Understanding the text

1. Speak of the role of the third person pronoun he.

2. Define the place of the action.

3. How are the conditions of the work of the miners depicted?

4. In what way is the degree of darkness in the mine created? Point out the thematic group of words, metaphors, sustained personification, similes, epithets, climax, semantic and compositional coupling, terms, alliteration, parallel constructions, elliptical sentences, lexical pairs.

5. Single out two main thematic groups of words:

a) pertaining to the description of the condition of the mine;

b) the state of the miners, i.e. Eric and George.

6. Find in the text sustained metaphors depicting the condition of the mine, cases of personification, epithets, simile.

7. State the role of the interchange of sounds and its influence upon the miners. Account for the means reflecting it (syntactical and lexical repetition, climax, convergence of stylistic devices, represented speech, oxymoron).

8. Define the state of the miners - in what way it is brought home to the reader (anadiplosis, metaphors, epithets, climax, coupling, repetition).

9. Comment on how the contrasting feelings of the main characters are represented. Pay special attention to the oxymoron.

10. Speak of the difference of Eric and George's state. Mind the changed type of print.

11. Study the condition of the mine and the state of the miners.

12. Point out the contrast between the state of George and that of Eric, explain why Eric relied on George.

13. Underline the atmosphere of growing tension in the mine. Account for it.

14. How is the industry of the miners brought home to us? Alongside with other devices draw your attention to cases of polysendeton.

15. Explain the implied meaning of the word «fear» in the sentence «A new more terrible fear».

16. Speak of the stylistic value of Eric's direct and represented speech.

JOHN CHEEVER.

John Cheever is a shrewd observer and critic of American middle class, deeply penetrating into the realities of the disintegration of its manners and morals, seeing beneath the glossy surface of prosperous America where the imminent danger of failure lies like lead in the heart of a successful man, where bright surfaces conceal the tensions, disorders, anxieties and frustrations of life.

The story which follows was published in the 1965 collection "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow". It is the narrator's recollection about his formative years, which reflects the complexity of "fathers — sons" relations. Pay attention to Cheever's sad and subtle irony.