John Boynton Priestley (1894 - 1984) is one of the outstanding English authors of today.
His early books (1922-26) were of a critical nature. It was the success of his novel "The Good Companions" (1929) which brought him world fame. In early thirties Priestley began his work as a dramatist. "Dangerous Corner" (1932) — one of the series of Seven Time Plays — was his first effort in dramatic art. Priestley's other most famous novels are "They Walk in the City", "Angel Pavement", "Wonder Hero", "Far Away".
"Let the People Sing". Bright Day" and many others.The text under analysis is an extract from the play “Dangerous corner”. It tells about several men and women, who have just heard a wireless play and started a discussion about such notions as truth and lie.
As the conversation develops one of the characters, Robert, realizes he’s not able to bear the truth and after telling everybody a number of awful facts he shoots himself. Speaking about the idea of the text under analysis, one should say that the play describes a very difficult situation in one’s life.It describes the moment, which is characterized by the necessity to face some difficulties or facts. However, the latter can be not only pleasant, but awful as well, and then the whole situation turns out to be a “life” examination.
This is what the whole play and the title especially unveils. It turns out that only Robert is sure truth has always to be said, the rest come to think that people are likely to lie and often they do so undeliberately. Here we observe the problem of the play – the author assumes mankind applies lies uncautiously and this causes lots of handicaps and troubles in life.People forget that keeping falsehood as a habit is considered as bad manners.
The neat comparison of truth with the sleeping dog gives the play excitement and vividness. Indeed, when letting the truth out we can do more harm to ourselves, sometimes not comparable with the lie. One should notice that the wireless play, which is mentioned by the characters, is called “The Sleeping Dog”. This may be interpreted as the allusion to the proverb “let the sleeping dog lie”. As the characters explain, the sleeping dog is the truth, which you shouldn’t disturb.However, not all characters agree with this statement.
Robert Caplan breaks out telling the trifling facts about his brother’s suicide. As a result this leads to Robert’s suicide. From the stylistic point of view, a play is a stylized dialogue, stylized because of the effect of natural speech: a lot of elliptical structures, interruptions, cases of aposiopesis, and it is the peculiarity of the drama works. The first part of the extract under analysis produces the effect of the idle discussion.This is due to author’s remarks: “who doesn’t care”, “in her best childish manner”, or “still fiddling with the wireless” – the characters pretend to be not so deeply interested in the topic discussed. But this idleness confronts with the seriousness of the topic, and it leads to the creation of irony.
Irony here is created with the means of syntax and intonation. For example: “To lie or not to lie.... ” This phrase is an allusion to Shakespeare’s “to be or not to be” – a question of life and death for Hamlet, it is the first sign of seriousness of the discussion.
However, the atmosphere of the second part changes greatly. It is the beginning of the quarrel, and the devices used there are aimed to show the growth of the tension. One can find in the narration an example of epiphora (“I agree. – You agree! ”) or anadiplosis (“You’ll get no sympathy from me, Caplan. – Sympathy from you! ”) with an exclamation mark at the end.
The third part lets us gradually follow Robert’s perception of his new situation. As the situation became clearer in his mind he became more and more desperate because of losing his illusions.We can see it even by repetitions of different kind, ellipsis, parallel syntax that breaks the monotonousness of natural speech. Intonational structure, harsh words (e.
g. “bloody glands”, “fool”, anticlimax “damned silly little squable”) and authors remarks in the brackets (e. g. “terribly excited now”, “in a frenzy”, “crazy now”) let us feel Robert’s pain.
And what is even more painfull for him is the fact that he broke his own world with his own hands (e. g. “I had to meddle, like a child with a fire. I began this evening with something that kept me going.I’d good memories of Martin. I’d a wife who didn’t love me, but at least seemed too good for me.
I’d two partners I liked and respected. There was a girl I could idealise. And now – “ And now he has lost everything, he even doesn’t have the faith in tomorrow: “There can’t be a tomorrow! ”). This is the climax in the narration. A little piece of the stage directions at the very end of the extract is anticlimax. It tells the reader that everything is over for Robert and he didn’t managed to pass this dangerous corner.
