Anthony In Blue Alsatia

The text under analyses belongs to the pen of Eleanor Farjeon. She was famous for delightful and distinctive poems for children. She had sensitiveness to beauty and had true understanding of the essential quality of romance. The text under analyses is about a man, Anthony by name, who read a morning paper and was faced with an article “A Minor Mystery” which was about a train who broke on the half way to the place of destination. Anthony begin to imagine that he was present at that place and he also wander about the beauty of the nature. So we can present the theme of the text. It is Man and Nature. As for the type of narration we are faced with 3rd person narration with some elements of represented speech. The text begins at the moment when Andrew was skipping his newspaper. From the first sentence we came to know that for him all usual things were uninterested as for other people. Such things as industry, politics and publicity life. But the author uses here metonymical periphrases Home Rails, Questions in the House, Three-Piece Suits. We can prove this fact with the help of such word as skipping, epithet bewildered but for other people all these articles were vital.

Moreover we see that all people for Andrew were as a mass because the author uses here such periphrases as by different orders of mind from his and simile they slipped as through gauze. The fact that really touched his mind was the sentence Mouchard (near the Jura Mountains). It was written in the newspaper. Such phrases as Jura Mountains… Blue smoke… a blue- eyed Alsation…a concertina… the Blue Alsatian Express…many miles from nowhere…hay-making damsels in white sunbonnets… hayrakes.. .laughing at us… bore in his mind and he was wandering about it. It seems as the stream of consciousness in course of reading. The next figure that he kept in mind was the title of the article “A Minor Mystery”. The author writes it in the middle of the line. So we can conclude that exactly in this way the title was written in the article. All his attention was pointed towards the content of the article. By means of the sustained metaphor …gauze, which could not contain the torrents of the world’s activities, might house this butterfly and not brush the bloom we understand what exactly he liked in reading. It was something unusual and which stimulate thinking activity.

In course of the text we see some quotation. One of it is “many miles from nowhere”. It shows that the action was in some unknown place. In the next extended sentence we observe the description situation. We get to know that the train broke and we see some actions of passengers: engine-driver was compared with madman; woman-passenger was described with the help of an epithet nervous; moreover we see such epithets as blue smoke, blue mountains, blue sky. As for the adjective blue we see it in the course of the whole text. It indicates harmony, virginity, beauty, light, softness, transparency, peacefulness, cleanness, clearness and romantic. From the last part of a sentence which is quotation from the newspaper we came to know that it was a witness of the situation: “are laughing at us over the hedgerows”. The next passage is a quotation from the article. We came to know that somebody left the train and disappeared in the fields. This person is described by means of epithets quiet little, sign of annoyance, hesitation or distraction; comparison who looked like a country farmer. Then goes a rhetorical question: “Had the breakdown occurred within easy reach of his own home or destination?»

After this question we see Anthony’s replica. So we once more are sure that he plunged into reading. Then go his thoughts about this situation. The author formed it in inner represented speech: “Why should it? It was most unlikely. And – annoyance? Why should the little man be annoyed? And where was the Mystery, Minor or Major?” From the next paragraph which is author’s digression we came to know about that beautiful place, that for author and for Andrew it was something unusual and like a paradise. To show all bad sides of railways the author uses here a parenthesis it is their drawback. It could be any place in the world because we see here an antonomasia Anywhere. But those places are seem to be a paradise.

The author uses here such metaphors which are anaphora at the same time as Heaven, Seven Heaven, glimpse of Paradise. From the next sentence which is “That is where I really wanted to go- that is where I would like to get out! That valley of flowers, that cottage in the birch-glade, that buttercup field with the little river and kind fisher- if only the train would stop!” we came to know that our hero really wanted to occur in such a place. Exclamatory sentences, logical emphases, parallel construction and repetition prove the fact. And once he occurred. We understand that Anthony imagined himself as a participant of that event. And all next facts are imaginary. He imagined people that were present in the train. He even imagined their replicas. They interlaces with the description of the nature.

Through this contrast we can imagine that Anthony was sick of a common life and he wanted something unusual. As for the description of the nature and people that worked we see such devises that help us to sing into it: epithets as meadow in full flower, long flowering grass, embroidered jackets, tall young fellow, bright scythe, blue and white flowers, white sunbonnets, sweet, fresh, frank; simile fellow as splendid as god. All these devises depict very beautiful picture of nature. As concerning replicas of heroes, the author uses such words as moaned, fumed, puffed, epithet nervous, dreadful. They are not so bright as previous devises. And again the author describes the nature. Again we epithets blue, tiny, little, aromatic, simile mountains as blue as dreams, as Paradise, metaphors as though it had just stepped out of the trees and set foot on the grass, in the fringe of trees. By means of all these devises we can breathe that air, feel that aroma. Then go some replicas of heroes which are the same as previous.

As we know Anthony imagined that he was that man who left the train and went away. So from the enumeration as dancing-laughing flower-gatherers, the young god mowing , the peasants drinking, the soldiers playing, the millionaire we can understand that nothing was more important for him that to be close to the nature. Moreover a rhetorical question For what could one be late? made us to think about it. Then we see the scene that Anthony faces with. There was a girl, the author describes her by means of an epithet barefoot, white chemise and blue embroidered skirt. She was with a kids. The author uses here simile laughing like music to show that it was funny for them to play. Suddenly Anthony broke up from his thoughts and appeared in reality. The next article he did not read. As a conclusion we may say that there is nothing better than nature. And it is our task to preserve it and keep in order because sometimes it is very good for a person to wander in the open nature and think about objects that concern him.