The stylistic analysis

The Doctor in the House by Richard Gordon

Done by Dasha Ashurova, 45gr

The main feature of Richard Gordon's art is the deal with the practice of medicine. The novel “Doctor in
the House” is not an option. It should be mentioned that Richard Gordon is most famous for his comic nivels
on a medical topic starting with the very novel “The Doctor in the House”.
In the passage under discussion the author presents the emotional atmosphere of the most important days
of the students all over the world – the finals. The text itself belongs to a psychological type as it is
concerned with the in-world of the main character, his feelings about all that happens around him. The
atmosphere of the finals described in the passage is a tense one. Because of the authors talent we can feel this
very well. The plot of the story develops slowly towards a simple and rather foreseen conclusion. The author
gets to the conclusion easily through the description the students waiting, the characters hoping, the world
stopping. The description is like the heartbeat in the moments of tense emotions.
The story “The Doctor in the House” is an in-depth study of the human nature. Written in the first person
narration, it provokes the reader to live the finals' moments with the narrator, to reflect the reality
subjectively, to accept the food for thought.
The charm of the story lies in fantastic realistic portrayal of the characters, a truthful description of the
general mood. It cannot a surprise for the reader, as the story can be named an autobiographical one because
Richard Gordon is a doctor himself and knows about the final medical exams from his own experience. That
is why it is an easy task for him to make the problem (the behavior of people under tense circumstances)
keep the reader in suspense.
Richard Gordon tries to picture the inner world of all the students who take the final exams by making all
the thoughts of the main character clear. That realism can be felt during the whole passage starting from the
introduction up to an end.
Compositionally the text falls into four logical parts: the introductory part with the description of how the
finals are senn by the students, the narration of the process of taking the writing and the oral exams, the
climax which lies on pointing out the “waiting for the results” moment and finally, the denouement –
learning the results of the exams.
The first part of the passage reveals the exams to be the fighting battle between the exaniners and the
examinators. The vividness of the description has been achieved by the use of the metaphors which disclose
the author’s emotionally coloured individual attitude towards the situation which is described in the passage.
The author compares the examinations with the fight, with the death: “to a medical student the final
examinations are something like death”, “examinations touch off his fighting spirit”, “the examiners,
conducted on well-established rules for both, and he goes at them like a prize-fighter”. Giving the
information about the rules of the written examinations, the author compare the students with “poor
victims”, controlled dispassionately by two or three uniformed porters. That is done to clear up an scaring
atmosphere in examination rooms, full of students who are scared to death.
Speaking about taking a written exam, Richard Gorgon keeps picturing the exam as s fight. The fight that
lasts eight rounds, a hard three-hour fight to win according to the narrator.
The next fight that is taken by the narrator is the oral one. The allusion used in the narration helps to
bring the real state of things: “But the viva is judgment day”. It's the day after which nothing can be changed:
you win or you lose, that's it. The author also resorts to such similes as “the god's brow threatens like
imminent thunderstorm”, “struggling like a cow in a bog” to show the significance of this day and the logics
of the students: you pass or you are dead, your future is dead. The oral exam is a hard thing to deal with. The
narrator is so nervous that he cannot recognize the examiners, one of whom is “ like a retired prize-fighter”,
the other is “invisible”. The author here uses a great effect of a simile and an epithet.
It also should be mentioned that in this part the author pays great attention to the characters. According to
him, there are four types of students: “There was the Nonchalant, lolling back on the rear legs of

his chair with his feet on the table. Next to him, a man of the Frankly Worried class sat on the
edge of his chair tearing little bits off his invitation card and jumping irritatingly every time
the door opened. There was the Crammer, fondling the pages of his battered textbook in a
desperate farewell embrace, and his opposite, the Old Stager, who treated the whole thing
with the familiarity of a photographer at a wedding”. All the descriptive attributes used in this
passage serve to convey to the reader the environment of the waiting-room.
Days after the oral exam are black ones. Richard Gordon compares them with “having a severe
accident”. That device is used to demonstrate the mood of the narrator after all that hell. That makes us
forget all what has been before and concentrate on what is today and what will be in the future, what the
results will be.
From this very part of the passage time matters. The author pays attention to time a lot: “One minute to
twelve”. Only one minute, which does mean nothing to us and does mean everything to the narrator. That is
the minute of “ a frightening, unexpected silence and stillness , like an unexploded bomb”. By using these
stylistic devices, the author catches the reader's attention to the culmination, the climax – the results. “The
world stood still. The traffic stopped, the plants ceased growing, men were paralysed, the clouds hung in the
air, the winds dropped, the tides disappeared, the sun halted in the sky”. That special choice of words, that
usage of asyndeton and parallel constuctions produce a great effect on our minds and makes us read faster,
makes us wait for the results as if they are ours.
As you can see the author's style is remarkable for its brilliant illustrations and deep psychological
analysis. Everything he touches seems to reflect the feelings of the heroes, and his power in depicting their
feelings is enormous.