The Escape by William Somerset Maugham Essay Example

a very ironical way.

It could be confirmed by some cases of irony, used by the narrator – “instant flight” and “inevitable loom menacing before him”, “ escaped with only a toothbrush for all his luggage”, which show us fear and trembling of men before the difficulties of the marriage. And through these stylistic devices we feel the author’s humorous tone, which has a slight shade of bitterness. So, let’s turn to the text again. The narrator says that he knows only one man who escaped successfully. It was his friend, Roger Charing. The writer gives us direct character drawing of Roger, saying he was experienced middle-aged man.

Such epithets as “sufficient experience”, “careful” prove, that he was happy to live the life of an unmarried man. But once he fell in love with a woman, Ruth Barlow. The author describes her directly, saying that she was quite good-looking and she had big, beautiful, dark eyes and she had the gift of pathos. Indeed, Ruth was very unlucky, she was twice a widow, everything was wrong with her, as the author ironically says “She never had a little lamb but it was sure to die”. And when a man saw those big, sad eyes, he wanted to help Ruth, to make her happy.

The epithet “defenseless” reflects the power of her look. The metaphor “the gift of pathos”, and the epithets “splendid dark eyes”, “ moving eyes”, “big and lovely eyes” and the repetition of the word “eyes” make us pay our attention to this peculiarity. And the similar “He went down like a row of ninepins” prove the power of her “gift”. The epithets “helpless little thing”,

“rotten time”, “unfortunate”, “poor dear”, parallel constructions “if she married…, if she employed a broker…, if she engaged a cook…, “display hopelessness of Ruth’s life.

So, Roger wanted to take care of her and was ready to marry her. But according to the narrator’s opinion, Ruth was stupid and two-faced woman. The simile “as hard as nails” show us, that she wasn`t a “poor thing”, but rather a canny woman. And then, on a sudden, Roger fell out of love. (Falling out of love is the most terrible thing I can imagine. ) Now, Ruth`s “pathetic look” didn`t move Roger any more. But, Roger didn’t want people to say that he jilted a woman. So, it was decided that they would be married as soon as they found a suitable house.

It was Roger`s scheme of escaping the marriage, which is skillfully characterized by parallel constructions “sometimes they were too large, sometimes they were too small, sometimes they were too expensive and sometimes they were too stuffy”, the metaphor “house-hunting”, and the epithet “innumerable kitchens”. And at last Ruth yielded. It was Roger’s victory. In this portion of the text the tone changes, it is still ironical, but there appears some serious shade. While reading we came across a lot of pure literary words (gift, splendid, wonderful, hazards, sadness, lovely), which are peculiar to the description situations concerning love.

But here these words are used to achieve an ironical effect. The syntax of the story is complicated, there are a lot of compound sentences with many subjects and verbs of action not to lose the thought. I was impressed with this short-story greatly, it made me think about

its subject. This story reflects the eternal problem – the confrontation of a man and a woman, the first want men to marry and the second – to escape. And it is rather sad, I believe, that it should be some other way out of this complicated situation. How wonderful are the first steps of love: flowers, attentiveness, passion.

Why not to try to serve them, instead of thinking about how to marry a man. And men feel that they could lose their precious freedom and try to escape. But, I think, if a man really love a woman, he couldn`t be frightened away by marriage. As regards to the text, I took Roger’s side, because I consider that each person should have a right for free choice, and as for Ruth, I think she understand what was happening, that Roger didn`t love her, but wanted he marry her. It was not she, but Roger “a poor thing”, who didn`t want to treat her badly, and was waiting for so long in order to escape.