Robert Graves’ short story “The Shout” was written in 1924. Remembering the history of the beginning of 20th century, people usually remember the First World War, which was fought between 1914 and 1918, and the consequences of it the Depression. In the early part of the 20th century a new style of literature (not only literature, but it was also a style of art, music, and architecture) was developed. Historical events, happened at that time, favoured the development of the style called Modernism. To struggle with the Depression artists escaped the tyranny of previous art styles. Exactly the Modernism gave consideration to a human, to his essence, forgetting about details and showing the main idea of things. The same is with the story “The Shout”. Throwing away all the details, the main idea can be seen. I suppose, the idea is that the love conquers everything. What I mean is the love between Richard and Rachel, two main characters in the story, conquered the test made by Mr Charles appearing in the life of “loving pair”.
Because of the content of the text it is not easy to find the main idea. It may be separated three different sets of a story. The first set I would call the reality. All the events that happen in the reality are considered to be true. The real events are described by a narrator. Probably, the narrator is a real person, who had not believed a story told by a patient of the asylum. The second set is a story that Mr Crossley told. As we know, Mr Crossley is the patient in the asylum, so that something is wrong with his mind. That is the reason why it is possible that a reader does not believe every Mr Crossley’s word, but believe the narrator’s words. The third set is a dream i.e. everything that Mr Crossley mentioned as Richard’s and Rachel’s dreams.
The reader is in a position not to believe dreams and could think they (dreams) are only imagination of mind. But in Robert Graves’ “The Shout” they are very important. The dreams are connected...