Analysis of the Happy Man

Analysis of the Happy Man.The novel under analysis is entitled “The Happy Man”. It is written by famous English  playwright, novelist and short story writer -Somerset Maugham, who was born on 25 of Januaryin 1874.The suggested short story represents a 1st Person Narration intermingled [ntə'mŋgled] with a dialogues, character drawings, a description and the inner monologue of the leading character. The narration is done in the 1st in order to make us believe that such situation could have happened to every person. The author's digression reveals his vision of life. He speculates upon the problem of giving advices to somebody. To his consideration it is impossible to know another person as well as oneself to give him advice which would have caused only positive consequences for him. Nevertheless he dares to give the life changing advice to a man he see for  the first time. Later it turns out that his advice caused good changes in the life of stranger. (The theme of the novel is the act of giving advice. At the beginning of the story the author reflected on the subject of life, destiny and the  problem of giving advices. He stated that it was dangerous thing to order the life of others. Anyway, the author knew that once he had advised well. One day a stranger visited him, his name was Stephens and he was a doctor. Because of the fact that the narrator wrote a  book about Spain, Stephens wanted to figure out information about it, he planned to live there. Stephens told the narrator the story of his life; he wanted to change it and asked the narrator to give him advice. The narrator told him if he did not care of money but was content to earn to keep body and soul together then he could go. Stephens left him and the narrator forgot about that episode. Many years later the narrator was in Seville and had to see a doctor because of some indisposition. The doctor happened to be Stephens. The narrator learnt of  outcome of his advice. Stephens thanked him, because he followed the narrator’s advice and was satisfied with his life.) Generally speaking the novel runs about a desperate man who confided his life to a total stranger. The main theme of the novel is the role of advice in the life of people.The whole text of the novel is a narrative as it tells us about different events which followes one another in chronological order. Whereas [wə'ræz] (Taking into consideration) moving events described in the novel it could be divided into three logical parts.In the first part one can face the case of discourse as the author gives his opinion about such notions as advice, destiny and loneliness. This part of the novel opens with rather pessimistic atmosphere. This mood is achieved by use of metaphors: he compares every man to “a prisoner in a solitary tower”, life to “a difficult business”. He also uses irony in the sentence: he communicates with the other prisoners, who  form mankind, by conventional signsthat have not quite the same meaning for them as for himself.The second part is written in the form of a dialogue between the patient and the main hero.In this part of the story the author uses some epithets, represented by adjectives, to display his emotional attitude towards events and to create more colorful description of Stephens’s appearance. For example: “a perfect stranger”, “a bullet – shaped head”, “a bacchanalian [bækə'nelən] smile”,cursory ['ks(ə)r] glance. We can see the despair of a stranger, because  he uses “ short, sharp sentences”, to emphasize it the author told us that they had “a forcible ring ”. The visitor seems to be unsatisfied about his life, he is rather sad and pessimistic, but he wants to change something in it and he also has a plan. To emphasize (дух противоречия) spirit of  contradiction in Stephens’s speculations the narrator employs an oxymoron “bright dark eyes”. Some parallel constructions present in Stephens’s speech: “I was brought…I’ve never been…I’ve never done…I’ve been…I have…” They create a monotonous tone of speech in order to show that his life is rather boring. Another parallel constructions such as “there’s sunshine there, and there’s good wine, and there’s colour, and there’s air you can breathe” create an atmosphere of  Spain as a wonderful place. Stephens is in the hope that here in Spain he'll turn over a new leaf.(начать новую жизнь)(his life would change for the better) In the dialogue we can also observe framing: He asked me my name; I told him. He asked if he might come in. 'Certainly.' Thenarrator uses irony in Stephens’s behavior during their first meeting to produce humorous effect:

“He seemed a trifle embarrassed. I offered him a cigarette and he had some difficulty in lighting it