Dinara Gibadullina, 571

The analysis of the story «Anthony In The Blue Alsatia»

The story «Anthony In The Blue Alsatia» belongs to the pen of Eleanor
Farjeon, who was an English author of children's stories and plays, poetry,
biography, history and satire. Her most well-known works are: Faithful Jenny
Dove and Other Tales (1925), Kaleidoscope (1928), A Nursery in the
Nineties (1935) (autobiography), One Foot in Fairyland: Sixteen
Tales (1938), Kings and Queens (1940) (poetry, written with her brother Herbert
Farjeon), The New Book of Days (1941), Brave Old Woman (1941).
This story centers round a young boy Anthony reading about the train
breakdown in the morning newspaper and imagining himself as one of the
passengers. He describes the beauty of nature of the place where the train has
stopped and decides to stay there. In the end, however, we see him still reading the
newspaper.
The setting is given explicitly. The real action takes place in England, but
the imaginary one – in Alsace. The time is not mentioned and it does not play great
importance because the topical problems raised in the story may happen anytime.
The framing composition applied by the writer makes us see a story in a
story and expresses that a story is imaginary.
Here the author uses the 3d person narration. The text is mostly the
description with some elements of interior monologues and dialogues.
The plot structure can be easily divided into four parts. The exposition is the
reading of the article, where we see the words “Home Rails, Questions in the
House, and Three—Piece Suits”, which mean that Anthony finds the news too
typical, boring and uninteresting. Through the graphic device (bold) the author
highlights the key points of the article (“Mouchard”, “A Minor Mystery”), while
three dots show exactly those words that attract the character’s attention (“Jura
Mountains… Blue smoke…”). Moreover, the enumeration and the parallel
constructions “soldiers jumping out on the line and playing a concertina, a
nervous woman-passenger wondering what had happened,…” help to create the
rhythm of the train to imagine the situation described.
The complication is in Anthony’s dream, where he imagines himself as the
passenger who has left the train. Here by means of the rhetorical questions “Why
should it?”, “And where was the Mystery, Minor or Major?” the author shows
Anthony’s thoughts and inner monologue. The detachment “it is their drawback”,
“if only the train could stop” and the inversion “there you must go” reveal the
character’s romantic attitude to the railways. Through the anaphoric repetitions of
the words “Heavens” and “That is” (italicized) we understand that Anthony
admires train trip and compares it with paradise. Numerous epithets such as “long
flowering grass”, “chicory-blue flowers”, “sweet flowers”, “aromatic trees” and
the simile “as blue as dreams” describe the beautiful nature that the character has
 Dinara Gibadullina, 571
imagined. By these short exclamatory sentences “Oh-oh-oh!” and “Ha-ha-ha!”
the writer emphasizes the contrast between happy peasants and nervous, irritated
express passengers, which gradually leads us to the climax.
The climax comes when we find out that the Blue Alsatian Express is gone
without Anthony, which means that he prefers this imaginary world to ordinary
daily things.
In the denouement we see Anthony’s return to the reality. Here judging by
the sentence "He skipped it." we can say the reality he returned to does not attract
him at all.
The main characters of the story is Anthony. To characterize him the author
uses only indirect method. We can consider Anthony a young boy because while
reading the newspaper he is bored with those world's activities and choses only
extraordinary articles to read, which is seen through the simile “they skipped as
through the gauze”. He has a pretty good imagination since he imagines himself to
be a passenger of the train and also imagines other passengers and the nature
around the Alsace Express. The character has a romantic perception of the world
because the description of the peasants in his fantasy shows that he idealizes them
(“loose white shirts, embroidered jackets and aprons,…”). By means of
alliteration, personification and periphrasis in the sentence “«Swish!» sang the
young god’s scythe” the writer displays the fact that Anthony doesn’t realize this
peasant labor is really hard. Furthermore, the way he describes the peasants
characterizes him as a person who is not down-to-earth.
In this story I can point out 1 external conflict: one set of values against
another set of values. By the anadiplosis “…the millionaire who would be late –
for what? For what could one be late?” the author contrasts two opposite types of
people: those who forget about simple joys in their eternal haste and those who
know how to enjoy the moment.
The general atmosphere of the story is rather sentimental and romantic. The
writer achieves this effect by making blue and white colours predominant
throughout the text since they indicate harmony, virginity, beauty, light, softness,
peacefulness, and clearness.
As for the main idea, the message of the story is that people are too busy
with their daily routine; they are in a constant hurry and do not notice pleasant
trifles. But in fact, the ability to slow down and enjoy the beauty of the world is a
real gift that can give joy and peace of mind.