Video commentary

The passage we chose is from the short story A dill pickle.

“You’d like almost everything about Russian life, he said warmly. It’s so informal, so impulsive, so free without question. And then the peasants are so splendid. They are such human beings-yes, that is it. Even the man who drives your carriage has-some real part in what is happening. I remember the evening a party of us, two friends of mine and the wife of one of them, went for a picnic by the Black Sea. We took supper and champagne and ate and drank on the grass. And while we were eating the coachman came up. ”Have a dill pickle”, he said. He wanted to share with us. That seemed so right, so-you know what I mean?”

Mood: Delighted

Language
1. Choice of words: are in bold in the passage

2. Sounds of words: The sound “s” is often repeated in the passage we chose. (“so impulsive”, “so splendid”, “seemed so right”). This assonance made us feel like we were at the picnic with the man and his friends. In fact, the sound “s” reminds us of the sound of waves and the sound of a light wind gently caressing our skin, which are pleasant sounds that reinforce the happiness of the mood.

3. Grammar: This passage is written in an active voice. This reinforces the effect of joy, happiness and freedom. The sentence “Even the man who drives your carriage has-some real part in what is happening” shows that the author puts the accent on doing the action, being free, being delighted! Reading this passage made us feel happy. It made us feel like we wanted to be in the man’s shoes, because we could tell, by the tone the author gave him that he was in a state of delight. Expressions such as : “he said warmly”, “so free without question”, “such human beings”, “that seemed so right”, express a positive tone in the man’s voice, which shows how happy he was at that moment, and that is what he is trying to share with Vera.

4. Sentence structure: The passage is composed of short sentences, so that every word really has an impact on the listener. Take for example the sentence: “He wanted to share with us”. The shortness of the sentence emphasizes the feeling of surprise, of positive astonishment the man is feeling. In the sentence “It’s so informal, so impulsive, so free without question”, the repetition of the word “so” also intensifies the feeling of positive astonishment, like the man could not believe how happy Russian life is, and that is the feeling that is transmitted to the reader when reading the passage.

5. Images in the passage: The author uses beautiful images to express delight: a picnic by the black sea, supper and champagne, the peasants are splendid. He uses a very rich vocabulary to describe happiness and beauty.

The mood delighted goes with the state of mind of the man in the story. We can see that throughout the whole short story, the character Vera feels uncomfortable, but on the opposite, the man looks extremely happy. He keeps on describing all the places he visited, and all the experiences he made. He is in state of delight. This shows how memories can be different according to one person or another. For the man, the memories are wonderful, but to Vera, they are terrible. His state of delight accentuates Vera’s irritation towards him.

First, the song we selected for the video was based on the state of mind of the man in the story. It is a song that makes us feel instantly happy, that makes us smile. Since reading the passage we selected made us feel delighted, happy, we wanted to choose a song that would have the same effect while listening to it. Second, there are two types of images we selected for our video. There are images of landscapes, of beaches, because, like we said earlier, the sound of words transported us at the man’s side, at a picnic by the sea, and we wanted to give the listener the same effect while watching the video. There are also images of people smiling, of happy people because we wanted to make the listener happy, delighted, so it would recreate the passage’s mood, and we thought that the best way to make someone smile is by actually smiling at that person.