Читать доклад по литературе: ""Winner Takes All" by E. Waugh" Страница 2

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support a boy, it means that situation in Kent-Cumberland family was awful. Uncle Ted looked at relations from human side, not side of aristocratic traditions. Tom needed someone to be his friend. So, in the end of the book he got his happiness. He married Gladys, moved to Australia to create his own family far away from his “mother” and “brother”.. Kent-Cumberland is drawn like dominant, arrogant, manipulating, energetic and self-confident woman. She is obsessed with old traditions in aristocratic family. In her mind, her sons were not children in the normal sense of the word; they were first-born son, heir and successor of Kent-Cumberlands and the other child. The great difference was in everything: birth (“expensive London nursing home” and “shoddy modern house on East Coast”), name (Gervase Peregrine Mountjoy St. Eustace and Thomas), gifts (a possibility of Tom to get a more expensive present than Gervase was “an obvious error of justice” to her). Mrs. Kent-Cumberland made everything turning towards Gervase: she gave a birth to Tom on East Coast because “Gervase might have benefit of sea air”; she broke Tom’s engagement off explaining it like “if anything were happen to Gervase you would be his heir”; and she did not let Tom marry Bessie, because she was rich and “teachable” which means “convenient for her” - a perfect match for heir.can understand author’s negative attitude to Mrs. Kent-Cumberland. Waugh uses irony (“ Mrs. Kent-Cumberland was a fair-minded woman”, “she was glad to have rectified an obvious error of justice”, “she should think a great deal about Tomb and very little about South Australia”). Mrs. Kent-Cumberland also was an active woman, so, she got everything she wanted. She deftly manipulated Tom and Gladys; and she was successful - they got married and Gervase married Bessie. In the end of the story she lived with Gervase and his wife who was “thoroughly teachable” and who “rarely disagree” with Mrs. Kent-Cumberland who “gets her way”; her other son was far away. So, for her all traditions were respected. We can not call this woman “mother” (Waugh used this word only twice: in the very beginning, when she gave the birth to Gervase, and when Tom referred to her), she was the keeper and head of Kent-Cumberlands.title of the book - “The Winner Takes All” - contains an implication. The winner in this story isn’t real, isn’t a person who wins something, but gets everything because he was the first-born son. He did not even need to be a good man, brother and son; in any case he will take all. In my opinion, the real winner was Tom, who could cope with all injustice and misunderstandings and got his happiness.main theme of the book, of course, is family relations. Waugh wanted to impress how they were weaken in England by the rights of first-born sons in families like Kent-Cumberlands. People are getting more aloof, isolated, they have no interest in other people’s problems. It is not a problem only of English aristocracy, it is very actual. Many children suffer from lack of love, care and help; childhood and parents’ behavior is very important for child’s personality and character. Stories like «Winner Takes All» teach us eternal values by ridiculing vices and showing people’s behavior from the other side.