half a minute, please”.

He sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and covered his forehead with large grown veinous hands. I looked at him attentively then, but I did not know him.

“There’s no one nigh,”*** said he, looking over his shoulder; “is there?”

“Why do you, a stranger coming into my rooms at this time of the night, ask that question?” said I.

“You’ re a game one,” he returned, shaking his head at me with a deliberate affection, at once most unintelligible and most exasperating: “I’m glad, you’ve grow’d up a game one! But don’t catch hold of me. You’d be sorry afterwards to have done it.” [22]

I relinquished the intention he had detected, for I knew him! Even yet I could not recall a single feature, but I knew him! If the wind and the rain had driven away the intervening years, had seattered all the intervening objects, had swept us to the churchyard where we first stood face to face on such different levels, I could not have known my convict more distinctly than I knew him now, as he sat on the chair before the fire. No need to take a file from the pocket and show it to me; no need to⁶ take the handkerchief from his neck and twist it round his head; no need to hug himself with both arms, and take a shivering turn across the room, looking back at me for recognition. I knew him before he gave me one of those aids, though, a moment before, I had not been conscious of remotely suspecting his identity.

He came back to where I stood, and again held out both his hands. Not knowing what to do – for, in my astonishment I hand lost my self-possession – I reluctantly gave him my hands. He gasped them heartily, raised them to his lips, kissed them and still held them.

“You acted nobly, my boy,” said he. “Noble Pip. And I have never forgot it!”

At a change in his manner as if he were even going to embrace me, I laid a hand upon his breast and put him away.

“Stay!” said I. “Keep off! If you have your gratitude by mending your way of life. If you have come here to thank me, it was not necessary. Still, however, you have found me out, there must be something good in feeling that has brought you here, and I will not repulse you; but surely you must understand – I-“

My attention was so attracted by singularity of his fixed look at me, that the words died away on my tongue.

“You was a saying,” he observed, when we had confronted one another in silence, “that surely I must understand. What, surely must I understand?”

“That I cannot with to renew that chance intercourse with you of long ago, under these different circumstances. I am glad to tell you so. I am glad, thinking I deserve to be thanked, you have come to thank me. But our ways are different ways, none the less.”

[…]

“How are you living?” I asked him.

“I’ve been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades besides, away in the new word”, said he: “many a thousand mile of stormy water off this”.

“I hope you have done wall?”

“I’ve done wonderful well. There’s others went out alonger me as has done well too, but no man done as high as well as me. I’m famous for it.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

“I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy.” [23]

Without stopping to try to understand these words or the tone in which they were spoken, I turned off to a point that had just come

into my mind.

"Have you ever seen a messenger you once sent to me," I Inquired, "since he undertook that trust?"

"Never set .eyes upon him. I warn't likely to it "He came faithfully, and he brought me the two one-pound notes. I was a poor boy then, as you know, and to a poor boy they were a „little fortune. But, like you, I have done well since, and you must let me pay them back. You can put them to some other boy's use." I took out my purse.

He watched me as I laid my purse upon the table and opened it, and he watched me as I sepatarated two one-pound notes from its contents. They were clean and new, and I spread them out and handed them over to him. Still watching mе, he laid them one upon the other, folded them longwise, gave them a twist, set fire to them at the lamp, and dropped the ashes into the tray.

"May I make so bold," he said then, with a smile that was like a frown, and with a frown that was like a smile, "as ask you how you have done well, since you and me was out on them-lone shivering marshes?"

"How?"

"Ah!"

He emptied his glass, got up and stood at the side of the fire, with his.heavy brown hand on the mantelshelf. He put a foot up to the bars, to dry and warm it, and the wet boot began to steam; but he neither looked at it, nor at the fire, but steadily looked at me. It was only now that I began to tremble.

"When my lips had parted, and had shaped some words that were without sound, I forced myself to tell him (though I could not do it distinctly), that Ihad been chosen to succeed to some property. "Might a mere warmint* ask what "property?" said he. I faltered, "I don't know." "Might a mere warmint ask whose property?" said he. I faltered again. "I don't know."

"Could I make a guess, I wonder," said the Convict, "at your income since you came of age!** As to the first figure, now. Five?" With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking wildly at him.

"Concerning a guardian," he went on. "There ought to have been some guardian or such-like, whiles you was a minor.*** Some lawyer maybe. As to the first letter of that lawyer's name, now. Would it be J?" [24]

All the truth of my position came flashing of me; and its disappointments, dangers", disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed: in in such a "multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew.[...] I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save my life. I stood, "with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on my breast, where I seemed to be suffocating — I stood so, looking wildly at him, untill I grasped at the chair, when the room began to surge and turn. He caught me, drew me to the sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on one knee before me: bringing the face that I now well remembered, and that I shuddered at very, near to mine.

"Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you! It's me wot has done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore afterwards, sure, as ever I spec'lated and got rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live

smooth; I worked hard that you should be above work. ⁷ What odds,**** dear boy? Do I tell it fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head so high that he could make a gentleman — and, Pip, you're him!"

COMMENTARY

1. So furious had been the gusts....

Note the inverted word order in this sentence. This word order is usually resorted to emphasize the idea expressed in a sentence or passage. To give the description an emotional coloring and to intensify the feeling of gloom and impending horrors Dickens uses in, this passage some other stylistic devices besides inversion. They are: a specific choice of epithets pertaining to weather (wretched, stormy, wet), parallel constructions (see commentary to Lesson 1, note 7) and reiteration.

Reiteration (repetition) is one of the basic figures of speech employed as a means of emphasis. In this passage the words "stormy and wet" and "mud" are reiterated to emphasize the wretchedness of the weather.

2. ...heard the footstep stumble in coming on. The above sentence may serve as an illustration of metonymy — the name of the thing is of metonymy, one of the most significant tropes in which of the thing is put for that of another related to it (see Lesson 1, note 9). When the author says that Pip "heard the footstep stumble" he means that Pip heard somebody stumble on the stairs.

The use of metonymy here contributes to the atmosphere of grow­ing suspense, for Pip's imagination played a trick on him and he associated the sound with the footstep of his dead sister's ghost,

3. "There is nothing the matter?" [25]

Note the order of words in this question. In colloquial English an interr

 

Lesson 4