SETTING

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 419.

PLOT

ANALYSIS

NOTES

Ironside – applied allusively to Cromwell's troopers in the Civil War, a Puritan warrior

Worcester fight – the battle of Worcester where O.Cromwell's troops won a victory over Charles II

Pan – in classical mythology, the rustic god of pastures, especially of sheep and goats. Pan's musical instrument was a pipe. Pan was sometimes a frightening god, as the derivation of the word panic from his name suggests. The Romans identified him with their woodland god Silvanus.

horned beasts – Pan, the god of of sheep and goats, had the legs of a goat and little horns on his head

stag – the story also alludes to the myth of Acteaeon who offended Artemis (a goddess of hunting, a defender of all wild animals, children and weak things; in Italy identified with Diana) by claiming superior skill at hunting or because he saw her bathing naked. To prevent his boasting of this exploit, Artemis turned him into a stag, and he was immediately devoured by his own hounds.

1. Identify the exposition, complication, climax and outcome of the story.

2. What is peculiar about the ending? Is it predictable?

3. Underline phrases marking the appearance of the supernatural.

1. Where is the action of the story set? What is the significance of the choice of this setting?
2. Consider the passages describing Yessney.

a) Find references to different plants.

b) Underline all epithets.

c) What connotations prevail?

d) Which words and meanings are repeated?

e) What atmosphere is created?

3. What feelings did the farm arouse in Sylvia? Which details gave her that feeling?

4. In the whole text pick out all the words connected with the notions of terror and unseen.

5. Which of the adjectives would you choose to describe the setting?

hostile

welcoming

alien

unfamiliar

inhospitable

mysterious

romantic

exotic

6. The ambivalence of the setting of the story is based on the linking of the beautiful and the cruel, of joy and terror, which is explicit in the sentence In its wild open savagery there seemed a stealthy linking of the joy of life with the terror of unseen things.

Pick out more examples of such linking in the sentences concerning

- the country

- the landscape

- the sound of a boy's laughter

- a boy's face across a tangle of undergrowth

- the music coming from the wood

- the last things Sylvia saw and heard

7. What social class do the characters belong to? How is it reflected in theirbehaviour?