Get ready to answer these questions.
Lesson 2: D. H. LAWRENCE THE PRUSSIAN OFFICER
The aim of the lesson is to teach you to analyse the composition of a short story from the viewpoint of the development of its conflict, to find its psychological climax and explain what aspect of human experience the author is investigating.
1. Reproduce the beginning and give your own end as to the aspect of human experience the author is investigating:
Fiction is not photography - that what the author is looking for is some phase of human behaviour to which the author may react strongly and which he can use in a short piece of writing. A typical short story is usually centred around one (two) main character(s) and presents only some basic characteristic features, often interrelated. “The Prussian Officer” is centred around …
2. The first paragraph focuses on "they," but this focus changes to "he" in the second paragraph. Who provides this focus, and who narrates the story and from what angle or consciousness? Is the narrator omniscient? Is this story pitched in favour of the consciousness of one character over the other? Are we seemingly "inside the mind" of one character? or two?
3. The composition of the story is based upon a conflict between the two characters resulting from their contrast, which is stressed in the first pages of the story. It is the conflict between something cold and dead, on the one hand, and something warm and full of life, on the other hand.
Continue the list of a series of oppositions that organise “The Prussian Officer”:
Ø culture vs. nature
Ø masculine vs. feminine
Ø ……………….. etc. etc.
Comment upon one in detail.
4. If an author resorts to repetition - and Lawrence often does! - it is always done with a special purpose in mind. Repetition need not be an exact replica of what has already been given: the elements repeated can be phrased differently, their meaning being practically the same. This is true in relation to elements of any level: from separate words to episodes. Due to repetition, they assume an additional meaning and can sometimes act as key-words or key phrases.
Find instances of key-words and key-phrases and comment on their relevance to the composition of the story.
5. When the author works by implication, you should look for the details that suggest his attitude towards the character or the whole action of the story. If you find such details you are probably on the right track. In good fiction such details point in definite directions.
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Lawrence suggests his own attitude toward the characters and the situation from the start, and supports it throughout the whole of the story. The fact that the captain is described as cold and the orderly is “like a warm flame” is characteristic enough. When the captain is bulling the orderly the author is clearly on the latter’s side.
So we see that some descriptive or narrative details render the author’s meaning quite explicitly. Others, for all their descriptive value, are heavy with implication: that is, suggest more than they actually say.
Find instances of both kinds of details. Explain their role.
6. In “The Prussian Officer” imagery takes many forms, including that of analogies, repeated oppositions that function as motifs, and even subjects, such as war and women, that the text leads us to expect but that are obviously absent. Much of the imagery relates to the landscape through which the soldiers march.
Speak of the images (and symbols) connected with the setting in the story.
7. The composition of the story presents by no means a straight line. It depends to a considerable extent upon the so-called “flash-back” technique, - that is, on giving certain episodes in retrospect.
Account for the author’s violation of chronology. Why does the author divide the story into four sections, so unequal in length?
8. The short story taught Lawrence to concentrate upon the essentials. The force of his genius fused the poetic and the realistic, which made his selection of the significant moment achieve the intensity of effect which the later short story writers could seldom rival.
Select a really significant moment of the story that shows that Lawrence investigates the human soul in a moment of shock. Account for your choice.
Guide to the Story
THE PRUSSIAN OFFICER
(Prepare this material for class as well)
You are to analyse the opening of the story in order to see how the author relies for the total effect on two kinds of implication.
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The first kind is the so-called implication of priority, which helps us to reconstruct the events preceding the actual narrative. The second kind of implication is created hand in hand with the flow of narrative as such. The thing is that factual details rendering sensual perception (visual, tactile, etc.) work both on the level of factual information and on the level of what may be called “intentional coincidence” (which presupposes reading “between the lines”).
Get ready to answer these questions.
What is the composition scheme of the first four paragraphs?
What is the difference in the manner of narration as it is exhibited in these passages?
Who is the narrator? Through whose perception is the story being told?
Is there any change in the point of view, in the angle of vision?
Who is the narration about? Are there any details speaking about the relationship of the two main characters?
How are the time and place of action indicated?
How is movement indicated? Is the picture static of dynamic?
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