Analysis

The text I’m going to analyse represents a short-story, entitled “THE LUNCHEON”, written by a prominent, English novelist, short-story writer, playwright and essayist Somerset Maugham.

First of all I’d like to say some words about the title of the text “The Luncheon”. The title of the text is rather ironical. If we consult a dictionary, we can find out that the word “luncheon” means a “light snack”, but as we can see hereinafter a light snack turns to be an abundant and expensive meal.

The text represents the first person narration. The use of pronouns “I”, “my”, ”myself” is predominant. E.g. “Did I remember?”, “My heart sank”, “as for myself, I chose the cheapest dish”.

The plot of the text is the following: the narrator, a book writer, recognizes a woman with whom he had lunch years ago. He starts remembering the unforgettable evening. He was young, lived in Paris and could barely make ends meet. She had read of his books and wrote a letter to congratulate him on his work. He invited her for lunch and to his horror she chose an expensive restaurant. He had only eighty francs to last him the rest of the month. She ordered one expensive dish after another and when the bill came he paid and was left with no money at all. However, in the end, the narrator feels that he has finally had his revenge when he sees that the lady now put a lot of weight.

Maugham offers the reader a description sustained by dialogues which has a source in a flash back. The author presents a flash back soon at the beginning of the text and this flash back becomes an important detail “Did