The story under consideration is written by William
Wymark Jacobs. The author is a distinguished British writer who is best
remembered for his horror story The Monkey's Paw (1902).
William Wymark Jacobs was born 8 September 1863 in
Wapping, London, England. His father, William Gage Jacobs was the manager of a
South Devon wharf, so Jacobs spent a lot of time with his brothers and sisters
among the wharves observing the comings and goings of the tramp steamers and
their crews. He was the eldest son and the family was very poor. Moreover his
mother died when he was very young .
The boy came to be called W.W. by his friends, he
was shy and quiet with a fair complexion. Jacobs attended a private school in
London then went on to Birkbeck College. In 1879 he became a clerk in the civil
service, then the savings bank department from 1883 until 1899.
A regular income was a welcomed change from his
childhood of financial hardship, but around 1885 he also started submitting
anonymous sketches to be published in Blackfriars. In the early nineties
Jacobs had some of his stories published in Jerome K. Jerome and Robert Barr's
illustrated satirical magazines The Idler and Today. The Strand magazine also accepted some of his
works. His early stories were tentative and naïve but they were enough to show
he had promise upon further development in a career as a writer. Such prominent
people as Henry James, G.K.Chesterton, and Christopher Morley commented
favorably on his work.
In 1896 was published Jacobs' first collection of
short stories Many Cargoes which has brought him success and even Punch magazine said about it that
Jacobs' favourite subjects were "men
who go down to the sea in ships of moderate tonnage". It was
followed in 1897 by a novelette titled The Skipper's Wooing and in 1898 by another collection of
short stories Sea Urchins. By 1899 Jacobs resigned from the civil
service to devote his full time to writing. In 1900 he married suffragette
Agnes Eleanor with whom he would have two sons and three daughters.
Jacobs' short story output declined somewhat around
the First World War, and his literary efforts between then and his death were
predominantly adaptations of his own short stories for the stage. His first
work for the stage, The Ghost of Jerry Bundler was performed in London in 1899,
revived in 1902 and eventually published in 1908. His last collection of short
stories is titled Night Watches (1914).
William Wymark Jacobs died at Hornsey Lane,
Islington, London, on 1 September 1943.
As it was mentioned above Jacobs is best remembered
for his horror story The Monkey's Paw which was first published in The
Lady of the Barge, 1902. It`s a tale of superstition and terror
unfolding within a realistic, Dickensian setting of domestic warmth and
cosines, is a felicitous example of Jacobs’s ability to combine everyday life
and gentle humour with exotic adventure and dread. The
Monkey's Paw has
been filmed and adapted for the stage numerous times. Jacobs also wrote several
crime stories that have been placed within the British noir tradition.
Though his best-known story is a horror one the
majority of his output was humorous in tone. For example, Jacobs's 1902
novelette At Sunwich Port and Dialstone Lane (1904) are said to be among his best,
displaying his exceptional talent to ingeniously devise characters and
satirical situations. Often his stories are about the British underclass,
sometimes with surprise endings. Critics applaud his dry humour, colourful
dialogue, and spare narrative style.
Most of his stories are set on the London waterfront
and focus on characters involved in that milieu. It has been asserted that
Jacobs's stories utilized a limited range of plots: the characters are
motivated by money, sometimes by marriage or the avoidance of marriage, but
nearly all the plots contain trickery or deception. A group of tales are
narrated by an old man who frequents the Cauliflower Inn in the village of
Claybury; he relates amusing stories about a group of lovable rascals around
town.
Another memorable character recurring throughout
Jacobs's work is the Night Watchmen, a retired sailor familiar with the life on
the docks, who adopts a London cockney dialect prevalent on the waterfront to
narrate many of the stories. Speaking about the story "The Dreamer" (which is under our analysis)
it`s an example of the tale narrated by this Night Watchmen, so the further
analysis will reveal all the peculiarities of this unusual type of narration.
The story under analysis
deals with an episode from the life on docks. One of the Jackob`s favorable
narrators, the Night Watchman tells about the dream that has come true.
