George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays.

  This extract tells us about the attitude to people of old generation. There are two waiters who are represented a young generation. Between them is a long dialogue. Thanks  this dialogue the reader can see the problem of generation gap.

The characters are alive and believable. The main heroes of the chapter are: the old man and the two waiters working in a small cafe. They are discussing their permanent client, an old deaf man. The text has informal style.  The chapter can be divided at three logical parts:

1. Introduction starts with description of the place. An old man is sitting in the café alone. there are two waiters besides him . And they start discussing the man’s life. The developing starts with the words about suicide. And we can see the climax when one of the waiters while regretting himself, says it is a very pity  the old man hasn’t killed himself  last week.
2. In the outcome  one of the waiters loses his patients and turns the old man out.
3. To make the text colorfull the author uses many stylistic divises. Such as:

Repetition: In this extract the words “stormy”, “wet”, “mud” are repeated (reiterated) to emphasize the wretchedness of the weather.

Phrasal verbs: come on, make out, take into, hold out, find out, turn off, pay back, come into one’s mind, hand over.

Metaphors:  

Idioms:  

Adjectives:  

Adverbs:

Vulgar words:

Comparisons:  

The author uses so many stylistic devises because they usually produce a story more believable. And also to magnify emotions and thoughts of the characters. The Author uses the special manner of speaking for characterizing uneducated person to show us the difference and the distance between the gentleman and his guardian. Some stylistic devises demonstrate the reader  feelings of the heroes.

On my opinion this extract is very interesting for preparing the stylistic analyses. As There are many stylistic devises. The extract presented is like a small story with the logical end. But I want to read all the story, because I find it very fascinating.