Analysis Of Knitting

Analysis of the story "Knitting " by David Dillon
This story is about the relationship and very strong ties between wife and husband. The message is a longing desire of the wife to save routine life with her husband, avoid any changes in their life. This woman is someone who is more that only housewife. Despite the fact that she is not aware of some inner power She influences on the situation enormously.

On the one hand her knitting is a symbol of some kind of routine homelife, very usual activity, but on the other hand it is a reference to mythology. Where thread means destiny and they knit to change their fate. Knitting indicate a transparent very strong connection between wife's actions and an accident. Collocations of "knitting+ phrasal verb" have some intertextual meanings. The repetitions create a certain effect.
" continued knitting, stopping her knitting (It means that the accident happened) , set the knitting aside, sat down to her knitting once more, setting her knitting to her side, putting her knitting materials away (It means that her husband died) "she began to knit fast and furiously". It means that she want to revive him, to back him to life.
The Cohesive means are very important here and contribute to the coherence of the text.

There are many obvious references that something terrible has happened and many discrepancies (for instance "his hair was combed back as usual" in spite of it was raining; that he did not move; he did not answer two calls though he was near the phone and there are some differences of their discourses ( She talked about the food and he about love).

The first paragraph is based on the description mostly, narrative and sets a general atmosphere of disturbance. Mrs Walley's emotions are expressed through her physical state (" Her knees were clasped together and both her arms were tight at her sides as she concentrated on her work", peered). The indications of her nervousness are her gestures also ( " raising her right hand to her mouth", " shaking hand at her mouth") and even the description of the property of sounds in the room ("to the old clock whose ticking resonated about the room", " the sounds of the needles striking")and the comic effect of Sugma " knitting her brow and a sweater" create the atmosphere of anxiety . She has premonition That is why she is nervous. (for instance phrases " Where could he be?" He should be home by now, don't you think?"- says she to her cat).
Such linguistic strategy as the sharp contrast between woman's nervousness and cat's calmness reinforce impression of Mrs Waley's nervousness. But the effect of quietness is created by the description of the cat such words as "slowly, lay itself down and stretched") and by the words referring to the homesphere ( "rug, clock" ). Suspense is based on the markers such as using some words of sphere of problem on the way (roads, way home , accident). The effect of tension and premonition is reinforced by using of a very formal language for instance in a long sentence ("With it being so cold outside, she knew that some of the rain would probably be forming ice on the roads, and with them living so far out in the country she doubted whether the salt trucks had made it out their way.") and by using very simple verbs against the background of tragedy ( went, stop, set out , change, shock, dead ).And The very formal language of Sergeant creates the effect of the growing disturbance.
And short sentences are parallel structures ( Mr..., Mrs.., Mr..., Mrs...
She.. , She..., She... ). They create effect that she is alone, She lost the status of wife. The pattern of changing Mrs Walley for personal pronoun She foreground the idea of her becoming a widow.
Summing it all up, we can say that the author used a lot of various linguistic means to convey the main massage of the text to the readers: the strong desire of wife to save routine life with her husband and keep ties between them.