Once he is aboard with a
cook who is a real fibber. The cook happens to dream about Bill Foster break
his leg and in a few days that comes true. This occasion provides the cook with
the opportunity to lie about his ability to see the future in his dreams. He
uses each chance to assure everyone that his dreams will be fulfilled unavoidably
and even getting a good telling-off couldn`t stop him.
At long last a young
fellow Joseph Meek (who is going to marry old Bill Foster`s niece) asks the
cook to have a dream that could keep him from the wedding. Few days later the
cook talks at his dream in Bill`s presence. This time the dream is about the
wedding and the accident that happens afterwards. The idea is to persuade Bill
that Joseph and Emily will be killed in a week after the wedding. It goes
without saying Bill Foster makes up his mind to cancel the wedding.
Finally they reach the shore. Seeing Emily, Joseph understands what sort of mistake he has done, but it`s impossible to turn back the clock. At home Bill tells about all cook`s dreams and Emily (who has already begun dating with another fellow) severs relations with Joseph.
Finally they reach the shore. Seeing Emily, Joseph understands what sort of mistake he has done, but it`s impossible to turn back the clock. At home Bill tells about all cook`s dreams and Emily (who has already begun dating with another fellow) severs relations with Joseph.
The story ends with
Joseph leaving away saying that he`ll wait outside for the cook.
Above all I`d like to
mention that at first I supposed this story to be about an old man. Imagine
him, a watchmaker, who talks with his assistant in a tiny room with dimmed
light. He speaks about his life and dreams which haven`t come true. He thinks
that life has made a trick on him and that has prevented him from further
dreaming. Finally he has given way to the stream of routine. His assistant is a
young guy and he disapproves such way of thinking. The idea of the story is to
fight for your dream no matter how difficult it is. But that`s only my
imagination.
In fact the story is
about a silly chap who lies about his dreams coming true and it shows what the
lie can lead to.
So, the main idea is to
prevent us from an idle talk even if it gives us some privileges at first
sight. There is no
use in boasting about things which have nothing to do with you, because you can
never predict the consequences.
The story under analysis is an example of a closed
plot structure, as all the elements of traditional plot structure are present.
Exposition refers to the touching of dreams and warnings problem by the
narrator and presentation of his recollection of dreams that have come true.
The initiating incident is cook`s dream about Bill`s falling and the fulfilment
of it. In the rising action several episodes connected with this second sight
occur and Joseph asks the cook to help him with the wedding cancellation. The
climax as the point of the greatest conflict is their coming home when Joseph
sees Emily and understands his mistake. Falling action presents conversation at
home when Emily decides to cast aside Joseph. The denouement of the story is
Joseph`s leaving: he understands that there`s nothing to do and gives up.
Still the end of the story gives us some
foreshadowing:
"Good-night all," he ses. Then he went to
the front door and opened it, and arter standing there a moment came back as
though he 'ad forgotten something.
"Are you coming along now?" he ses to the
cook.
"Not just yet," ses the cook, very
quick.
"I'll wait outside for you, then," ses
Joseph, grinding his teeth. "Don't be long".
So we can predict that the cook will have to pay for it.
The events of the story happened on "a
bark I was aboard of once, called the Southern
Belle". The setting is realistic due to the narrator`s widening
his idea by saying that they were "homeward-bound from Sydney".
Further the narrator shares that they "went
into the East India that v`y`ge" and with the help of epithet
conveys the beauty of the daypart: "(we) got there on a lovely summer`s evening".
The remarkable thing is that the story lacks the
direct and explicit description of the ship, view from it or anything else
connected with the setting. Nevertheless, we clearly feel the atmosphere of it
implied with the help of vocabulary used. Thus within the story we find
examples of marine slang, namely: foretop,
aft, homeward-bound, the ship was berthed etc.
The same idea is also highlighted by the narrator`s cockney dialect, which
will be analyzed further.
Taking into account that
it`s a story within a story, it`s rather confusing to define the type of
narration from the point of view of presentation. At the very first sentence we
see the hint which reveals the idea of third-person narrative: "Dreams and
warnings are things I don`t believe in, said the night watchman".
