Prose Assessment.

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Higher Literature

Prose Assessment

                           Vernon Scannell writes "And then they came, the walking wounded / Straggling the road like convicts loosely chained" in his poem "Walking Wounded". This is where William McIllvanney took his inspiration from for his book of short stories- "Walking Wounded." All of his short stories are abotu people who are metaphorically the 'walking wounded', they have been wounded in life, hurt in someway and they feel that life has let them down. The theme of lonliness is very apparent in most of McIllvanney's stories and looking at the stories "Beached" and "Death of a Spinster" I will explore the theme of lonliness through charecterisation and symbolism.

                         "Beached" is the story of a woman who goes to the beach with her children and thinks about a lot as they get ready to leave. In "Death of a Spinster" we are told the story of a woman whose life is a regimental routine but when she is unhexpectedly killed we find there is a very different side to her.

                          "There was one yacht's sail out in the bay, sickled with wind stress, a cipher of all the journeys she would never make." The author's use of word choice in this sentence compares the yacht to Marion and her life. The yacht's sail is "sickled" by the stress of the wind just as Marion is crumbling and breaking down because of the stress of losing her partner. By using the word "cipher" it shows Marion is comparing herself to the boat; "cipher" means to encode something so Marion has encoded this boat into herself. She thinks that life has let her down and that by losing her partner there are things she will never be able to do again; her life is restricted. "...a cipher of all the journeys she would never make again." This shows her lonliness and how she longs to have her partner back with her. The character in "Death of a Spinster" is never given a name; she is the nameless spinster. Everything the spinster talks about indicates that she is alone so the theme of lonliness is very apparent in this story. "She toasted one slice of bread and buttered it. She poured the hot water into the cup containing instant coffee and one sweetener. She put one egg..." She makes a very detailed list of breakfast showing that she knows it off by heart it is the same each and every day. Each detail in breakfast is made for one person only showing how alone she is and how she is aware of how alone she is, the author emphasises this by making everything in the story singular or for one person only.

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                        Although both characters are similar because they are very lonely, there is also a contrast between them. The spinster has a set routine for everyday; her whole life is a ritual whereas Marion's life has no routine; her life has been turned upside down and she has noidea what the future holds for her. "Each weekday was mapped." This is how the spinster refers to her life, she has everyday planned to the last detail, it is preordained, almost geographically laid out. "The day took her to itself ...

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