Analysis of the Extract from Heartbreak House Essay Example

- the body ( or the main part), where Mr. Mangan with confidence in his voice discloses all his intentions and reveals his nature sarcastically; - the denouement part, which turns into a very surprising way, when Ellie still shows her desire to get married with Mr.

Mangan without a shadow of doubt. The culmination itself prevails, when Ellie, surprisingly for Mr. Mangan, expresses her choice and cold estimation. It is the most intensive and highest point in the extract. Speaking about the compositional forms of writing, the author’s speech is almost entirely excluded, except for the playwright’s remarks and stage directions, significant though they may be. The events are described here in the form of the dialogue, which also implicitly reveals the characters.

Each literary work is based upon three principles of literary structure cohesion: - the first principal is of incomplete representation of reality, as it is impossible to reflect anything in details; - the second principal is based on complete contrast: Ellie’s youth and vitality lack direction, but Mangan seems to think that in order to feel good about one’s place in the world, we must lie and make ourselves out to be more than we are. - the third principal is the one of recurrence, when the extract begins and ends with the same pose of Mangan (“He sits down in the wicker chair….. ”-“he drops into the wicker chair…”)

There is not a character in the story that is not worth studying, nor a scene that is not life-like, not a reflection that has not a deep meaning. Boss Mangan is a plain man with powerful image.

He has a head for business, but he lacks heart for love. Money becomes the prime object of his worship and respect. Mangan, who was reported to be “a Napoleon of industry”, is revealed to be virtually incapable of running his own businesses. Mangan represents the “so-called realists, who know that money is power, power that enables them to turn into profit for themselves the thoughts and ideas of the idealist”.

Ellie is presented here as a kind-hearted, devoted girl, who is endowed with call of duty towards her family. She feels ready to become a wife of a prudent and selfish man and liar, no matter what kind of person he is. To my mind, Mangan is given here as the villan, who is apposed to a hero-Ellie. She is given in development while Mangan still stays the same. The way of the character’s description is implicit (indirect), when the character is revealed through actions, thoughts, speech and appearance. The way of describing characters depicts the author’s great knowledge of man’s inner world.

He penetrates into the subtlest windings of the human heart. The author proves to be a real master in using expressive means and stylistic devices to make a play vivid and bright. The epithet, represented by the adjective, characterizes and object, some of the properties and features of the object and displays the writer’s emotional attitude. For example, “a sound idea”, “the surest way”, “my kind heart”, “most grateful eyes”, “wallowing ingratitude”, “a blamed fool”. The epithets create a more colorful description.

Metaphor is brightly expressed through transference of some quality of one thing to another, creating an

implicit comparison: “I took your father a measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he would work himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that he was a child in business, and was dead certain to outrun his expenses and be in too great hurry to wait for his market. ” The title itself is also a metaphor, because it is a pessimistic symbolic depiction of a larger society called England at the outset of the First World War. B.

Shaw turns to simile, which characterizes one object by bringing it into contrast with another object belonging to an entirely different class of things: “Your father and the friends that ventured their money with him were no more to me than a heap of squeezed lemons”. This example stands for the fact that those people were nothing for Mangan. There is antithesis expressed in such words: “ I don’t start new businesses-I let other fellows start them. ” The author employs parallel construction, which emphasizes Mangan’s point of view on business: “…. what do you know about business?

Your father’s business was a new business. And I don’t start new businesses: I let other fellows start them. ” Repetition is also present here ; “I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he would work himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that he was a child in business, and was dead certain to outrun his expenses and be in too great hurry to wait for his market. ” By way of summing up, the extract from “Heartbreak House”

is a good example of dramatical tension, where in a form of a dialogue the most significant vices of Ellie’s beloved are revealed.