Further events are told from the first-person, namely this night
watchman, indication of which can be seen in the following examples: "we
was homeward-bound from Sydney", "he woke us all up", "I
never see a man..." etc. That`s why I believe him to be the narrator of
the story. So as we see, the narrator is one of the
characters though he`s not the protagonist. Still he appears to
be more a viewer than a participant of depicted events.
As for the type of speech
employed by the narrator, the analyzed text is narration mixed with direct and
represented speech with pure insertions of description.
Another thing to be taken
into consideration is the way the story is presented. The night watchman’s
pronunciation is typical of uneducated speech. Numerous cases of graphon
highlight his social status as a retired sailor familiar with a life on the
docks, who adopts a London cockney dialect prevalent on the waterfront. As an
example of graphon one may notice `ad, arter, `er, o`, addication, wot, ses,
agin, `oarse, `appen, ain`t, p`r`aps, d`ye, on`y, fust-rate, unfortunit and
a lot of others. Some of words used by the narrator are fixed in the
dictionaries dialect variants of common words: feller (instead of fellow) and
afore (instead of before).
Lack of education is also
underlined by grammatical mistakes as in following cases: "we was (were) homeward-bound
from Sydney", "do(ing) all he could", "in a(n) offhand way" etc.
Nevertheless politeness of the narrator is shown through the purposeful
omission of vulgarisms presented by the metaphor: "Bill called
something that I won`t soil my
ears by repeating".
By all means those things
contribute to the strong impression of natural colloquial speech as if we don`t
read the story but listen to it in the form of friendly conversation. Narrator
addresses the reader (or listener): "if you`ll believe me".
Another usage of pronoun "you" within the narration is an example of
I --> you transposition: "little bits that you couldn`t
make head nor tail of", which also imparts to the utterance the
freshness of immediate address to the listener.
Main characters we meet in the story under analysis
are the cook, Bill Foster and Joseph Meek. There are also some secondary
characters among which one can mention Emily Foster, Charlie Epps, Ted Jones,
George Hall, Bob Law etc.
By all means, THE
COOK is a protagonist of the
story. The narrator reveals him by means of narrative description with explicit
judgement as in the following example:
He was a silly, pasty-faced sort o' chap, always
giving hisself airs about eddication to sailormen who didn't believe in it.
From the both fact and judgment we derive the
impression of the main character as a weak, boastful und dishonest man who
doesn`t think about the consequences of his lie.
When the narrator informs us that just afterwards
the Bill`s falling out the foretop the cook invented a story about the
"second sight", we come to share his disrespect and disapproval of
the character`s behavior. To create the humorous effect here the author uses
hyperbole based on personification:
I never see a man so surprised as the cook was. His eyes was nearly starting out of
'is head
and enlarges the idea with the phraseological unit
and epithet:
but by the time the other chaps 'ad picked Bill up and
asked 'im whether he was hurt, cook 'ad pulled
'imself together agin and was
giving himself such airs it
was perfectly sickening.
The dramatic irony as the way to show the
discrepancy between what characters thinks and what the reader knows to be true
is shown in the following passage:
'It's a wonderful gift, cookie,' ses Charlie
Epps. All of 'em thought the same, not knowing wot a fust-class liar the
cook was,
and he sat there and lied to 'em till he couldn't
'ardly speak, he was so 'oarse,
where "a fust-class liar", "he
was so 'oarse" are epithets and "till he couldn't 'ardly speak"
is a litote.
To emphasise the cook`s untidiness the narrator
implies the parenthesis:
He kissed 'is dirty paw--which is more than I
should 'ave liked to 'ave done it if it 'ad been mine--and waved
it".
In this example one should also pay attention to the
use of epithet "dirty paw", where instead of word "hand"
we come upon its colloquial variant(the case of dysphemism).
The narrator uses the zeugma:
It took 'im three days and a silver watch-chain to
persuade the cook,
in order to highlight character`s pettiness.
