Scribd
Upload
18 views

Analysis Doctor

Uploaded by

Natalie Shatohina
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
18 views

Analysis Doctor

Uploaded by

Natalie Shatohina
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

Doctor in the House

Richard Gordon

ANALYSIS

The text under consideration is an extract from a comic novel Doctor in the
House by a well-known British writer Richard Gordon. He was an English surgeon
and an assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. He left medical practice in
1952 and started writing his Doctor series. Doctor in the House is one of Gordon`s
twelve Doctor books and is noted for witty description of a medical student`s years of
professional training.

OR

The text under consideration is an extract from the novel “Doctor in the House” by
Richard Gordon, an English surgeon who wrote numerous novels, screenplays for
film and television mostly dealing with the practice of medicine. He was best known
for a series of 12 comic novels on a medical theme beginning with Doctor in the
House.
The novel was published in 1952. It concerns the exploits and various pranks of a
young medical student.

Summary 1:

The given excerpt is about the final examinations at the medical institution.
The author describes the atmosphere and feelings of the students during the whole
period of the examinations. The author gives the description of the preparation for the
examinations, the way they run, the way they are marked and the type of students
who are waiting for the oral examination.

Summary 2:

In the given extract, the narrator dwells on the fact that final examinations are
like an ordeal for medical students, they are even like death in a way. The medical
students see an examination not as a mere investigation of their knowledge, but as a
stressful contest. The first stage of examinations is a written one. It lasts for three
hours during which students start to differentiate themselves. All the students are
watched by an invigilator and the porters. After the examination the narrator met his
mate, Grimsdyke, who made a joke about a peculiar way to mark the papers. Oral
examination is the second stage, which appears to be more difficult. The narrator was
shown to a room and waited with other candidates, who belonged to several
remarkable types of medical students seen in viva-rooms. One of the occupants of the
room was a woman, who was likely to face the attitude of undeserved sternness.

Summary 3:

In Doctor in the House Richard Gordon tells the story of a young student of a
medical college, who is taking his final exam, which consists of two parts: written
examination and oral examination. At the beginning the author comments on what
exam is and the way the students prepare for it. Richard Gordon gives the readers a
detailed description of the process of passing the exam. Further on we see him taking
the viva that is an oral examination after which he describes his feeling while waiting
for results. The story ends with the professor announcing that he has passed the exam.

Functional style and its aim:


This extract belongs to the emotive prose and as such represents the belles-lettres
functional style. Its main aim is to give readers aesthetic pleasure, to make them think
and to entertain by appealing to their emotions.

Compositional structure:

Since the text is only an excerpt from the novel, its compositional structure
cannot be fully estimated.

Time and place of action:

As for the place of action, there are both direct (e.g. the room; in the square; a
tiny waiting-room; viva-room) and indirect spatial markers (the mentioning of
University of Cambridge suggests that the scene is laid in Cambridge, United
Kingdom).
The time of action is stated directly (e.g. half an hour before time; three
hours; about half-way through; a week after) and indirectly (e.g. ticked the days off
the calendar). Both temporal and spatial markers are lexical.

Types of narration:

One of the peculiarities of the analyzed text is the usage of entrusted narrative,
which means that the narration is carried out from the first person singular. [This
creates the effect of authenticity of the described events, as the narrator is the
personage of the novel who actually takes part in these events.]

A small insertion of dialogue is also used in this excerpt. It imitates oral


spontaneous speech by means of ellipsis: “How did you get on?”; “So-so”, “However,
I am not worried”. Another function of dialogue – self-characterization of the
personages – is achieved by the characters’ wide use of colloquial words and
student’s slang, for instance: “tripos”, “don”, “totter”, “chuck”, “crammer”, “stager”.

Narrative compositional forms:

As for the narrative compositional forms, narration, description and


argumentation are used in the excerpt. Narration presents the unfolding of the plot.
The markers are verbs: “discovered”, ‘’attended”, “began”, “walked down”, etc.
Description is presented in the form of interior (e.g. tiny waiting-room
furnished with hard chairs, a wooden table, and windows that wouldn’t open, like the
condemned cell) and portrait (e.g. There was the Nonchalant, lolling back on the
rear legs of his chair with his feet on the table. Next to him, a man of the Frankly
Worried class sat on the edge of his chair tearing little bits off the invitation card and
jumping irritatingly every time the door opened. There was the Crammer, fondling
the pages of his battered textbook in a desperate farewell embrace, and his opposite,
the Old Stager, who treated the whole thing with the familiarity of a photographer at
a wedding). The way the types of students are described is implying details. The
readers may infer from the students’ behavior that the Nonchalant is a careless one
while the Frankly Worried is extremely nervous, the Crammer is the smartest one,
and the Old Stager is the dullest one.
Argumentation offers considerations about moral, ethical and other issues. The
usage of Present Simple Tense and indefinite articles is suggestive of it. An example
of argumentation can be seen in the following sentences: “An examination is nothing
more than an investigation of a man’s knowledge”; “To a medical student the final
examinations are something like death” etc.

Stylistic devices:

The author uses different stylistic devices to depict the characters and the time
and place of action. They include:
• simile (e.g. examinations are something like death, he goes at them like a
prize-fighter, porters <...> stood like the policemen, waiting-room <...> like
the condemned cell, he will come <...> struggling like a cow in a bog);
• metaphor (e.g. examinations are a contest, ran a sprint down the paths of
medicine, looked down at the poor victims, treated the thing with the
familiarity of a photographer);
• epithet (e.g. flagrant, awkward, brilliant, terrible, nonchalant);
• antonomasia (e.g. the Nonchalant, the Frankly Worried, the Crammer, the Old
Stager);
• allusion (to the Bible ─ the viva is judgment day; to the Greek mythology ─ the
god&apos;s brow threatens like imminent thunderstorm);
• hyperbole (e.g. if the candidate loses his nerve <…> he is finished, the viva is
judgment day).

Thematic and key words. Title words. Author's message.

The thematic vocabulary of the text is: “examination”, “student”,


“knowledge”, “medicine”, “papers”, “textbook”, “viva”, “cheating”,
“examiner” etc. They concern the lexico-thematic field of the university life.
The key vocabulary of the text is: “inevitability”, “contest”, “fight”,
“despondently”, “threat”, “punishment”, “confusion”. The key vocabulary reveals
the author’s message: training to be a doctor is an ordeal and requires remarkable
endurance.
The title words Doctor in the House resonate with the author’s concept. The
main character was accepted into St. Swithan’s medical school and that came as no
surprise to anyone since his father was “a St. Swithan’s man”. Once there, it was
rather a shock to discover that he would actually have to work, and quite hard.
However, life is not all dissections and textbooks for a medical student. The words in
the House are suggestive of it.

Questions:

1. Tell about the author and present the summary of the given extract.
2. What functional style does the extract belong to? What is its aim?
3. Speak of the types of narration which are presented in the given extract.
4. Dwell on the time and place of the action.
5. What are the keywords and thematic vocabulary of the given extract?

You might also like