Interpretation of literary

V. Poetic Details and Stylistic Devices. (Authentic details, de-
picting details, character logical details, implicit details). The passage 
begins with a very realistic depiction of a non-existing state of 
Winnemac and the town of Winnemac. The author invents the names of 
the state and the town to create the effect of authenticity. By this 
authentic detail the reader gets the following implicit information: the 
described events could have taken place in any place of America and 
that they were very typical of the period. Then the author passes on to 
the description of the University of Winnemac which hires hundreds of 
young Doctors of Philosophy to give rapid instruction in Sanskrit, 
navigation, accountancy, rutabaga--growing and many other subjects. 
The author doesn't express his opinion openly, he pretends to admire it, 
he calls it "a prodigy", but it is obvious that he mocks at it. The mere 
enumeration of quite disparate sujects prompts the author's ironical 
attitude to such chaotic and superficial training. The metaphor (prodigy) 
and the epithet (rapid) acquire here an ironical meaning. No better are 
the authorities and the tutors. 
The president of the University is the best money-raiser and the 
best after-dinner speaker, young Doctors of Philosophy instruct in 
disparate subjects; Professor Edward Edwards never docs any 
researches. 
The students of the University described in the extract belong to the 
Digamma Pi Fraternity. They are Martin Arrowsmith, Ira Hinkley, 
Angus Duer, Cliff Clawson and "Fatty Pfaff". 
By depicting details which create the image of appearance and 
character logical details which accentuate the most characteristic traits 
of a personage, by some elements of foregrounding the author draws 
very convincing, vivid, bright portraits of the protagonists Martin Arrow 
smith and Fatty Pfaff. 
Martin is portrayed as a good-looking man who could have been 
the hero of amours. His peculiar features arc stubborness, shyness, 
fondness of sport. 
The author's positive attitude to Martin is expressed by evaluating 
epithets (respectable, fair). 
Quite opposite is the image of Fatty Pfaff. 
The stylistic devices of a simile and metaphors (He looked like a 
distended hot-water bottle, a baloon on legs; a sausage in corduroy 
trousers, the foregrounding which is contained in the name Fatty Pfaff 

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itself based on antonamasia or speaking name; alliteration f-f and 
onomatopoeia (Pfaff) create the image of a funny, 
corpulent man. 
The characterological details scattered over the text reveal the most 
essential features of Fatty: his mental deficiency, his superstitiousncss, 
his belief in spirits, has cowardice, his honesty. However, Fatty is not 
repulsive as there arc some positive features in his character: he is soft 
and honest. The diminutive suffix "y" in the name Fatty also reveals the 
author's sympathy, though this sympathy is rather condescending as that 
of his fellow-students, 
Some characteristic features of protagonists can be also expressed 
by the details of implicitness, 
"They bought the skeleton gratefully on the instalment plan Later 
the salesman was less genial". 
These two sentences reveal the implicit information: the students 
didn't pay off the creditor. The signals of implication arc the 
foregrounded elements of aposiopesis after the first sentence and the 
tale-telling details "later" and "less genial". The subcurrcnt text 
accentuates their dishonesty, social status and pragmatical carelessness. 
By implicit details the reader can receive some information about the 
characters' attitude to one another. 
So we come to know that the students tried to thrust Fatty 
through the examination as through a trap-door not because they wanted 
to help him but they were sorry to lose him because "this ole freat'll 
never have another goat like Fatty".