Judging from cook`s speech full with colloquialisms
(presented by graphons) one can see his belonging to the lower social class and
lack of education:
- I never was on a ship afore with such a lot of unfortunit men aboard. Never. There's two pore fellers wot'll be dead corpses inside o' six months.
Still it`s rather confusing to say whether direct
speech was the same in the original conversation, taking into consideration
that the story wholly is told by the speaker of cockney dialect.
One more thing worth saying is that throughout the
whole story the cook is purposefully not called by name. It goes without saying
this fact means that there are a lot of such fellows who flatter themselves
being nobody.
All in all, we can say that the narrator is quite
subjective towards the main character.
Secondly I`d like to speak about OLD BILL (as he is addressed in the story) or BILL FOSTER. He is an old
sailorman and the very person who falls out of the foretop after cook`s dream.
The writer reveals Bill Foster by means of character`s actions keeping from the
open judgment.
We come to think of Bill as a hot-tempered man just
in the first conversation when the cook told about the dream. The idea is
implied with the help of periphrasis in the following passage:
Bill Foster said he'd make 'im laugh the other side of
his face if he wasn't
careful,
which was the threat of beating.
Bill`s self-mastery, strong character and ability to
keep his word is shown after the falling from the foretop:
He was in agony, of course, but he kept 'is presence
of mind, and as they passed the cook he gave 'im such a clip on the side of the
'ead as nearly broke it.
Bill`s characteristic is also implied by the other
personages` words. For example, Joseph Meek tells the cook:
"Bill's always been a superstitious man, and
since you dreamt about his leg he'd believe anything".
The idea is further proved with the help of epithet
and simile when the cook speaks in his dreams in Bill`s presence:
Pore Bill... lay there
(on his bunk) as pale as death,
listening.
To show Bill`s faith in cook`s dreams the narrator
again uses the dramatic irony:
Bill pointed out to 'im wot a useful man he would be
if he could dream and warn people in time.
The same dramatic irony shows that Bill loves his
niece greatly and does his best to protect her. He makes his mind to tell Emily
about cook`s dream to prevent her death:
"Stuff and nonsense," ses Bill. "I'm
going to tell Emily. It's my dooty. Wot's the good o' being married if you're
going to be killed?",
where the effect is emphasized by the rhetorical
question.
The next character to take into consideration is JOSEPH MEEK, who is revealed by
means of physical appearance with the help of epithet:
...a steady young chap wot was goin' to be married to old
Bill Foster's niece as soon as we got 'ome.
We are to judge this character according to his
actions, as no other explicit characteristic is given. By all means we may say
him to be irresponsible and cunning kind of person taking into account his idea
of putting off the wedding. The author implies the situational irony: when Bill
is confident in preventing the wedding and they go ashore again, Joseph sees
foolishness of his deed, which we may see in the following passage:
Emily found it more comfortable to sit on Joseph's
knee; and by the time they got to the 'ouse he began to see wot a silly mistake
he was making.
As for EMILY, her beautiful appearance is shown with the help of epithet:
She really was an
uncommon nice-looking gal, and more than the cook was struck with her.
The fact is that during their voyage she found a new
boy-friend, Bert Simmons, but couldn`t confess to it. The narrator creates the
humorous effect:
Bert Simmons sat on one side of Emily and Joseph the
other, and the cook couldn't 'elp feeling sorry for 'er, seeing as he did that
sometimes she was 'aving both hands squeezed at once under the table and could
'ardly get a bite in edgeways.
Her unwillingness to give out this secret is
highlighted by the aposiopesis:
"I lost that the other evening when I was out
with--with--for a walk".
Her character is also shown through the metaphor in
her uncle`s words:
"Why, you're
made o' money, Emily," he ses.
So, as we see the author skillfully presents the
characters by different means of direct and indirect judgment, their
appearance, actions and so on.
Apart
from earlier analyzed stylistical peculiarities of the given text I`d like to
draw you attention to some other expressive means and stylistic devices which
are not of less importance (I wonder if you`ve noticed the use of litotes
here).
