Interpretation of literary

velopment of action. The author shows the course of events and their 
development which ensures from the main "jerk", from the initial 
collision. The development of events leads, finally, to the moment of 
great tension, to the decisive clash of interests, to the topmost point —to 
the culmination. 
Culmination — the topmost point is a moment of decisive im-
portance for the personages' destinies. The events following the 
culmination take the already settled course of development, while before 
the culmination the action could assume the most unexpected course of 
development. As a rule culmination represents a text span saturated with 
various stylistic devices, emotional and image language means. Very 
often it contains the most intensifying stylistic device—climax. That is 
quite justified, as culmination, representing the summit part of text 
composition, supplies the most important facts for deriving conceptual 
information. Here we come across all kinds of foregrounding and first of 
all convergence of stylistic devices. 
For instance, it is very distinctly seen in E. Hemingway's novel 
"Farewell to Arms". The novel is widely known as an antiwar literary 
production, although love theme also gets a considerable development in 
it, especially in the last two parts. That's why we can point out two 
culmination peaks in it: retreat at Caporetto in the second part and 
Henry's fears during Catherine's labour in childbirth in the fifth part. 
Now we shall consider the second peak. 30 
Against the background of the outwardly neutral narration about the 
developing events we suddenly come across an extract standing out in 
sharp contrast to the rest of the book by the style of its relation: "Poor, 
poor dear Cat. And this was the price you paid [or sleeping together. 
This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each 
other. Thank God for gas, anyway. What must it have been like before 
there were anesthetics? Once it started, they were in the millrace. 
Catherine had a good time of pregnancy, ft wasn't bad. She was hardly 
ever sick. She was not awfully uncomfortable until towards the last. So 
now they got her in the end. You never got away with anything. Get 
away hell! It would have been the same if we had been married fifty 
times. And what if she should die? She won't die. People don't die in 
childbirth nowadays. That was what all husbands thought. Yes, but what 
if she should die? She won't die. She's just having a bad time. The initial 
labour is usually protracted. She's only having a bad time. Afterward 

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35 
we'd say what a bad time and Catherine would say it wasn't really so 
bad. But what if she should die? She can't I tell you. Don't be a fool. It's 
just a bad time. It's just nature giving her hell. It's only the first labour 
which is almost always protracted. Yes, but what if she should die? She 
can't die. Why would she die? 
What reason is there for her to die? There's just a child that has to 
be born, the by-product of good nights in Milan. It makes trouble and is 
born and then you look after it and get fond of it maybe. But what if she 
should die? She won't die. But what if she should die? She won't. She's 
all right. But what if she should die? Shi: can't die. But what if she 
should die? Hey, what about that? What if she should die?" 
The cited extract reproducing the thoughts and feelings of the 
personage is given in the form of represented speech imbued with 
language expressive means and stylistic devices. It conveys great 
emotional tension of the young man — love, alarm and deep concern for 
the beloved person, his foreboding of disaster. The language means 
realizing these feelings are repetitions, rhetorical questions, special 
constructions, interrogative sentences, gradation. The main device of 
foregrounding used here is a repetition-, the repetition of words, 
constructions, phrases, sentences. The phrase "but what if she should 
die?" repeated in this comparatively small extract ten times does not 
only convey the young man's despair, but also creates the impression of 
an obsessive thought, in this way predetermining the further 
development of the plot, predicting its deplorable outcome. 
As a rule the culmination is followed by a denouement, i.e. the