Read and Analyse Book I

Rusudan Beridze Nino Kemertelidze READ AND ANALYSE BOOK I Grigol Robakidze University Tbilisi, 2010 1 Semdgenlebi: asocirebuli profesori rusudan beriZe da sruli profesori nino qemertel- iZe winamdebare wigni gankuTvnilia inglisuri enis SemswavlelTaTvis, romelic daexmareba studentebs gaiRrmavon codna analizur kiTxvasa da teqstis stilistikur analizSi. wignis mizania ganuviTaros studentebs weriTi da sametyve-lo unari, gauRrmavos maT litera- turuli codna da xeli Seuwyos teqstis ukeT aRqmaSi. es wigni miscems TiToeul students saSualebas indivindualobis gamosamJRavnelad, rac Camouyalibebs maT gansxvavebul azrovne- bas. Compilers of the book Associate Professor Rusudan Beridze and Full Professor Nino Kemertelidze This book is intended for English programme students. It will help students improve their education and gain the knowledge in analytical reading and stylistic analysis. The aim of the book is to develop spoken and written skills in students, to enlarge their knowledge in literature and further understanding as well as in perceiving any literary work in a proper way, to enable them to hold a dialogue. It will motivate each member of the group to be competitive and different from others. redaqtori: istoriis mecnierebaTa doqtori, profesori dali qadagiSvili recenzenti: filologiis mecnirerebaTa doqtori, profesori viqtoria kupraSvili koreqtori: filologi liana koroSinaZe Editor: Doctor of History, Professor Dali Kadagishvili Reviewer: Doctor of Linguistic Science, Professor Victoria Kuprashvili Proof-reader: Linguist Liana Koroshinadze © rusudan beriZe, nino qemerteliZe 2010 © Rusudan Beridze, Nino Kemertelidze 2010 © grigol robaqiZis saxelobis universitetis gamomcemloba © Grigol Robakidze University Press ISBN 978-9941-9017-9-9 2 INTRODUCTION The book is intended for English programme students. It will help students improve their education and gain their knowledge in analytical reading and stylistic analysis. The aim of the book is to develop in students spoken and written skills, to enlarge their knowledge in literature and further understanding as well as in perceiving this or that literary work in a proper way, to enable them to hold the dialogue. It will motivate each member of the group to be competitive and different from others. The book consists of 14 short stories of 11 XIX-XX cc. British and American writers. Each text has bibliographical notes, authors’ photos and comments on the stories. After each text comes discussion which consists of multiple questions. These inferential questions will help students to clarify their understanding of a text as well as give them a chance to express their viewpoints which may be ap- proved or disapproved by others. After a student answers the questions independently, all of them should be involved in public discussion. The discussion is followed by the short analysis of the given text the aim of which is to give students some hints about the story (it means that the authors of the book try to put young learners in right direction of proper analysis). The compilers of the book were not confined to the inferential analysis; they also offer students vocabulary studies: confusing words are explained on different examples which vividly show similarities and differences of synonymous pairs. To put the obtained knowledge in practice students have to do corresponding exercises which are given at the end of each text. In order to give students the opportunity to work even more individually, the book contains the ad- dition part called “Extra Reading” consisting of eight short stories which are waiting for students’ independent analysis. The short stories given in this book have been selected with great attention. The main priority while looking for American and British writers’ works was the individuality of content. Neither of them is banal and boring. Each has its peculiar plot which gives soil for very interesting linguo-stylistic analysis. The compilers of the book think that their goal is achieved. 3 William Saroyan was born in1908 in California, USA in a family of poor American immigrants. He was compelled to start earning his bread at the age of eight and dropped school at sixteen. Saroyan decided to become a writer after his mother showed him some of his father’s writings. A few of his early short articles were published in The Overland Monthly. His first stories appeared in the 1930s. Among these was “The Broken Wheel”, written under the name Sirak “Goryan” and published in the Armenian journal Hairenik in 1933. Many of Saroyan’s stories were based on his childhood experiences among the Armenian-American fruit growers of the San Joaquin Valley, or dealt with the rootlessness of the immigrant. The short story collection My Name is Aram (1940), an international bestseller, was about a young boy and the colorful characters of