Hangman

Is it always possible to avoid a powerful stroke with the fist, being a professional boxer? Yes, if you are able to foresee your adversary's treacherous attacks thinking ahead and elaborating counter strikes, own strategies and techniques. To defeat your enemy you should know him by sight.

In a splendid psychological novel Black Swan Green by David Mitchell the reader's attention is grasped at once with a Hangman. The introduced creature produces an ambiguous effect. On the one hand 'Hangman' is a concrete, existing name for an executioner, who carries out death sentences on condemned criminals by hanging. On the other hand 'Hangman' appears to be a harmless game, where one player thinks up a word and the other tries to guess it by suggesting letters. These two notions close interweave and render the author's idea of clear depicting the main character' speech disorder. The writer impels the reader to understand about the phenomenon of stammering; revealing how Hangman threatens to tie Jason's tongue into knots and makes the boy invent more and more alternative tricks to prevent stammering of words, that begin with N or S sounds (nightingale, know, something, some time). To strengthen this effect the author resorts to phonetic expressive means: onomatopoeia, which is upheld with graphical devices (Ex. 'there m - may be a ship out there'; 'The sssame up here as down there.' 'They - ' 'Erm ...'). Metaphorically Hangman acts like an invisible, unexpected hook that suffocates and lacks physical powers such as the ability to coordinate one's flow of speech. Lexically the author illustrates this process very convincingly using the verbs, which semantic connotation manifests them as humiliating, abusive and limiting one: to seize, to grip, to block, to decide not to let, to put the boot in in relation to Hangman's activity. The Hangman divided Jason's life into two great periods: Before and After. The defect declared itself when the boy was about eight years old, actually at the age when children enter primary schools and have to face some difficulties in socializing with classmates, especially when you stand out of the crowd, being a rare black swan green. Consequently we may infer that the speech disorder appears to be acquired and not congenital. Some outer, social factors must have provoked it.

Jason definitely knows that discovery of his secret - stammering will result in merciful persecution and mockery from gruff, pitiless and obscene school boys, therefore he painstakingly hides it. Despite his parents' being in the swim, they discuss the speech impediment with their son exactly never. Parents it was who could console the boy's psychical, inner phobia of unembarrassed communication, they should have explained to maturing, brittle soul that he must stop thinking of stammer as an enemy. Unfortunately the Taylors' marriage came apart at the seams and only strange people, such as Madame Cromylenk, Mrs. de Roo and Mrs. Gretton managed to persuade Jason, that stammering is a part of him which he should understand, accommodate with, even respect and never fear it. Confidence in interlocutor's willingness not just to listen to you for aeons, but more important to hear you brought relief to Jason's speech. The boy even forgot about Hangman when a person was interested only in what Jason says and not how he does it. The quotation cited from the book 'You think you are in charge of the secret, but isn't it the secret that's using you?' highlights the concealed hint on recognizing the stammer's right to exist. Goal is the constant learning how to live with it. Imagine that stammering is just a peculiar way you talk, keeping in mind that you choose a concerned listener and not vice - versa.

The author makes his principle character his mouthpiece. Novels written from the child's point of view are never written by children, they are written by adults for whom this particular problem occurred once. David Mitchell' style is characterized by the expert knowledge of the matter portrayed. The message of the story seems to be following: to surmount an obstacle means to be morally prepared for it and not to let this hindrance frustrate your objectives and bring your prosperous life way to a stop.

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SECTION 9

LETTERS TO THE EDITORS