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The Worm in the Apple

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The worm in the apple John Cheever is an American novelist, who gained his popularity as a short-story writer, for which he was awarded with Pulitzer prize for fiction. His work mostly deal with the duality oh human nature corroborated by cultural and psychological background. And his short story titled “The worm in the apple” is not an exclusion. The story unfolds very smoothly and evenly in spite of of the stirring and at the same time troubling subject of the matter. We get acquainted with the main characters – The Crutchman family “so very very happy and so temperate in all their habits and so pleased with everything that came their way”, due to the anaphoric repetition the author creates intensification, that states the problem – …show more content…

For everybody the Crutchman's family apple is perfect, but inside, it is repellent. With the help of the atmosphere the author shows his own discourse about the problem – for him this family's way of life is ridiculous and absurd. He dwells upon it with tongue in cheek. It seems that characters are everywhere but not in their family just because they know and understand the despair and ruefulness of their little family theater. One more theme is relationships between parents and children. And one more time we see the worm: the mother who loves one child more than the other one, the mother who is jealous of her own daughter. And that of course cannot but contributes to Rachel's and Tom's future lives. Having condemned her own life, Helen does the same about their children's ones. Speaking about the language, it contributes to the whole effect of the story. It opens with the sentence that sounds like a contradiction the Crutchmans are so happy that everyone necessarily believed that they are not. It is impossible not to notice the irony of Cheever – they are so so so very happy. This usage of numerous adjectives makes the story emotional and intense. Cheever creates the increase of tension by long sentences (he was at the communion rail, the fifty yard line). Many of them are 4-5 lines. But for slatting the problem the author uses simple short rhetorical questions. There aren't many stylistics devices in the text and the title of the story is maybe, the main

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