“The Legacy” (text 4)

The aim of my report is to make an attempt of literary stylistic analysis of a text.

The text belongs to the pen of famous English writer Virginia Woolf who is well-known for novels
and short stories “Mrs. Dalloway”, “The Wives” and “New Gardens”. This writer is a strong
representative of early feminism literature.
The writing refers to the Literary Artistic Method of Realism as it is marked with reproduction of
reality in its typical features. As for genre it is presented as a short story. The name of the text is
“The Legacy”. The title directly corresponds with the theme. The Legacy is not just the items the
protagonist Angela Clandon left behind, but also the secret she took away with her.

The theme of the text is about relations between man and woman in their marriage. The narration
is given from the personality of the author and presented in the form of the 3rd person, the
omniscient point of view. The story takes place in the home of a widower Gilbert Clandon.
The composition is opened with the exposition which presents the main characters and the place
of the future events. The knot of the story happens when Gilbert finds the brooch Angela left her
secretary as a legacy before she died. He thinks of the things his wife has left for every important
person in her life. Unexpectedly the knot develops the events as follows: Gilbert gives the brooch
to secretary Sissy Miller and begins to read his own legacy - the diaries his wife left him. The first
pages are full of the events of their family life, Angela writing about how much she appreciates and
loves her husband. Angela then finds a job with a committee and it captures her thoughts. New
activities, meetings, and the opportunity to help people in need help the woman feel useful to
society and understand her own worth, perhaps for the first time in her life. She meets an
intellectual interested in politics, B.M., who increasingly appears in the lines of her diary.
When the development of the events comes to the hottest moment, the story achieves its climax -
the husband discovers that B.M. was more than just Angela's mate. They spent a lot of time
together, he was in the matrimonial home, he even suggested that Angela run away from Gilbert
and move to Egypt. B.M. threatened Angela by commiting suicide in case she don't escape with
him and then done it. That is why Angela deliberately stepped into the carriageway and caused a
car accident in order to get away from Gilbert.
Finally the climax is followed with an unexpected denouement. The reader learns the true cause of
her death: suicide from love grief, not from threats from B.M., who was also Sissy Miller's brother.
Angela was already suffering emotionally and physically, but Gilbert only realised this after reading
her diaries when he saw her true colours.
The main, round character is Angela Clandon. The hidden conflict which is presented is revealed in
the story can be determined as internal because it happens inside her thoughts and opens for us
only after reading her notes. Towards the end of the story Angela has changed - the woman who
seemed to love her husband, was proud of him and depended on his desires and money has
become a strong person with her own interests, capable of being useful to society. Whereas
Gilbert is a flat character because he has not changed, remaining an ambitious and selfish man.

The story is presented in the form of a closed composition, so the end is obvious for the reader. In
order to concentrate attention, the author uses the diary as a narrator and gives the story a lot in
common with the detective genre. As a result, Wolfe creates an atmosphere of emotional tension
so that the reader feels, if not a participant, then a witness to the events.

The message of the story is that the attitude towards a woman in marriage has a profound effect
on her life. . A husband who treats his wife as an attribute of his successful life may eventually not
only lose her as a marital partner, but literally kill her with it.