NINO TEVDORADZE
nino TevdoraZe
THE PRINCIPLES OF TEXT ANALYSIS
AND INTERPRETATION
mxatvruli teqstis
analizisa da
interpretaciis safuZvlebi
ilias saxelmwifo universiteti
ILIA STATE UNIVERSITY
Tbilisi 2010
Tbilisi 2010
“The Principles of Text analysis and Interpretation” is a university-level textbook for advanced English Language learning students with a philological profile.
They will be introduced to basic concepts of literary and linguistic analysis. The textbook helps them master complex study of a literary work which predisposes a variety of approaches: linguistic approach, literary approach, cultural approach, narrative
analysis. Students will have the opportunity to synthesize their learning – to merge the
linguistic approaches with literary and cultural studies.
The textbook is also valid for any advanced English learner and for any reader
interested in literary text analysis and interpretation.
sauniversiteto saxelmZRvanelo `mxatvruli teqstis anali­
zi­sa da interpretaciis safuZvlebi~ gankuTvnilia filologiuri
profilis studentebisaTvis, romlebic Seiswavlian inglisur ena­
sa da literaturas. igi maT daexmareba SeZlon Tanamedrove ling­
visturi, literaturaturaTmcodneobiTi da kulturologiuri ka­
tegorialuri sistemebis erTmaneTTan dakavSireba da am sistemebze
dayrdnobiT mxatvruli teqstis kompleqsuri analizi.
saxelmZRvanelo, aseve, daxmarebas gauwevs inglisuri enis
­Rrmad Seswavlis msurvel nebismier pirs da mkiTxvels, romelic
amavdroulad, dainteresebulia mxatvruli teqstis Seswavlis
sakiTxebiT.
Editor: Professor G. Lebanidze
redaqtori: prof. g. lebaniZe
© 2010 ilias saxelmwifo universiteti
ISBN 978-9941-9117-9-8
yvela ufleba daculia
CONTENTS
The Lagoon by Joseph Conrad
Theoretical View of Language and Literature
Literature and Text
Discourse
Narrative Discourse
Interpretation and Analysis
Joseph Conrad and Impressionistic Literature
Setting
Culture
History
Story and Plot
Flashback
Narrative Modes
A Story within a story
Omniscient third-person point of view
Theme
Title as a Symbol
Symbolism in the Story
Style
Synonyms
Denotation and Connotation
Identify Stylistic Devices
Understanding Plot Development
Exposition
Description
Climax
Epiphany
9-35
Mother by Sherwood Anderson
Adventure by Sherwood Anderson
Theoretical View of Language and Literature
Cycle
Interpretation and Analysis
Style
Themes
Setting
36-55
Mood
Plot Structure
Symbols
Characters
Interpret
Stranger by Katherine Mansfield
Theoretical View of Language and Literature
Narrative Discourse
Literary Narrative Communication
Narrative Perspective
Interpretation and Analysis
Literary and Language Focus
Implication and Contrast
Contrast
Title
Narrative Modes in Stranger
Dialogue
Heterodiegetic Narrator
Homodiegetic Narrator
Entrusted Narrative
Free Indirect Discourse
You-narrative/second-person narrative
Style
Character
Block Characterization
56-76
Eveline by James Joyce
Theoretical View of Language and Literature
Stream of Consciousness in Modern Novel
Forms and Techniques
Omniscient Description
Interior Monologue
77-98
Direct Interior Monologue
Indirect Interior Monologue
Soliloquy
Devices
Free Association
Montage
“Stream”
Interpretation and Analysis
Cultural and Historical Context
Ireland
Dublin
Feminism
Suffrage
Narrative Modes in Eveline
Dialogue
Stream of Consciousness device: flashback
Setting
Plot in Stream of Consciousness Writing
Character
“Stream”
Symbolism
Epiphany
THE LAST TEA by Dorothy Parker
Theoretical View of Language and Literature
Author’s Discourse and Character’s Discourse
Interpretation and Analysis
Implication
Style
Character
Person
Figure
Character’s Discourse
Theme
Point of View
Tone
100-111
Mood
Plot Development
Conflict
Exposition
Rising Action
Identify yourself with the character and draw conclusions
Climax
Falling Action
Interpret
Dialogue
The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud
Theoretical View of Language and Literature
Overinterpretation
Story and Plot
“Sjuzet” and “Fabula”
Science Link
Religion and Culture
112-141
Marriage
Arranged Marriages in Jewish Society
Interpret and Discuss
Interpretation and analysis
Genre and Style
Fantasy
Realistic Fiction
Point of view
Symbolism
Characters
Interpret
Identify yourself with the character and draw conclusions
Understanding Plot Development
Exposition
