How We Kept Mother’s Day free essay sample

The text under analysis is entitled â€Å"How we kept Mother’s Day†. It is written by Stephen Leacock, a famous Canadian writer of the 20th century. This is the first story of this author I have read. The story describes one day of author’s family life. The subject of the story is the celebration of Mother’s Day. The passage deals with problems of family life. It is the author’s narration. The story is told from the point of view of one of the characters. The text can be divided into several parts. All of them are logically connected. The first part of the text introduces the main characters and gives some details concerning their lives. There are 6 main characters: mother, father, the narrator, his sister Anne, his sister Mary and his brother Will. The author mentioned that father works in office, Ann and the narrator are study in college, Mary and Will study in High School. We will write a custom essay sample on How We Kept Mother’s Day or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The story opens with a description of planning the celebration of Mother’s Day. The plan was to express the entire gratitude to mother and to make a great holiday like Xmas. All the members of the family decided to stay at home that day, decorate the house with different stuff, buy new hat for girls and silk ties for boys, and as a surprise to hire a motor car and take mother for a beautiful drive away into the country, so that she could have a rest from her housework. From this paragraph we understand how thoughtful of mother her family is. The next part is devoted just to that day from the every morning. The author adds some information about the realization of their great plans. First of all, father suggested making a purpose of their drive, e. g. fishing, because fortunately he had just bought a new rod the day before. Further on the author goes on to say that in the car they had rented hardly seemed as much room as they had supposed. So they thought of the best way out of  the  situation – to leave mother at home to cook dinner, all the same she wasn’t fond of fishing. The last part tells us about the returning the whole family home late in the evening. The narrator describes how mother takes carry of all the family and of each of them. She prepared the grandest kind of dinner like on Xmas Day, and in addition she kept it hot for them guessing they would be late; she cleaned father and his clothes to put on because he got messed up with fishing. After the long dinner she washed the dishes herself and her children didn’t prevent her from it as they thought she really enjoyed it. Before going to bed mother said it had been the most wonderful day in her life and shed a tear. So the author comes to the conclusion that they could feel themselves awfully repaid for all that they had done. The story is written in informal functional style. We can find numerous words and phases proving it: all that kind of thing, awfully becoming, a little bit, have a big day, get messed up, the dinner†¦ was great fun, etc. Also there is the interjection well introducing some of the passages, the omission of the conjunction that and the syntax imitating that of oral communication by its free and careless structures. The story presents an interesting example of the indirect method of characterization. The author does not say directly that the members of the family were selfish, callous and hard-hearted people, but makes them act and lets the reader draw his own conclusion. The tone and colouring of the story How We Kept Mothers Day is emotional,humorous and ironic. The author is an expert in humour of situation. He makes the readers laugh at certain funny or absurd facts, Ð µ. g. the members of the family buying presents for themselves on Mothers Day, but buying nothing for their mother. There is also humour of words when the reader does not laugh at what is happening in the story but at how it is put by the author. E. g. But of course we all felt that it would never do to let Father stay at home, especially as we knew he would make trouble if he did. The author’s manner of writting is very vivid and colourful. I do enjoy reading it. The text is fairly interesting. It is a broad panorama of contemporary life written with brilliance and power. The text portrays typical family life as it is. Apparently the author describes the situation from his own life. The story is full of irony and amusing situations. It is sure to evoke an emotional response in readers.