Kabanova

Art for heart’s sake”

By R. Goldberg

The text under consideration is entitled «Art for Heart’s Sake». The author of above mentioned text is Reuben Lucius Goldberg (1883-1970), an American sculptor, cartoonist and writer. After graduating from the University of California in 1904 he works as a cartoonist for a number of newspapers and magazines. He produced several series of cartoons all of which were highly popular. Among his best works are «Is There a Doctor in the House?» (1929), «Rube Goldberg’s Guide to Europe» (1954) and «I Made My Bed» (1960). The text runs about treatment of an old man with a help of art. The functional style of the text can be found as belles-lettres. The genre of the text is the epic genre.

The plot of the story under discussion is intricate. It centers around an old man Collis P. Ellsworth who has troubles with his health when his financial transactions end in failure. In order to find for him a new interest Doctor Caswell offers him to take up painting, just for pleasure. And it was a great surprise when Ellsworth’s awful painting was not only accepted for the Show at the Lathrop Gallery, but took the First Prize! At the end of the story the protagonist says that art is nothing, that he bought the Lathrop Gallery, what surely doesn’t coincide with the reader’s expectations.

Plot structure is direct without any other complications. But nevertheless we should mention the climax of the story, because it helps to define the message of the whole story. Climax here is expressed brightly: “It gives the Lathrop Gallery pleasure to announce that the First Landscape Prize of 1,000$ has been awarded to Collis P. Ellsworth for his painting «The Threes in White».

As for the theme of the text it`s not easy task to state the theme of the text because it`s just an extract. But I suggest that it can be defined as job and career. Author wants us to understand that that nothing can change our nature, as say proverb «The...