his immigrant family. It has been translated into many languages. Saroyan was the son of Armenian immigrants from Bitlis, Turkey. His father, a small vineyard owner who had been educated as a Presbyterian minister, was eventually forced to take farm- laboring work. He moved to New Jersey in 1905 and died in 1911. At the age of four, William Sa- royan was placed in the Fred Finch Orphanage in Oakland, California, together with his brother and sister, an experience he later described in his writing. Five years later, the family reunited in Fresno, where his mother, Takoohi, had obtained work in a cannery. W. Saroyan was twenty six when he published his first collection of stories. “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeeze” (1934), which was hailed by the critics as an original book of great promise. Since then he wrote many novels, plays, scripts and short stories. He traveled and studied modern American life. His works reveal some of the sores of the American society and there is a very appealing truthfulness in them. Most of W. Saroyan’s books are widely admired for their real- ism, humanism, compassion for the poor, and a sincere, firm belief in man. Of course, he does not often deepen into the causes of the evil, the social injustice that rule the world he lives in, but his truthful descriptions, bold pronouncements and sharp criticisms, which readers understand eas- ily, speak for themselves. He won generations after generations of readers with the same success, and his novels and plays were always well accepted. His plays were performed again and again, keeping their unique freshness and attraction, because they never lost their touching message of kindness and fantastic love for people and beauty. W. Saroyan is a humanist and among the quantity of verbiage that he produced there is enough merit to count him among the modern authors of the most original. 4 THE ORANGES They told him, “Stand on the corner with two of the biggest oranges in your hand and when an automobile goes by, smile and wave the oranges at them. Five cents each if they want one,” his uncle Jake said, “three for ten cents, thirty-five cents a dozen. Smile big,” he said. “You can smile, can’t you, Luke? You got it in you to smile once in a while, ain’t you?” He tried very hard to smile and his uncle Jake made a terrible face, so he knew it was a bad smile. He wished he could laugh out loud the way some people laughed, only they weren’t scared the way he was, and all mixed-up. “I never did see such a serious boy in all my life,” his uncle Jake said. ”Luke,” he said. His uncle squatted down, so his head would be level with his, so he could look into his eyes, and talked to him. “Luke,” he said, “they won’t buy oranges if you don’t smile. People like to see a little boy smiling, selling oranges. It makes them happy.” He listened to his uncle talking to him, looking into his uncle’s eyes, and he understood the words. What he felt, though, was: Jake is mixed-up, too. He saw the man stand up and heard him groan, just as his father used to groan. “Luke,” his uncle Jake said.” Sometimes you can laugh, can’t you?” “Not him,” said Jake’s wife. “If you weren’t such a coward, you would be out selling them oranges yourself. You belong the same place your brother is,” she said. “In the ground. Dead,” she said. It was this that made it hard for him to smile: “the way this woman was always talking, not the words only, but the mean- ness in her voice, always picking on his uncle Jake. How did she expect him to smile or feel all right when she was always telling them they were no good, the whole family no good?1 Jake was his father’s younger brother, and Jake looked like his father. Of course she always had to say his father was better off dead just because he was no good selling stuff. She was always telling Jake, “This is America. You got to get around and meet people and make them like you.” And Jake was always saying, “Make them like me? How can I make them like me?” And she was always getting sore at him and saying. “Oh, you fool. If I didn’t have this baby in my belly, I’d go out and work in Rosenberg’s and keep you like a child.” Jake had that same desperate look his father had, and he was always getting sore at himself and wanting other people to be happy. Jake was always asking him to smile. “All right,” Jake said.”All right, all right, all right, kill me, drive me crazy. Sure. I should be dead. Ten boxes of oranges and not a penny in the house and nothing to eat. I should be dead. Should I stand in the street, holding oranges? Should I get a wagon maybe and go through the streets? I should be dead,” he said Then Jake made a face, so sad it looked, as if nobody was ever that sad in the world, not even he, and wished he didn’t want to cry because Jake was so sad.

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