Interpretation of literary

Poetic Details and Stylistic Devices. Exposing social inequality and evils resulting from it, the author chose contrast as an underlying literary device which logically opposses the characters of 2 irreconcilable classes.

Even, at the very beginning of the story, when Nathan and Tony, both still belonged to the working class, the author gives
characterological details in distinct opposition: qualities valuable for the propertied class—qualities unacceptable (or the propertied class (steady, silent, dignified—happy-go-lucky). Even this depicting detail".,, wore cloth uppers to his best boots", which seems insignificant at first sight accentuates Nathan's orderliness, thrift and reserve (evidently all pressbuttons are clasped), the qualities indispensable for a bourgeois. At the same time the depicting detail describing Tony through the meliorative epithet "handsome" doesn't denote a feature by which capital sets great store and that is convincingly proved by the ugly looks of the "grand man" married by Olive. The depicting details expressed through the pejorative epithets and simile "small, sharp nose", "bouncing red cheeks", "as two hills hide a barn in a valley" show that his repulsive looks didn't prevent him from acquiring wealth, while Tony with his good looks remained poor.
Speaking of the poetic details we must remark their scarcity. For instance, there is only one implication detail "The trustee went on lending the Braddle money to the country". Coppard defines the money as Braddle's but not Regent's because he wants to stress the fact that it was accumulated from the profits created by the Braddlc workers. The authenticity details are also very rare; "2 young men lived in Braddle", the Regents lived just outside Braddle", "Olive of the same age as Nancy" etc. It is necessary to point out that Braddle is given as a very vague authenticity detail, its geographic position on the map is not even mentioned, maybe it is a non-existent town. This fact fulfils a special function in the pamphlet. It helps to generalize the events and to show that the case of Braddle is typical of the entire country.
The contrast between the two characters is further realized through abundant stylistic devices.
The metaphor "... carried the good will of Patience in his handsome
face", hyperbole"... in his pocket at the end of his nickel •watch-chain" characterize Tony as a frank, open-hearted fellow overpowered by his feelings, while Nathan was a soberminded calculating person. He wasn't heart-broken after Patience's refusal and "... turned his attention to other things, among them la a girl ...". The stylistic device "bathos" used here makes it possible to join together concepts belonging to different classes "inanimate-animate", a girl is non-chalantly reduced to the level of a thing. That reveals Nathan's unromantic, businesslike approach to matrimonial affairs and the metonymy "Nathan married that (a neat little fortune) illustrates his commercial grasping nature,
However his wife appreciated his qualities because they were birds of a feather and she was rather a shrewd, sharp-witted person, anxious for social advancement, as the negatively-charged epithets "... a cute ambitious wife" prove it,
After Nathan's marriage the contrast in social position and wealth between the 2 young men grows very fast. It is expressed very vividly by the triple repetition of the identical phrase "Tony went on working at the mill" that is mentioned 3 times within one paragraph accentuating every step in Nathan's career: 1. Manager of the department, 2. joint managers, 3. owner of the entire concern.
The deliberate alliteration "possessions-position" in one sentence also contributes to the contrast, pointing to Tony's falling standard of living due to the growing number of dependants in his family.
The contrast between the 2 antagonistic classes is particularly vivid in the 2 sentences: "Almost everybody in Braddle. . . nor sullen". The first sentence emphasizing the consequences of constant labour with the help of polysyndeton and gradation "white and thin and sullen is opposed to the second, the anaphora "everybody" preceded by the negation serves as a signal of opposition; "sparkled" is opposed to "sullen", "neither white and, sullen" is opposed to "white and... sullen".
The contrast comes to its apogee when the author shows how capitalists and workers helped the country. The capitalists lent money and workers gave their sons. The recurrent phrase "Dan was killed in battle; his sister Nancy took his place at the mill". "Albert Edward was killed in battle; his mother took his place at the mill"—shows that it was a regular occurence and a mass phenomenon, the workers submissively reconciled themselves to their lot and didn't protest against it. They took it for granted that they must bring to the alter of war their own lives and the lives of their children, while the sacrifices of the capitalists were confined only to lending money which eventually returned in large sums of interest.
Stylistic-devices in the sentence "The country gave Patience a widow's
pension as ... grief" also perform very important artistic functions. The metonymy "the country" is used in the meaning of the Ministry of Social maintenance, which is closely connected with the main stylistic device of the sentence—bathos "gave a widow's pension as well as a touching inducement to marry again. Such heterogeneous concepts as pension (concerning the material sphere) and "inducement to marry again" (dealing with a very delicate sphere of human relations) are treated here
as phenomena of equal rank, as elements belonging to one class. That helps the author to reveal his critical attitude to the ruling officials, who looked upon women from the working class as coarse and rough, insensitive and emotionally unvulnerable. The sarcastic epithet "touching (inducement)" shows that although the advice was given in a very gentle manner, yet its impropriety and inaptitude are obvious and the author considers it a mockery of the widow's inconsolable distress after the death of her three beloved people. The sentence ends in an anticlimax which shows that contrary to the expectations of the kind well-wishers the heart-broken widow ceased to live. The anticlimax shows a callous and bureaucratic approach of the government officials to the victims of the war.

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