Анализ Doctor in the House

Doctor in the house

The passage I am going to interpret is taken from the book entitled “Doctor in the house”. It is written by the English writer Richard Gordon. He is famous for a serious of comic novels on a medical theme. “Doctor in the house” is considered his first book out of 12.

It is a first person narration: “I walked down the stairs feeling as if I had just finished an eight-round fight…” or “I stood before table four. I didn’t recognize the examiners.” One can also observe the dialogues between the main character and his friends: “How did you get on? ” I asked. “So-so” he replied. “However, I’m not worried…” The events are presented through the perception of the main character: a young student who is going to pass his final examination. The story is viewed through his emotions, feelings, worries. The narrative method increases the immediacy and freshness of the reader’s impression. Moreover, it encourages the reader to make their own judgment.

The setting of the story is quite clear. The action takes place in St. Swithin’s Hospital in London. “Benskin discovered that Malcolm Maxworth was the St. Swithin's representative on the examining Committee and…” As for the time there is no explicit reference to it, so one can just guess that the story is set in the 50s of the 20^th century.

Now, I would like to render the plot of the story. By the way, it is neither intricate nor complicated with flashbacks or retardation. There are all the components of plot structure in the story: an exposition, a plot, complications, a climax and a denouement. The story itself is rather short. The exposition is devoted to the information about students’ attitude to final exams and the way students read for this crucial moment. It begins with “To a medical student the final examinations are something like death: an unpleasant inevitability to be faced sooner or later…” and ends with “… and ran a final breathless sprint down the well-trodden paths of medicine.” The complications of the narration start with the process of the examination, students’ excitement and their fear of the results. The climax is the point of greatest intensity. It starts when the Secretary is pronouncing the narrator’s result. The main character’s life is hanging by a thread. “The world stood still. The traffic stopped, the plants ceased growing, men were paralyzed, the clouds hung in the air, the winds dropped, the tides disappeared, the sun halted in the sky. "Pass," he muttered.” The denouement of the text is represented within one sentence: “Blindly, like a man just hit by a blackjack, I stumbled upstairs.”

The author prefers indirect characterization. So, we get an idea through their actions, speech and feelings: “There was the Nonchalant, lolling back on the rear legs of his chair with his feet on the table. Next to him, a man of the Frankly Worried class sat on the edge of his chair tearing little bits off his invitation card and jumping irritatingly every time the door opened.”

This extract is devoted to the single theme which can be formulated as passing exams. The author uses a great number of thematic words, such as:  the student, the final examinations, the exams,  to prepare, the examiners, cheating, textbooks, the written papers, uniformed, examinees, knowledge, viva, marking, grading, to pass. The language of the text is rather complicated. The author tries to create a certain environment of the situation. “The written answers have a certain remoteness about them, and mistakes and omissions, like those of life, can be made without the threat of immediate punishment.” He also employs a lot of expressive means and stylistic devices such as simile , hyperbole, metonymy to make the story vivid and bright. The text is emotionally moving, and some details produce an emotional reaction. The most frequent are similes and the most important are following: “  To a medical student the final examinations are something like death”; “I was shown to a tiny waiting-room furnished with hard chairs, a wooden table, and windows that wouldn't open, like the condemned cell.”; “The days after the viva were black ones. It was like having a severe accident.”

Hyperboles in the text create a great effect: “But the viva is judgement day”; “…an examination is nothing more than an investigation of man’s knowledge”, a metaphor “…frustrated brilliance”. By giving the “nicknames” to some characters, with the help of antonomasia we see their “core”, their “essence” - the Nonchalant, the Frankly Worried, the Crammer, the Old Stager.

In my opinion, the main problem of the text is that final exams are a real pressure for students. They are a great challenge which they are supposed to overcome. It also touches upon students’ cheating at the exams, students’ prejudice and worries. The idea of the text can be formulated as that: an examination is nothing more than an investigation of man’s knowledge. The text reveals the inner world of the main true to life character, his feelings as well as the author’s attitude to the situation.