INTERPRETÁCIA

This story can be simple or complex, boring or amusing – it depends who reads it, if he is able to identify with it, to find and understand the hidden meaning of words and to find ideas or moral and practical instructions significant for the reader which appear here beyond any doubt. As from the title as from the first sentences it is clear who will be in the reader’s centre of attention – the main character of the story. It is a man – a bit mysterious, maybe strange but almost insignificant for all people living in the village. Of course, except a group of small children. I think the reason why the author used children to discover the mystery of the man is simple. There are advantages in the way that children see things differently from adults and for the author it is not necessary to look for the serious reasons advocating their actions and behaviour. Children are spontaneous and that is why the author cannot get lost in the circumstances leading to children’s contact with the man.
The reason for the contact is simple: children lose their playground when the house was inhabited by the man and it is predictable that they will be surely interested in who lives in there.

This classical children’s curiosity makes them organize a sort of expedition to find as many pieces of information about the strange man as possible. To make the atmosphere strained, the author makes use of typical elements of the mystery stories, the result is effective and descriptive elements make me feel the situation in which the children find themselves. ‘It was late now… It was dark, and silent…’ (Stone, p. 125).
Next sentences can give the reader small signs of what kind of person the man is. The entrance door of his house is not locked so it probably means that he is not expecting any visitors and that he maybe has no friends – he lives a solitary life.
Loners usually lose their interest in any action and because of this it is interesting when the reader realizes that every room entered by children (though without furniture)
is absolutely clean.
During this night the author does not allow the reader to get more information because one of the children ruins the expedition by chance; and this leaves the reader in the strain.
The other day children split up in twos and they are trying to find what the daily routine of the man looks like. But his behaviour is not strange, he is walking in the garden picking up apples and the reader has that kind of feeling that he is just a ‘normal’ person and not a mysterious one. There is a sentence which perfectly describes how ordinary he is: ‘He had come out on to the terrace afterwards, with a pipe and a glass of beer, and sat, legs stretched out in front of him…’(Stone, p. 127).