Анализ тексте Doctor in the house

“Doctor in the house”

The text under analysis is taken from the book “Doctor in the House”, it was written by Richard Gordon, a well-known English writer. He was born on the 15^th of September in 1921. He has been a surgeon and anaesthetist, he wrote numerous novels, screenplays for film and television and accounts of popular history, mostly dealing with the practice of medicine. He is most famous for a long series of comic novels on a medical theme starting with Doctor in the House (1952), and the subsequent film, television, radio and stage adaptations.  Everything that author described in the story “Doctor in the house” was true to life, that is why it made this story so popular among people. The subject of the story is sitting for examinations. So, now, I’m going to analyze the story.

The genre of the text is short story.

Narrative mode of the text are both narration and description.  The author describes us what examination means for students and narrates about exam itself and his own experience when he was a student.

The plot structure of the story is interesting one. The exposition of the text starts with the explanation what examination means for a medical student and what examination means in whole. After the explanation we come to the inciting moment when the narrator takes his exam. We slowly pass to the climax of the story  when Richard is waiting for the results. We come to the resolution when he has learnt that passed the exam-ns.

Having analyzed the plot structure, I’d like to give you the summary of the extract.

The story takes place during the examination for medical students. As the narrator mentions it’s something like a death. The exam is consists of two parts, they are written papers and oral examination. 3 hours are allowed for the paper. Students swott up the spot questions, because there is rarely any frank cheating in medical exam-ns. When the narrator is finished with the written papers, he meets Grimsdyke who knows that there’s a special system of marking the tripos and the narrator shouldn’t worry about it. As for the viva, it was a judgement day, because a false answer and the student is finished. There were 5 other students with the narrator who were passing the viva. When it was his turn to pass it he easily copes with the first question, but stumbles through the second, that is why the days after the viva are black ones. At last the day when students could learn their results comes. It’s the Secretary who simply should say “pass” or “failed”.  The narrator worries so much that even doesn’t hear the Secretary who named his number. So it turned out that the narrator passed his exam…His feelings are mixed.

Now, we’re gradually passing to the main characters of the story. Here is only one main character – the narrator. The method of character drawing is indirect. He is round, dynamic, protagonist character. The narrator is a medical student. During the whole story we can see him passing through exam-ns. The day of the exam-n was the worst thing on the earth, something like death for all students. If you want to pass it you should be ready. So, I think he is well-read in medicine, hard-working person, because there is rarely any frank cheating in medical exam-ns, so a student should know the material and help himself. He managed with this. I also can say that he is very observant. The narrator notices different kind of emotions on people’s faces. For example he talks about porters who look dispassionately down at students, he sees an awkward expression of self-consciousness and superiority in students faces, he notices that the woman’s suit was neat but not smart, that her hair tidy but not striking, that she wore enough make-up to look attractive. The narrator is an interesting character, he likes to compare people with smn. For ex. He compares porters with policemen, exam-n is smth. like death as he mentions, the Old Stager with a photographer at a wedding. He can easily find the right word to describe the person. So, I can say that he is smart! Also, as we know he passed his exam, it means his knowledge of medicine are good enough and maybe one day he’ll become a doctor. In whole, I can say that he creates an image of an ordinary student.

We slowly come to the author’s style of the text. If to look at the text, we may notice that it is written in the 1^st person narration: “I walked down the stairs feeling as if I had just finished an eight-round fight…”,”I was shown to a tiny waiting-room…” or “I stood before table four. I didn’t recognize the examiners.”, etc. Speaking about vocabulary of the story, it is important to say that the language is expressive, emotional. Richard Gordon uses lots of thematic words such as “student, cheating, the examiners, to pass, tripos the viva, written papers” and so on. The author uses stylistic devices and expressive means to achieve desired effect in describing characters and exam-n itself. So, in whole the text is emotionally moving.  Now I want to provide some examples of Stylistic devices. Richard Gordon uses metaphor, hyperbole, allusion, simile, metonymy.  By the simile “exam-ns are smth. like death” the author shows what the students feel before it, their condition; “like a prize-fighter” here Richard Gordon wants to show the atmosphere of contest between the student himself and the examiner; by using metaphor “well-trodden paths” the author shows the attitude to the medical textbooks; “frustrated brilliance” about a gone hope of  a student; by using a hypebole “an exam-n is nothing more than an investigation of a man’s knowledge..” the author shows what the exam-n is or ” But the viva is judgement day. A false answer, and the god's brow threatens like imminent thunderstorm “ to show the importance of exam-n for students; the author brilliantly uses the allusion referring to the Bible’s Judgment day. We discover that final exams are death and the Secretary as an archangel corresponds where they would go to the paradise or to hell. So, we can see that the text is rich in stylistic devices, it makes it vivid. It’s important to mention that the syntax of the story also helps to make the story vivid.

Each sentence is complete. The structure of the sentences is characterized by a strict adherence to logic, the author uses parallels constructions which help to reflect the tense during anticipation of the narrator’s result: “The world stood still. The traffic stopped, the plants ceased growing, men were paralysed, the clouds hung in the air, the winds dropped, the tides disappeared, the sun halted in the sky.”

  Having analyzed stylistic devises we can describe the atmosphere and tone of the story. In the beginning the atmosphere is strained, in the middle of the test when students start exam-n it becomes nervous, but in the end it’s relaxed because the narrator has known that he passed the exam.  The tone is serious because the narrator describes the exam-n and shows the importance of it for students.

Having realized the story we can easily find the theme and the main idea of it. The theme of the story is worries about examination. The main idea is that examination is a real challenge for students and a real testing of  being ready for different difficulties.