Climax
Resolution
Theme and Message
Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett
Theoretical View of Language and Literature
Science Link: Philosophy and Literature
The Theory of Absurd and the Myth of Sisyphus
New Forms of Expression in Literature
Tragic Vision in Twentieth Century Literature
Ironic Vision of Postmodernist Literature
Style and Narration
Character
Antihero
Theme and Symbols
142-157
A SHOCKING ACCIDENT by Graham Greene
Style
Setting
Title
Sarcastic Irony
158-166
You Should Have Seen the Mess by Muriel Spark
Theoretical View of Language and Literature
Narrator: overt and covert
Style
Point of View: First Person Narrative
Mood
Theme
Thematic Vocabulary and Language Devices
Title
Plot Development
167-177
Character
Interpret
Identify yourself with the character
Donald Barthelme
178-197
Style
Theoretical View of Language and Literature
Postmodernism
Metafiction
Pastiche
Collage
Simulacrum
Thee School (from Sixty Stories)
Interpret
The Balloon
Interpret
AT THE END OF THE MECHANICAL AGE
Interpret
The Collector by John Fowles
About the Collector
Theoretical View of Language and Literature
Metanarrative
Multiple Focalization
Genre Identification
Epistolary Novel
Narrative technique in the Collector
Analysis and Interpretation
198-205
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist. He did not learn
to speak English until he was in his 20’s. It is truly amazing that one of
the most distinguished English writers mastered English after his native
language, Polish. Conrad’s narrative style places him at the beginning of
the Modernist period of literature.
THE LAGOON
Joseph Conrad
The white man, leaning with both arms over the roof of
the little house in the stern of the boat, said to the steersman –
‘We will pass the night in Arsat’s clearing.1 It is late.’
The Malay2 only grunted,3 and went on looking fixedly at the
river. The white man rested his chin on his crossed arms and gazed at
the wake of the boat. At the end of the straight avenue of forests cut
by the intense glitter of the river, the sun appeared unclouded and dazzling, poised4 low over the water that shone smoothly like a band of
metal. The forests, somber5 and dull, stood motionless and silent on
each side of the broad stream. At the foot of big, towering trees, trunkless nipa6 palms rose from the mud of the bank, in bunches of leaves
enormous and heavy, that hung unstirring over the brown swirl of eddies.7 In the stillness of the air every tree, every leaf, every bough,
every tendril of creeper and every petal of minute blossoms seemed
to have been bewitched8 into an immobility perfect and final. Nothing
moved on the river but the eight paddles9 that rose flashing regularly,
dipped together with a single splash; while the steersman swept right
1. An open space in a forest where there are no trees
2. Native of the Malay peninsula in Southeast Asia
3. To grunt means to make short low sound in the throat (especially to show that you are in
pain)
4. Steadily in a particular position, balanced
5. Dark, sad
6. Palm trees of Asia with leaves that can be used to make a roof. Palm trees of Asia with
leaves that can be used to make a roof.
7. Circular movement of air or water
8. Under magic spells
9. A short pole with a wide part at one or both ends that you use for moving a small boat
9
and left with a periodic and sudden flourish10 of his blade describing a glinting11 semicircle above his head. The churned-up12 water
frothed13 alongside with a confused murmur. And the white man’s
canoe, advancing up stream in the short-lived14 disturbance of its own
making, seemed to enter the portals15 of a land from which the very
memory of motion had for ever departed.
The white man, turning his back upon the setting sun, looked
along the empty and broad expanse16 of the sea-reach. For the last
three miles of its course the wandering, hesitating river, as if enticed17
irresistibly by the freedom of an open horizon, flows straight into the
sea, flows straight to the east - to the east that harbors both light and
darkness. Astern18 of the boat the repeated call of some bird, a cry
discordant19 and feeble, skipped along over the smooth water and lost
itself, before it could reach the other shore, in the breathless silence
of the world.