To
make the image more vivid the similies
...and the
ugliest man aboard, instead o' being grateful, behaved more like a wild beast
than a Christian;
For ten
minutes he was as peaceful as a lamb;
Joseph...
was staring at Bert Simmons as though he could eat him, -
are
used.
To
emphasize the idea, metaphors are implied in the following examples:
It would ha'
made a cat laugh;
Everybody
was 'arf crazy at the idea o' going ashore agin.
The
metaphor:
Thank your
stars you don't 'ave such dreams, -
is
implied to emphasize the burden of having dreams that come true.
The
images became brighter thanks to the metonymy:
Ted Jones
started playing catch-ball with another chap and a empty beer-bottle, and about
the fifth chuck Ted caught it with his face.
(in
this example the phrase "started playing catch-ball with another chap and
a empty beer-bottle" can be also treated as zeugma)
and
periphrasis:
...cookie,
being no fighter, 'ad to cook with one eye for the next two or three
days, -
(here
one may notice the diminutive of the word "cook", used for underlying
his helplessness).
The
choice of such epithets as: a pure
accident, a firm believer, a quiet talk, a choking noise, 'orrible black thing,
the way he went on was alarming, - is employed by the narrator to convey more vivid description.
To
underline the amount of people who surrounded Billthe synecdoche and the
polysyndeton are used:
The
skipper and the fust officer and most of
the hands set 'is leg between them.
Several
graphical means of stylistics are implied in the text, esp. italics which is
used to add more logical and emotive significance to the words in the following
cases:
"But I
did see it," ses the cook, drawin' 'imself up. "Wot?" ses
Ted, starting.
"Thank
goodness, you didn't 'ear the worst of it," he ses. "Worst!" ses
Bill. "Wot, was there any more of it?"
...but, of
course, he 'ad to say that if they wasn't married the other
part couldn't come true.
To
emphasize character`s irritation the epiphora is used:
"That's
my gal; that's my Emily".
The
use of the parenthesis in such cases:
He said that
as he 'ad never told 'is dreams before--except in the case of Bill's leg--he
couldn't say for certain that they couldn't be prevented by taking
care (represented speech);
Aunt
Emma--pore Aunt Emma, I should say--died while you was away (direct
speech), -
enlarges
the thought.
Emphatic
constructions give more prominence to the ideas in the following examples:
...on'y
three days arterwards pore Bill did fall out o' the foretop and break his leg;
But I did
see it;
It was an
unlucky v'y'ge that, for some of 'em.
To
add the informality and emotiveness to the character`s speech such
colloquialisms are used:
Nobody else
knew it, but he told the cook all about it on the quiet (privately);
old Bill's
leg was getting on fust-rate (excellent, fine);
He said it
was all the cook's nonsense, though 'e owned up that it was
funny that the cook should know about the wedding and Emily's name (confess,
avow).
The
use of idiom contribute to the figurativeness of language:
Little bits
that you couldn't make head nor tail of.
To create
the atmosphere of a dialog such expressive means are implied:
- Nominative sentences:
Pore things.
Never.
Certan sure.
Stuff and nonsense.
- Elliptical sentences:
Horrible
things to us, slushy?
Lot`s more.
- Exclamations:
Ow awful they look!
Oh! oh! o-oh!
Worst!
Ah!
Look here!
In
the conclusion of this stylistic analysis I`d like to highlight that William
Wymark Jacobs brilliantly uses all the possible peculiarities of the colloquial
speech to create a true-to-life atmosphere of the events
depicted. He brings home to the reader the idea of life on the
docks by the usage of marine slang and a London cockney dialect. Moreover
he uses figures of replacement, figures of co-occurrence and different
syntactic constructions which contribute to the general impression of the
vividness. His unique humour reveals the main idea of the story: we are always
to be aware of what we tell people and there is no use in boasting about things
which have nothing to do with us.
I
liked the story very much. Though the reality didn`t meet my first
expectations about the content of the story, I still strongly believe that it`s
worth reading and analyzing. The author made his best to show the life of
ordinary people, and all this graphons which makes you dizzy at first
sight...they`re really awesome!
