that last battle of the war. I don t mean shot himself, but it was so very easy for a company commander to stand up when an enemy machine-gun was traversing says George s friend ... Something seemed to break in Winterbourne s head. He felt he was going mad, and sprang to his feet. The line of bullets smashed across his chest like a savage steel whip. The universe exploded darkly into oblivion. called his book a song of lamentation for the dead of the generation that went through the horrors of the war, a memorial in its ineffective way to a generation which hoped much, strove honestly and suffered deeply.
Archibald Joseph Cronin
1896-1981.J. Cronin is a representative of realism in contemporary English literature. He criticized various negative sides of bourgeois England, such as medical service, the life of the coalminers and the system of education., A Scottish novelist and physician, was born at Cardross, Dumbartonshire, the only child of a working class family. His father was Catholic and his mother was from a strongly Protestant family. He became fatherless very early and was educated at Dumbarton Academy at the expense of his uncle. During his school years he took great interest in literature. At the age of thirteen he won a gold medal in a nation-wide competition for the best historical essay of the year. He grew away from religion and realized his own dream of brotherhood between people of different churches. This spirit of conciliation marked all his books dealing with questions of faith.love for natural sciences got the upper hand and in 1914 Cronin began to study medicine at Glasgow University. His studies were interrupted by war service in the navy. However, in 1919 he graduated from the university with honours. Then he embarked as ship s surgeon on a liner bound for India. Various hospital appointments followed later.1921 he married and commenced practice in South Wales, where he got acquainted with the coalminers, their conditions of life, and their hard work. While working there he took two higher medical degrees. In 1924 he was appointed Medical Inspector of Mines. In 1925 he was awarded with M. D. honours by the University of Glasgow. Subsequently he started working as a doctor in the West End of London, where he amassed a large practice.in 1930 his health broke down, and while convalescing in the West Highlands of Scotland he turned to writing and started to write his first novel Hatter s Castle, which was published in 1931 and very soon translated into +5 languages ​​and was filmed in 1941. s Castle. The novel was an instantaneous success, and was highly estimated both by critics and readers. The writer has created an impressive character of Mr. James Brodie, a tyrant to his family - his wife Margaret and his children Matthew, Mary and Nessie. Margaret, who was once beautiful and gay, was just a piece of property to Brodie. Even if he seems to love someone - this is a strange love of an egoist. This concerns his younger daughter Nessie whom he made a physical and moral ruin. Their daughter Mary is a contrast to both her father and her mother. She strives for happiness and she is brave and decisive. She doesn t fear Mr. Brodie and she is always ready to defend her younger sister whom she loves dearly. When Mr. Brodie gets to know about Mary s relations with Denis Foyle and her pregnancy he drives her away from home. He never mentions her by name, he calls her the one I kicked out of my home . Mary is homeless and helpless. But her hope of life is Denis, the father of her future child. Unfortunately, at the moment when Mary is giving birth to her child her beloved Denis parishes when the storm breaks out and the lightning strikes the train right on the bridge. Mary returns home but she is neglected by her father. She tries to care about him and to please him although he is not the man who can appreciate it. He drives his little daughter Nessie to despair and suicide. He wanted her to be always top of the class and win the Latta scholarship. He always threatened to kill her if she didn't win. Nessie did not win the Latta competition and she knew what that meant for the ambitious man like her father and she committed suicide. Mr.Brodie sent his son Matthew to India, but instead of earning money there Matthew demanded money from his mother, and she sold and mortgaged everything she could, concealing it from her husband, to send Matthew 4...