The steersman dug his paddle into the stream, and held hard with
stiffened arms, his body thrown forward. The water gurgled20 aloud;
and suddenly the long straight reach seemed to pivot21 on its center,
the forests swung in a semicircle, and the slanting22 beams of sunset
touched the broadside of the canoe with a fiery glow,23 throwing the
slender and distorted shadows of its crew upon the streaked24 glitter
of the river. The white man turned to look ahead. The course of the
boat had been altered at right-angles to the stream, and the carved
dragon-head of its prow25 was pointing now at a gap in the fring10. Wave something around in a way that makes people look at it
11. shiny
12. Milky, cloudy
13. If water froths, a mass of small bubbles appears on the surface
14. Brief, ephemeral
15. Doors, gateways
16. Area, vastness
17. charmed
18. At the back
19. inharmonious
20. Bubbled, sloshed
21. To streak means to turn, to spin around
22. Slanting, diagonal
23. Flame, blaze
24. Marked, splashed
25. Pointed front part of a boat
10
ing bushes of the bank. It glided26 through, brushing the overhanging
twigs, and disappeared from the river like some slim and amphibious
creature leaving the water for its lair27 in the forests.
The narrow creek was like a ditch: tortuous,28 fabulously deep;
filled with gloom under the thin strip of pure and shining blue of the
heaven. Immense trees soared up,29 invisible behind the festooned30
draperies of creepers.31 Here and there, near the glistening blackness
of the water, a twisted root of some tall tree showed amongst the tracery of small ferns, black and dull, writhing and motionless, like an
arrested snake. The short words of the paddlers reverberated loudly
between the thick and somber walls of vegetation.32 Darkness oozed
out33 from between the trees, through the tangled maze34 of the creepers, from behind the great fantastic and unstirring leaves; the darkness,
mysterious and invincible;35 the darkness scented and poisonous of
impenetrable forests.
The men poled in the shoaling water. The creek broadened, opening out into a wide sweep of a stagnant lagoon. The forests receded
from the marshy bank, leaving a level strip of bright-green, reedy grass
to frame the reflected blueness of the sky. A fleecy36 pink cloud drifted
high above, trailing the delicate coloring of its image under the floating leaves and the silvery blossoms of the lotus. A little house, perched
on high piles, appeared black in the distance. Near it, two tall nibong
palms, that seemed to have come out of the forests in the background,
leaned slightly over the ragged roof, with a suggestion of sad tenderness and care in the droop of their leafy and soaring heads.
The steersman, pointing with his paddle, said, ‘Arsat is there. I
see his canoe fast between the piles.’
26. Move smoothly
27. Den, whole, nest
28. Winding, twisted
29. rose
30. decorated
31. Climbing plant
32. Plants, flora
33. Came out of
34. labyrinth
35. unconquerable
36. Like a wool coat of a sheep
11
The polers ran along the sides of the boat glancing over their
shoulders at the end of the day’s journey. They would have preferred
to spend the night somewhere else than on this lagoon of weird37 aspect and ghostly reputation. Moreover, they disliked Arsat, first as a
stranger, and also because he who repairs a ruined house, and dwells
in it, proclaims that he is not afraid to live amongst the spirits that
haunt the places abandoned by mankind. Such a man can disturb the
course of fate by glances or words; while his familiar ghosts are not
easy to propitiate38 by casual wayfarers39 upon whom they long to
wreak the malice of their human master. White men care not for such
things, being unbelievers and in league with the Father of Evil, who
leads them unharmed through the invisible dangers of this world. To
the warnings of the righteous they oppose an offensive pretence of
disbelief. What is there to be done?
So they thought, throwing their weight on the end of their long
poles. The big canoe glided on swiftly, noiselessly and smoothly, towards Arsat’s clearing, till, in a great rattling of poles thrown down,
and the loud murmurs of ‘Allah be praised!’ it came with a gentle
knock against the crooked40 piles below the house.
The boatmen with uplifted faces shouted discordantly, ‘Arsat! O
Arsat!’ Nobody came. The white man began to climb the rude ladder
giving access to the bamboo platform before the house. The juragan41
of the boat said sulkily,42 ‘We will cook in the sampan,43 and sleep on
the water.’
‘Pass my blankets and the basket,’ said the white man curtly.
He knelt on the edge of the platform to receive the bundle. Then
the boat shoved off, and the white man, standing up, confronted Arsat,
who had come out through the low door of his hut. He was a man
young, powerful, with a broad chest and muscular arms. He had nothing on but his sarong. His head was bare. His big, soft eyes stared
37. Strange, odd
38. appease
39. A person who travels from one place to another (usually on foot)
40. bent
41. Captain, master
42. Crossly, resentfully
43. Small flat-bottomed boat with a cabin
12