Analysis on the “One Stair Up”

The author of the story is Nairne Campbell, a Scottish novelist, the author of
two books “One Stair Up”, and “Stony Ground”.
To my mind the theme of the story is hidden under the surface. And in order
to get to it you are suppose to know the background of the story, all the
peculiarities of the relationship of the characters. But for now we can only give
guesses. I think this story is just about the fact that all people are different. Some of
them are not getting along very well, but we should find ways of changing the
situation, and never wound anyone’s feelings.
The plot is about two teenagers who went to see a movie. Through the story,
we notice that they have nothing in common. The time is the first half of the 20th
century, the place is Great Britain.
In the story there is a combination of external and internal conflicts. The
external conflict is between a boy and a girl. And internal conflicts are revealed
through the retelling of the boy’s and girl’s thoughts about each other. We should
take a notice on the fact that nothing changes through the story. The characters
aren’t changing, they are static. Their relationship between them isn’t changing. At
the end of the story the boy is still very delicate about the girl, as in the beginning;
and the girl does feel the same indifference and negligence towards the boy, as in
the beginning of the text. The text can be divided into several parts: exposition,
complication, climax and denouement.
There are two main characters in the text: Andrew and Rosa. They are both
flat characters, there are no story behind them in the text. They aren’t described
very well, and we can only create their portraits, based on their thoughts and
actions. We can see the stylistic parallel in the text, the comparison Andrew and
Rosa, and the comparison of the movies. Rosa reminds me of the ad picture,
because the ad picture had the plot, emotions, things to think after, etc. The big
picture was funny and entertaining, yet seemed a bit shallow and pathetic. In my
opinion those two movies are not bad or good, they are just different in genre, and
orientated to the different audiences. The same thing with the characters, I think
Rosa isn’t smarter that Andrew, she’s just more mature. And Andrew is a little
childlike, yet honest and sweet.
The story is narrated by 3rd person. There are several stylistic devises:
Metaphor: “hardest hearts”, “Peter Pan”; “smashed all the records”;
Epithet: “vibrant”, “rapid-fire”, “million dollar prize”; etc.
In the story there are also several colloquial expressions. I think the author put
them in the text intentionally, in order to give the readers the hint that the
characters are teenagers, and to single out the fact that the characters are different
from each other, because in addition to the colloquialisms there are several bookish
expressions.
I think the author intended to show us that people are different, yet it doesn’t
mean that we have the right to treat them differently.