Analysis "The Passionate Year"

Analyzing the Text

“The passionate year” by James Hilton

This text was written by an English writer James Hilton. He was born in 1900. His literary success he had found at an early age. His first novel, Catherine Herself, was published in 1920, when he was 20.

Several of his books were international bestsellers and some of them were successfully filmed. In the mid-1930s Hilton lived and worked in Hollywood and in 1942 won an Academy Award Oscar for his work on the screenplay. 

Some of his works took an issue of the English society of his time — particularly narrow-mindedness and class-consciousness. They were frequently his targets. “The passionate year” was written in 1924.

The theme of the given extract is relationships between teachers and pupils, adults and children, which is highly difficult and need being taken into consideration. Frequently, there is a certain hierarchy between the teacher and pupils. The idea of the text is a lack of cooperation and partnership in relations. On the contrary, teachers stand above pupils even in the direct meaning. In this text the teacher took his seat on a raised dais.

The title of the work is directly related to the events. The title is “The passionate year”. In this extract we can see that the school year for Speed began, and nobody knows what events will expect him.

The plot developed strictly chronological. The exposition of the text begins from the very first sentence «Speed was very nervous as he took his seat on the dais at five to seven and watched the school straggling to their places» and ends with the words «… he was eager for the storm to break». The complication begins from the words «At about a quarter past seven a banging of desk-lids began at the far end of the hall» and ends with the words "Wawsley or Wurss-ley — however you call yourself — you have a hundred lines!"3 ». The climax begins from the words « The whole assembly roared with laughter » and ends « They went away laughing. ». The...