Analysis of an extract from "The passionate year" 
Character drawing
The text under analysis is an extract from the novel "The passionate year" by James Hilton. It concerns the problems a new teacher faces in his class.
The protagonist of the extract is a new Master at school for boys, Mr. Speed, who in fact represents the generalized image of all young teachers. The antagonists are the boys united by the author into the assembly which acts as a whole. Hilton singles out only two pupils, “a bright, rather pleasant-faced boy” and “a lean, rather clever-looking” one, to create even more detailed picture of the behavior and the personality of children of middle teenage.
There are almost no examples of characterization through appearance in the extract, probably because the appearance is irrelevant to the story. The author is more interested in the inner world of the characters, their feeling and their reactions in different situations. Thus the most frequent methods of characterization used in the text are character through speech, through psychological analysis and through action.
For instance, we can say that Speed was a sensible person as he was “keenly conscious” of “an atmosphere of subdued expectancy”. Although everything seemed to be “quiet” and “orderly” in the beginning of the lesson Speed knew that the children would try to rag him and he was very excited about it. The Speed’s nervousness is highlighted by the use of the hyperbolic simile and hyperbolic metaphor in the following sentence: “Speed felt rather as if he were sitting on a powder-magazine, and there was a sense in which he was eager for the storm to break.” Not only this but also the constant repetition of the time (“at five to seven”, “at five past seven”, “At about a quarter past seven”) emphasize the Speed’s excitement.
Also from the paragraph “He stood up and said, quietly, but in a voice that carried well: "I don't want to be hard on anybody, so I'd better warn you that I shall punish any disorderliness very severely" we can see that
The text under analysis is an extract from the novel "The passionate year" by James Hilton. It concerns the problems a new teacher faces in his class.
The protagonist of the extract is a new Master at school for boys, Mr. Speed, who in fact represents the generalized image of all young teachers. The antagonists are the boys united by the author into the assembly which acts as a whole. Hilton singles out only two pupils, “a bright, rather pleasant-faced boy” and “a lean, rather clever-looking” one, to create even more detailed picture of the behavior and the personality of children of middle teenage.
There are almost no examples of characterization through appearance in the extract, probably because the appearance is irrelevant to the story. The author is more interested in the inner world of the characters, their feeling and their reactions in different situations. Thus the most frequent methods of characterization used in the text are character through speech, through psychological analysis and through action.
For instance, we can say that Speed was a sensible person as he was “keenly conscious” of “an atmosphere of subdued expectancy”. Although everything seemed to be “quiet” and “orderly” in the beginning of the lesson Speed knew that the children would try to rag him and he was very excited about it. The Speed’s nervousness is highlighted by the use of the hyperbolic simile and hyperbolic metaphor in the following sentence: “Speed felt rather as if he were sitting on a powder-magazine, and there was a sense in which he was eager for the storm to break.” Not only this but also the constant repetition of the time (“at five to seven”, “at five past seven”, “At about a quarter past seven”) emphasize the Speed’s excitement.
Also from the paragraph “He stood up and said, quietly, but in a voice that carried well: "I don't want to be hard on anybody, so I'd better warn you that I shall punish any disorderliness very severely" we can see that