Art for Heart’s Sake
The text under consideration is“Art for heart’s Sake” written by an American sculptor, cartoonist and writer, Reuben Lucius Goldberg . He worked a lot as a cartoonist and some of his cartoons became highly popular, among his best works are Is there Doctor in the house? (1929), Rede Goldberg’s Guide to Europe(1954) and I Made my Bed (1960) . The story is about an old sick man, about Mr. Ellsworth. He is very capricious and everybody are tired of his behavior. Once his doctor decides to employ a young promising artist who will teach him painting. Mr. Ellsworth is bad in painting but one of his picture is accepted for the Lathrop show and awarded 1000$. And finally this old man says that Art is nothing and he has bought the gallery where he won such prize. According to the change of the number of participants the text can be dievided in to 4 parts: The first is “Pineapple juice for Mr. Ellsworth”. When the male nurse Koppel persuades pineapple juice to Mr. Ellsworth, but he refuses to drink it. The second “Proposition for Mr. Ellsworth from his doctor”. In this part doctor Caswell comes to see Mr.
Ellsworth and made him proposition to take up art. The third “Art lessons for Mr. Ellsworth from young and promising artist” This part about teaching Mr. Ellsworth drawing by Frank Swain- eighteen years old promising student. The fourth “First Landscape prize for Mr. Ellsworth” When the Lathrop Gallery prized 1,000$ Mr. Ellsworth for his masterpiece “Trees Dressed in White” The atmosphere of the text is ironical and sometimes it is humorous. For example when doctor Caswell said with supreme effort: “Congratulations, Mister Ellsworth”. Here we see how Caswell tells it without sincerity.
Author shows that everything is a joke or a play for Mr. Ellsworth and also he shows , that money can do everything and he makes fun of it: if you have money you can do and get everything you want, for example prize of the Lathrop Gallery, maybe he needn’t money he just wants to proof that he is God . Mr. Ellsworth doesn’t respect others, he spits on someone’s opinions. Finally Mr. Ellsworth is prized with 1000$ by the gallery because he bought it. According to the narrative technique of the text. It is narration intercepted with dialogue and description.
We can see here a chain of actions and some dialogues during the text, and also there is describing Mr. Ellsworth and some things such as bowl of fruit. Speaking about vocabulary level we can see high level vocabulary. Everybody and Mr. Ellsworth is well-educated and very smart. Everybody talk to Mr. Ellsworth very respectively, but Mr. Ellsworth doesn’t respect them and he uses a lot of colloquial words and slang such as Nope, Rot, by gum. It shows us that old man spit on everything. Speaking about the syntax we can see here many long compound sentences, respective addresses to Mr. Ellswoth with word “Sir” (Not bad, sir; Yes, sir;) it means that everyone afraid of Mr. Ellswoth and it means they have respect for him. And also there are some short answers from him. For example: Bosh! ; Nope! ; By gum. All of this shows us the degree of education of every participant but it doesn’t mean that Mr. Ellswoth is not well educated he just doesn’t care about anything. Speaking about stylistic devices we can see here gradation shows that his behavior is awful for example “He won’t take his pineapple juice. He doesn’t want me to read to him.
He doesn’t like anything! From these phrases we see that the old man is very capricious, he drinks when he wants, he listens what he wants. He has much money and he thinks that everybody obliged to him. There is also a metaphor such as “god-awful smudge” which shows us that he is layman in art. And also Mr. Ellswoth uses such metonymy as “an old pineapple juice” it shows us disrespect and attitude to his nurse. There are some repetitions showing doctor Caswell’s astonishment “Fine, fine… See, see… ”. We can see here 3 main characters.
Doctor Caswell is well educated person he knows what he do and he is smart. Young Frank Swain he is a promising student but doesn’t have long-live experience, but hi is smart too. And of course Mr. Ellswoth he is educated person but he doesn’t show it. He is old man he has money and he thinks that he is above everybody, that is why he doesn’t respect others. This text was interesting for me; there are many rich and fool people in the world such as Mr. Ellsworth and the author showed us his life and made fun of such behavior, it is funny and interesting.
