Ilia State University

School of Arts and Sciences

Tamar Pirtskhalava

Analysis in
“Principles of analysis of English language literary text”

“The Luncheon” - by S. Maugham

Scientific supervisor: Nino Tevdoradze

My aim is to analyse one of the most famous short-story “The Luncheon”, written by
Somerset Maugham. As we know, the writer of a literary text is a representative of a
particular epoch. According to this, before analyzing it is important to know about the author,
cultural and historical context which the text belongs. Therewith, it helps us for interpretation,
which means understanding the integral meaning of a literary work - viewing literary work as
a whole.

Somerset Maugham was a famous 20 th century English novelist, playwright and short story
writer. He was the writer of the period of the modernist movement in literature. However, S.
Maugham is not regarded as a representative of modernist literary movement. His modernism
is not based on experiments in form and style, but Maugham’s modernism is expressed in the
themes of his stories.

Any literary text belongs to a particular genre. “The Luncheon” belognt genre of short story.
Generally, short story can be defined as a relatively brief prose narrative, usually
characterized by uniformity of action (having as plot a single action) and theme. It usually
tells events with a definite beginning, middle and end.

This short story is first person narration. The narrator is participant. We can see the point of view
of the narrator. For example: “Did I remember?","My heart sank", "as for myself, I chose the
cheapest dish", “are you still hungry?” I asked faintly, “I’ll do better than that”-I answered.

Before analyzing I would like to speak about plot:

The narrator, a book writer, recognizes a woman with whom he had lunch some years ago.
He remembers an incident with this woman. She wrote to him about his books and she
wanted to meet him for a luncheon. He was surprised because she had picked a expensive
restaurant and he had a few francs to survive for the month. She starts ordering expensive
dish after another and she leaves him broke. He gets his revenge by seeing that she now
weighs more than 130 kg.

The exposition is when the narrator is in the past-“it was twenty years ago and I was living in
Paris”. Cimax is when the bill came and narrator paid it.

In this short story flashback works as an important detail which allows to us find out what
happened twenty years ago. It seems in the text, when narrator thought “Did I remember?”
Herewith, flashback is seemed last paragraph when the narrator comes back to the present
and gives us information about his revenge.
As author’s tone can be revealed through the choice of words and details, we can say that
tone is ironical in “The Luncheon“. Irony is presented in restaurant. Narrator cannot go to
this expensive restaurant because of his income and herewith he is sitting with her and
watching how tasty this woman is eating. he had no money to pay for bill of meals in this
restaurant. It has irony effect.

This woman is revealed as an ironic character according her speech and actions. For
example, when woman have eaten so much and lasted she said: “Oh! No, I’m not hungry.
You see, I don’t eat luncheon. I have a cup of coffee in the morning and then dinner, but I
never eat more than one thing for luncheon. I was speaking for you”. Woman who says she
does not eat so much but really she is fat and loves eating. According to these the author used
verbal irony. Also, they met each other for talking, but woman talk about only meal. On the
other side, narrator only think about how he can pay the bill.

The word luncheon means to eat small, but in this text “luncheon” seems different. Author
used this word to make irony effect. Women who says one thing and does another. She eats
lots of meal but she mentions that it’s unusual thing to eat too much.

This story takes place in France and action is in restaurant. According to this short story, we
can speak generally about Paris life. We also know time and the name of this restaurant. “I
would meet her at Foyot’s on Thursday at half past twelve”

There are two characters in “the luncheon”:

1. narrator
2. the woman.

Both of them are different to each other in their action, thoughts and speech. As a result we
can see contrast between them. How different thoughts they have. What is important to
their life. Woman who’s life is based on eating delicious and expensive meals and on the
other hand, narrator who wanted to speak to her but during meeting, his thought is about
how pay bill.

In addition, it is emphasizing that we do not know this woman’s name, this points generally
how the society was. She is the face of those people, who lived in that period.

The language,. which is used to indicate some features of the speaker’s character, his state of
mind and his attitude to others, is important. Basically, author uses informal conversational
style: tag constructions “you know”, initiating signals - “oh” “well” and etc.
Finally, we can summarize “the luncheon” and say that this short story gives us information
about how was people’s life in Paris. It follows from woman, who is face of that society. He
uses different methods to make the story reality and interesting.