Ministry of higher and secondary specialized education of the republic of uzbekistan state university of world languages english language faculty №1 Course paper theme: james aldridge-his life and work group: Written by: Supervisor

2.2 Review of one of the most famous masterpieces called “The last inch”
Not only literature, but life itself can tell us many examples when courage, self-control and the desire to survive helped a person to overcome difficult trials and even death itself.
Throughout his life, James Aldridge carried the love of ordinary people to nature, retained his passion for fishing and hunting. His stories are captured by both children and adults. The theme of childhood is presented by the writer in the unity of man and nature and through the beauty of pure human relationships. In the Australian cycle of stories, Aldridge with great skill was able to convey child psychology, to reveal the spiritual world of the teenager Edgar. In his small works, Aldridge sought to show the strength and beauty of man, its enormous potential. The writer owns the words: "I have the stories" The Last Inch. "Its essence is to stop in time, not to cross the border. In fact, this is a metaphor. Today, so many weapons have been accumulated in the world, which on the last inch before the global catastrophe turned out to be humanity. Everyone must realize their responsibility for the fate of the world, for the fate of civilization ... so that the last inch is not passed. For there to be people on Earth ... ”⁷
The novel“The Last Inch ”captures us not so much by a combination of amazing circumstances, but by its inner drama.
The protagonists of James Aldridge's “Last Inch” story are the old pilot Ben and his son Davy. Ben. Worked in many countries: in Canada, in the USA, in Iran. Recently, he worked for an oil company that was looking for oil in Egypt. They did not find oil, and Ben lost his job as a pilot in the company. He was already forty-three years old, and therefore Ben could hardly count on another place. He decided to make money by shooting sharks under the order of one television company underwater. Ben lived in Cairo with a French maid and Davy. His son was ten years old, and they had a very difficult relationship. Ben worked all the time: when the son was born, and when he grew up, when he began to walk and talk. Therefore, he devoted very little time to his child. His wife, Joanna, was dissatisfied with life in the deserts of Arabia and eventually abandoned her husband and son and left for their homeland, in New England. So Ben had to raise his son - the earlier he did not do it.
Davy was not very good with his parents either. This is because he was always alone, no one was engaged in it. I think that he really lacked parental attention and suffered greatly from this. His father always spoke with him in a sharp tone and often scolded him. Davy at the age of ten felt very lonely and restless. This is because he saw: “his mother is not interested in him, and his father is an outsider, sharp and laconic, not knowing what to talk about with him in those rare moments when they were together.” And so, in order to somehow get closer to his son, Ben took him with him on a flight. They flew into the Shark Bay on the Red Sea. It was called that because there were a lot of these predators in it, and Ben decided to shoot here. He was offered a lot of money for this work, and so he decided to take a chance, although it is very dangerous. In addition, there was a large desert around the Shark Bay, and if anything had happened to them, no one could have come to the rescue. When they landed, Ben started preparing scuba gear and a movie camera, and Davy helped him. Father severely commanded his son, and his tone was very sharp: “Ben suddenly felt that he was talking to the boy as he was talking to his wife, whose indifference always provoked him to a sharp, imperative tone. No wonder the poor boy eschews both of them. ” And Davy himself was very silent. He was always afraid to incur the wrath of his father, so he always tried to do everything that he said, and not say too much.
When his father dived underwater for the first time, Davy felt very lonely, and was afraid that he might die if something happened to his father. Even when they had just arrived, Davy asked his father several times if they would be found here. Ben thought the boy was afraid that they would be arrested and replied that no one would find them here. It only scared the poor boy even more. He sat and looked at the sea: “Nothing was visible under the water, and in the burning silence, in solitude, which he did not regret, although he suddenly felt it sharply, the boy wondered what would happen to him if his father had never come up from the depths of the sea.
But for the first time, nothing happened to Ben - he shot the sharks on a movie camera, went ashore, and they sat down for breakfast. It turned out that the pilot did not guess to take water with him - only beer to himself. I think this is very clear evidence of Ben being inattentive to his own son. After they had breakfast, Ben took the bait - a horse's foot, went down under the water, tied it to the coral, and he began to take off sharks, which immediately attacked the meat. But Ben did not notice that he was stained with blood. But sharks always attack when they smell the blood. And the most dangerous - a catshark, attacked Ben. He began to fight back and barely escaped. When he got out of the water onto the sand, he fell unconscious from the loss of blood. When Ben woke up, it turned out that his legs and arms were so wounded that he could not walk and could not fly the plane. When he looked at his right hand, he “saw muscles, tendons, almost no blood. The left one looked like a piece of chewed meat and was bleeding badly.”
Ben realized that they would die, and there was only one way out: Davy should fly the plane. Once he taught his son how to fly a plane, and he managed to master many things. But he knew that the boy would be scared if you immediately told him that he would fly the plane. "It was necessary to gropingly find the way to the fear-embraced, immature consciousness of the child." Therefore, