Mariia Shapurko, 412

Philological analysis

From: W.S.

By L.P. Hartley

The extract is taken from the short story “W.S.” written by Leslie Poles
Hartley, who is a prolific author of macabre stories. The author received the
Heinemann Foundation Prize of the Royal Society of Literature for his works. The
extract describes the meeting of Walter Streeter, the writer who received a lot of
strange postcards from anonymous correspondent, and the police officer. The general
atmosphere of this abstract is rather calm and friendly as the author feels reassured
with policeman’s coming and even finds an inspiration to write. The writer meets the
visitor very warmly and without any suspicion. But the policeman’s behavior can
make the reader doubt in the purpose of his coming.
This story is told by the third person of narration. Here Walter’s emotions and
feelings are described in details. Readers are concentrated on the author’s description
and can live out the same tension while reading.
The extract can be roughly divided into two parts: the writer’s peaceful
writing evening and the arrival of an uninvited guest and their conversation with
Walter.
In the first part we can see that the author uses anticlimax in order to assure the
reader that nothing evil is going to happen and the coincidence with the poisonpen is
just a hoax. Walter Streeter gets inspired in writing and the author describes it using
personifications “the words ran off his pen”, “a sort of exaltation possessed him”,
epithets “creative impulse”, “extra little sleep” and metaphor “he felt so much in the
vein”. These stylistic devices reveal the writer’s desire to create a new novel or story.
There is also a quasi-sentence “On, on” that shows Walter’s desire not to lose such
spontaneous spark of inspiration. In the first part of the abstract the author also uses
epithets that depict the atmosphere in the room “in the warm, snug little room” and
simile to describe the character’s feeling there “the silence purred around him like a
kettle”.
The sudden changes of the story’s mood is represented by elliptical sentence
“A visitor at this hour?”. So, the second part of the extract begins with this intensive
 Mariia Shapurko, 412
rhetorical question and that makes the reader feel some tension. The main character
feels very anxious about the guest that came so lately. In order to draw reader’s
attention to Walter’s emotions the author uses participle “scarcely knowing”,
nominative absolute participial construction “his knees trembling” and infinitive
“expected to find”. But the next sentence makes readers reassured since we see that
the main character feels a relief, when he opens the door. L. Hartley describes the
visitor by the extended metaphor: “the doorway filled by the tall figure of the
policeman”. It means that the coming of policeman is a big relief for the main
character as he expects his protection. L. Hartley uses metonymy when writes about
the policeman “men of the policeman’s stamp”.
The repetition “come in, come in” and indirect onomatopoeia “he prattled on”
express hospitality and happiness of the main character. In the story is also used a
colloquial language when he welcomes the policeman “make yourself at home”, and
imperative mood is used in this case too: “Come in and warm yourself”.
The author uses such compositional forms as dialogue and description. The
description is used for creating positive note in the abstract and it reveals feelings of
the main character. And the dialogue, on the contrary, creates tension and grips
reader’s attention.
Leslie Hartley uses different sentence structures like compound (“He held his
hand out, but the policeman did not take it”, “It was contrary to his routine to work
after dinner but to-night he did, he felt so much in the vein.”), complex (“They were
right who said the small hours were the time to work.”) to depict the inner feeling
and state of the main character. There are simple sentences that are used in
conversation between police officer and Walter (“I can’t stay long”, “Come in, come
in, my dear fellow”). The author uses also some elliptical and quasi-sentences to
show the true dialogue between them and create some tension in this situation.
The final phrase “I’ve got a job to do, as you know” makes readers be
interested in the continuation of the story.