Text Analysis of the Short Story Piano by William Saroyan
Text analysis of the short story Piano by William Saroyan
Piano by William Saroyan Text Analysis Saroyan, William (1908–1981) was a successful playwright. The eccentric, spirited author was born in Fresno, California, where his Armenian parents were fruit farmers and where he worked at odd jobs before gaining fame as a short‐story writer. He came to playgoers' attention with My Heart's in the Highlands but became famous with his much lauded The Time of Your Life , which won the Pulitzer Prize, although Saroyan noisily rejected it. His later works included Love's Old Sweet Song (1940); The Beautiful People; Across the Board on Tomorrow Morning and Talking to You ; Hello, Out There; Get Away Old Man; and The Cave Dwellers. Wolcott Gibbs called the writer “the most completely undisciplined talent in American letters,” and Brooks Atkinson, in a preface to Saroyan's published plays, noted, “When he writes out of general relish, usually in isolated scenes, [he] is at his best and made a definite contribution to the mood of these times, [but] when he permits himself to discuss ideas he can write some of the worst nonsense that ever clattered out of a typewriter.” As in most of his stories, William Saroyan presents, in Piano, a casual episode of the common life. The narrative, descriptive and dialogical sequences form together a perfect technique of rendering the content in a captivating way. The work of non-fiction is characterized by the presence of a covert narrator, who keeps to a more or less neutral voice and a fixed focalization. Thus, the third-person narrative creates the impression of objectivity in an attempt of seeming more trustworthy for the readers. saroyan piano documentary life The main narrative code employed is the documentary one, which reproduces a true-to life situation, involving the reader in a vital issue. Thus, by reading the story, one is a spectator of Ben and Emma’s walk and
Piano by William Saroyan Text Analysis Saroyan, William (1908–1981) was a successful playwright. The eccentric, spirited author was born in Fresno, California, where his Armenian parents were fruit farmers and where he worked at odd jobs before gaining fame as a short‐story writer. He came to playgoers' attention with My Heart's in the Highlands but became famous with his much lauded The Time of Your Life , which won the Pulitzer Prize, although Saroyan noisily rejected it. His later works included Love's Old Sweet Song (1940); The Beautiful People; Across the Board on Tomorrow Morning and Talking to You ; Hello, Out There; Get Away Old Man; and The Cave Dwellers. Wolcott Gibbs called the writer “the most completely undisciplined talent in American letters,” and Brooks Atkinson, in a preface to Saroyan's published plays, noted, “When he writes out of general relish, usually in isolated scenes, [he] is at his best and made a definite contribution to the mood of these times, [but] when he permits himself to discuss ideas he can write some of the worst nonsense that ever clattered out of a typewriter.” As in most of his stories, William Saroyan presents, in Piano, a casual episode of the common life. The narrative, descriptive and dialogical sequences form together a perfect technique of rendering the content in a captivating way. The work of non-fiction is characterized by the presence of a covert narrator, who keeps to a more or less neutral voice and a fixed focalization. Thus, the third-person narrative creates the impression of objectivity in an attempt of seeming more trustworthy for the readers. saroyan piano documentary life The main narrative code employed is the documentary one, which reproduces a true-to life situation, involving the reader in a vital issue. Thus, by reading the story, one is a spectator of Ben and Emma’s walk and