A Kiss Before Dying (by Ira Levin)
2004
Two
He was born in Menasset, on the outskirts of Fall River, Massachusetts; the only child of a father who was an oiler in one of the Fall River textile mills and a mother who sometimes had to take in sewing when the money ran low. They were of English extraction with some French intermixed along the way, and they lived in a neighbourhood populated largely by Portuguese. His father found no reason to be bothered by this, but his mother did. She was a bitter and unhappy woman who had married young, expecting her husband to make more of himself than a mere oiler.
At an early age he became conscious of his good looks. On Sundays guests would come and exclaim over him – the blondness of his hair, the clear blue of his eyes – but his father was always there, shaking his head admonishingly at the guests. His parents argued a great deal, usually over the time and money his mother devoted to dressing him.
Because his mother had never encouraged him to play with the children of the neighbourhood, his first few days at school were an agony of insecurity. He was suddenly an anonymous member of a large group of boys, some of whom made fun of the perfection of his clothes had the obvious care he took to avoid the puddles in the school yard. One day, when he could bear it no longer, he went up to the ringleader of the hazers had spat on his shoes. The ensuing fight was brief but wild, and at the end of it he had the ringleader flat on his back and was kneeling on his chest, banging his head against the ground again and again. A teacher came running and broke up the fight. After that, everything was all right. Eventually he accepted the ringleader as one of his friends.
His marks in school were good, which made his mother glow and even won reluctant praise from his father. His marks became still better when he started sitting next to an unattractive but brilliant girl who was so beholden to him for some awkward cloakroom kisses that she neglected to cover her paper during examinations.
His school-days were the happiest of his life; the girls liked him for his looks and charm; the teachers liked him because he was polite and attentive, nodding when they stated important facts, smiling when they attempted jokes; and to the boys he showed his dislike of both girls and teachers just enough so that they liked him too. At home, he was a god. His father finally gave in and joined his mother in deferent admiration.
When he started dating, it was with the girls from the better part of the town. His parents argued again, over his allowance and the amount of money spent on his clothes. The arguments were short though, his father only sparring half-heartedly. His mother began to talk about his marrying a rich man’s daughter. She only said it jokingly, of course, but she said it more than once.
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He was president of his senior class in high school and was graduated with the third highest average and honours in mathematics and science. In the school year-book he was named the best dancer, the most popular and the most likely to succeed. His parents gave a party for him which was attended by many young people from the better part of the town.
Two weeks later he was drafted.
Comments. First Variant
1. The text belongs to the initial portion (not the very beginning) of a novel or a long-short story.
2. The genre of the book (or a story) is, judging by the title, a work of a detective fiction with a tingle of melodrama. Evidently it includes an unhappy love story. The literary trend, if it is possible to assess it by a comparatively short text is either realism or naturalism.
3. The author is surely an American (but the extraction is not certain), modern, judging by the time of publication. Whether it is “he” or “she” is not clear. Most probable we deal with an authoress, well-read in American short stories (Theodore Deiser, Sherwood Anderson). Since the text reads well, is a detective cum love story, the authoress might be pretty profilic. She is not a classic with the aspirations of a classic, but she has a style of her own: terse, dry and suggestive.
4. The text is dedicated to growing and maturing of a handsome man who inherited his mother’s ambitions and snobbishness and who is ready not to remain something as insignificant as his father. The part is but a start of a career of a hard, calculating man. Probably he will turn out the villan of the story.
5. The predominant impression as apprehension. Nothing is stated (or emphasized) definitely but some details are suggestive enough (understanding personal beauty, the cruelty in the fight, becoming a ring-leader, using an unattractive girl etc.)
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6. a) The character is an anonymous “he”. This only shows the attitude – negative – of the authoress.
b) The mother is a “bitter and unhappy” woman because of the frustration of her youthful hopes: “a mere oiler” sounds contemptuous.
Her snobbishness is stressed by her attitude to the Portuguese (not shared by his husband) and by not encouraging the son to play with them.
c) The selfish character of the boy is clear in his using “an unattractive girl”.
d) His hypocrisy is clear in the part describing his school-days. The repetition of the verb “like” and parallel structures make it clear.
e) The repeated mention of “the better part of the town” and his mother’s repeated joke about his eventually marrying a rich man’s daughter is another means of stressing the snobbishness.
f) The abundance of superlatives in the last paragraph of the text shows his success and realization of ambitions hopes.
In conclusion it is possible to suppose that the part “One” was devoted to the prospective victim of this worthy son of his mother. Should anyone, by any chance be in the way of “His” success, the outcome is clear.
The text surely belongs to an American author if only because the geographical names, mention of different nationalities and the use of “hazers” (meaning “bullies”).
Tasks: 1) Comment upon the sentences containing: “…world come”, “admonishingly”, “anonymous”, “again and again”, “cloackroom kisses”, “sparring”.
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