The Foreigner Analysis
A. Nemtin, A-339
THE FOREIGNER by William Saroyan
Text analysis
Those who remain under the Saroyan spell can only hope that the world will come around. His work simply seems too extraordinary and universal, to be cleared from the shelves...
Peter H. King, in "Saroyan's Literary Quarantine", in the Los Angeles Times (26 March 1997)
I do not believe in races.
William Saroyan.
One of the most famous writers in the United States, William Saroyan (born August 31, 1908 Fresno, California, U.S.) is best remembered for over two hundred plays wrote in his lifetime, numerous short stories, novels, and three autobiographies that reflected Saroyan's vision of life in the United States, permeated with the perspective he had in America as an immigrant of Armenian descent. Saroyan is known for the free style and intensely autobiographical elements of his works. He drew heavily on his own life experiences, on the problems of humanity, racism and immigration life in USA with its notorious American Dream - ‘the Land of Opportunity’ and ‘all people are equal’.
The short story called ‘The Foreigner’ completely reveals all the troubles of immigrants living in USA. The plot of the story is unfolded around the child-immigrant, who lives in Fresno, studies at school and considers himself as a real American. And after the short introduction the reader becomes a witness of an argument between the main character and his friend, Hawk Harrap. Here the reader can notice that the author mentions a lot of nationalities (‘His father was Syrian’, ‘Roy Coulpa was Italian’, ‘he had married a woman who was Scotch-Irish’, ‘I guess you’re Armenian’) as if he emphasizes the deep internationality of the USA.
The speech of the characters is full of colloquial phrases (‘The hell you are’, ‘You must be looney’) and they help to depict far from the best upbringing of the immigrants children. The dialogue starts with insult, and it should be noted that the word ‘insult’ repeats through all the text
THE FOREIGNER by William Saroyan
Text analysis
Those who remain under the Saroyan spell can only hope that the world will come around. His work simply seems too extraordinary and universal, to be cleared from the shelves...
Peter H. King, in "Saroyan's Literary Quarantine", in the Los Angeles Times (26 March 1997)
I do not believe in races.
William Saroyan.
One of the most famous writers in the United States, William Saroyan (born August 31, 1908 Fresno, California, U.S.) is best remembered for over two hundred plays wrote in his lifetime, numerous short stories, novels, and three autobiographies that reflected Saroyan's vision of life in the United States, permeated with the perspective he had in America as an immigrant of Armenian descent. Saroyan is known for the free style and intensely autobiographical elements of his works. He drew heavily on his own life experiences, on the problems of humanity, racism and immigration life in USA with its notorious American Dream - ‘the Land of Opportunity’ and ‘all people are equal’.
The short story called ‘The Foreigner’ completely reveals all the troubles of immigrants living in USA. The plot of the story is unfolded around the child-immigrant, who lives in Fresno, studies at school and considers himself as a real American. And after the short introduction the reader becomes a witness of an argument between the main character and his friend, Hawk Harrap. Here the reader can notice that the author mentions a lot of nationalities (‘His father was Syrian’, ‘Roy Coulpa was Italian’, ‘he had married a woman who was Scotch-Irish’, ‘I guess you’re Armenian’) as if he emphasizes the deep internationality of the USA.
The speech of the characters is full of colloquial phrases (‘The hell you are’, ‘You must be looney’) and they help to depict far from the best upbringing of the immigrants children. The dialogue starts with insult, and it should be noted that the word ‘insult’ repeats through all the text