Time stood still is a short story written by William Stanley, it’s a descriptive piece written during the London Blitz. The description of the night shift these men had to go through is very challenging therefore makes it a story you should read. The narrator describes than night as one he would never forget, through all the demanding activities he had to overcome, from the big wall falling to how he lost one of his friends and how the others fought for survival.
In the following essay I will be looking at the four aspects that one may come across while analyzing this poem. First we will be looking at the emotions that the author is portraying in this story, we will discover that humor is hidden in this passage also, the last two aspects we will be covering would be the repetition that is used quite a lot and last but not least how dramatically the author changes the routine of these boys from a quite night to fighting to survive whilst putting out fires.
Whilst reading this short story, through out the whole episode of fighting for survival, the fireman does not show any emotion or feelings toward the situation that is being handed over to him. He does not express his emotions in any particular way at all, he expresses he’s gratitude for his victory by simply saying “we had been lucky” (paragraph. 13) gives us the impression that he modestly is not afraid, this act may come from being a fire fighter. His feeling are hidden up inside, even his home does not give much affect to him, as London is being bombed and his neighbors are dying each night, he keeps his head clear.
To me this indicates that maybe the author wants might want to approach our feelings with no emotions showing us that feeling may be too much to handle, both being a fire-fighter and living in the age where there is war. This short story has a great deal of humor hidden in the comers as I have recently discovered. You may not see it at first but if you look closely it will no longer be a secret. It is not something you automatically pick up whilst reading the first time, but along the way it becomes an instant catch.
“A few enquiring bombs” It ives us the impression that the bombs are actually talking and asking permission, asking us where they are allowed to land, this of course is very unrealistic, and therefore gives a slight humor in it. Another sort of funny comment made in the story would be “… At the back of my mind as a picture of the air-raid season’ this shows us that the author is tries to give us a sense of humor, he makes it sound like it is a natural thing, like the blossoming flowers in spring etc, however this is like the season of dropping bombs.
It won’t be very funny the fist time reading it but if you look closely, nonetheless the punch line seems very tragic as it is not normal for there to be any air-raid season. The author makes it easy for us to imagine the surroundings he is being pressed up against, repetition is used a lot in this short story, this makes the descriptions of each scene more intense. In (paragraph 9) we see the repetition where he keeps repeting the words “probably it never did.
Probabaly it only seemed to hang there. Probably my eyes digested its action at an early period of momentum, so that I saw it “off ture” but before has gathered speed” (line 92-94) as suppose, the signifies that maybe the narrator is unaware of something therefore is speaking like this, the reasons may be caused from all his experience that he starts to see things that may not be there.
Another repetition that we come across is “I suppose, I suppose etc” (paragraph. ) is one of the repetitions we see through the story, the narrator says this when the narrator describes the monotony of the job and what they are faced up against everyday, the “I suppose” makes us think that the fireman does not remember the incident that has happened a few nights before their life changing experience, because of this unawareness he was almost killed. The last aspect that I will be presenting is how dramatically the changes in the normal routines of the fireman is, already in the first paragraph we see that the narrator points out the routine of their job as fireman by simply saying “It was our third job that night. line 1).
This gives us the impression to us, the readers that the fireman has been working hard all night. We then are introduced to the chores that the fireman are forced to complete each day ever since, the balzing London blitz has begun, everything for them has become so “normal” as they say it that they are so bored of doing the same thing almost everyday “until this thing happened, work had been without incident. ” (line 2) up until the moment he was nearly killed his life has been the same, from that moment on he knew everything would never be the same again.
The turning point in this gives a whole new side to the scenario of the story. “I was thinking of nothing at all and then I was thinking of everything in the world” (line 45-47) at this point the narrator realizes how important his life is to him. It is very noticeable for us, the readers to know that the narrator describes every single detail of his journey, it gives us the impression that the author has categorized his descriptions. Overall this life treating experience was a joy to read.
