The Analysis of the text «Art for heart’s sake».

The text under analysis can be divided into six parts.

The first part is from the very beginning and ends with the words “at a great sacrifice both to his health
and his pocketbook”. I’d like to entitle this part “A stubborn old man”, because the author introduces
the main character Collis P.Ellsworth - an old gentleman of seventy-six, who had a heart attack and was
on the treatment, but he refuses to do anything prescribed by the doctor. He has an obsession of
buying different things, like jerkwater railroad, that harm his health and his pocketbook.

The name of the second part is “Doctor Caswell’s suggestion”. The doctor came to the patient to ask
him, whether he would like to take up art. The old man considered it a joke at first, but then accepted
the offer just for fun, and Doctor Caswell arranged an art student to come once a week and teach Mr.
Ellsworth to paint.

The third part is called “The process of unusual treatment and its positive results”. Frank Swain, a young
promising art student of 18, came to teach Ellsworth for five dollars a visit. The first picture the old man
drew was like scrawls. But Swain didn’t care, because he needed money to pay tuition. As it turned out
the old Ellsworth was interested in getting more lessons a week. The doctor noticed the improvement in
the state of mind of his patient, he was distracted from purchasing.

I entitled the fourth part “A very doubtful idea”. After visiting some exhibitions with Swain the main
character displayed an insatiable curiosity about the galleries and decided to foist his picture “Trees
Dressed in White” at one of the biggest art show in quality. The picture was absolutely awful, it
resembled a gob of salad dressing thrown violently up against the side of a house, so there was an
argument between the doctor and the nurse, whether they should have prevented the picture to
appear in the gallery in order to protect the old man from critics, but it was decided to let him expose
hid picture to preserve the good results of unusual treatment.

The next part is called “Shocking news”. To the utter astonishment of everybody it turned out that
Ellsworth was awarded with the First Landscape Prize of $1,000 for his painting.

I’d like to entitle the last part “Revealing the trick”, where the main character confessed that he had
bought the Lathrop Gallery a month earlier and proved in this way that art was nothing.

The key mood of the text is humorous. I can single out some minor feelings and moods. In the first part
there is the feeling of annoyance and irritation, when Ellsworth doesn’t want to drink pineapple juice,
because he is sick and tired of it. There is a mood of admiration, surprise, astonishment and delight
when the characters learn that Ellsworth is awarded. Also there is Ellsworth’s feeling of satisfaction
when he proudly displays the variegated smears of paint on his heavy silk dressing gown. To crown it all
there is a feeling of shame when Swain sees a god-awful smudge on the Lathrop Gallery’s wall and hears
the giggle.

On a level with one main character there are three subordinate personages. In the spotlight of this story
is an old prosperous extravagant gentleman Ellsworth, who is described indirectly. At his old age he is
very obstinate and selfish, also I find him fickle, like a child. Ellsworth is grumpy, impolite with people
who take care of him, but their feelings don’t bother him much. The speech of the protagonist is full of
rude, impulsive, rough interjections such as "Nope!", "Umph!", "Bosh!", "Such a foolishness”,
Poppycock!", "Rot!" These displays of Ellsworth’s difficult nature strikingly accentuate individuality and
patterns of old man: stubbornness, peevishness, aggressiveness, elfishness. Judging by the end of the
story and the managed trick of deceiving the others he is smart and cunning. Other characters have to
struggle with Ellsworth, they are shown in contrast to Ellsworth. Being beyond the barricade, they show
their own character traits. The promising student and young teacher Frank Swain is patient, because he
doesn’t lose his temper. He is also easy-going and polite. He is ashamed at the Lathrop Gallery, because
he feels responsibility for his work. As for Doctor Caswell from the positive point of view he is
considered to be a professional and creative person, because it has occurred to him to offer such a nice
and extraordinary way of treatment.

As for the main idea, to my mind, is there is no way you can change a person in character, when he
doesn’t want it, especially in such an old age.

I found the story rather interesting, because the plot isn’t hackneyed and the end is unpredictable.