Stylistic analysis of the article
“Don’t call me and I won’t call you”, Jim Shelley with the chilling story of one man for whom the party line’s over, published in Weekend Guardian. The extract reveals us a life-story of James Shelley, the story of his unusual addiction, the obsession to phone and to be phoned that led to his dismissal from the office, abandonment of friends and above all led to the personal psychological crisis.
The correspondent’s aim is to confess frankly in ironical way to his telephone addiction ( he’s used to call it telephone frenzy); in certain sense to ridicule his own obsession and some other addictions that occur in our life.
To demonstrate that his confession is honest and make it convincing the correspondent uses many special techniques. For instance, the narration goes from the first person, personal pronoun “I” is like the actual evidence of all events and creates the potential context of sympathy. Framing repetition “My name is Jim Shelley, and I’m an addict” used in the beginning of the article and in the end greatly shows the degree of sincerity and persuasiveness of the author. As regards the ironical attitude, the usage of “With these words I began to break the spells” as if he was possessed by evil spells, “I’d disappear for a quick fix a swift hint” terminology of drug-addicts compared to symptoms of his telephone frenzy adds as well the portion of irony. Cradling the phone- as if he treated the phone or a receiver as a little baby, undoubtedly, it sounds extraordinary.
To make the narration vivid and expressive the correspondent implies a gradation device and describes consecutively his story from the very beginning and till the apogee of his addiction ( I was dismissed, slumped in a corner, sobbing, clutching Yellow Pages).
Another proficient technique is historical past, mixture of tenses, present-past) shows that James at the moments is fighting his addiction; it brings some freshness and actuality of the narration.
The story is written in journalistic style and that’s why it aimed at the considerable scope of readers.
The subheading of the article “Jim Shelley with the chilling story of one man for whom the party line’s over” in its way is the representation of defeated expectancy, it can be anticipated a shocking and dreadful story but instead we observe an addiction that fully wrapped in ironical context.
Having read this work, some thoughts involuntarily crossed my mind first, any addiction is nullity; and a question that’s still stirring my mind Dare we to be addicted, to be dependent?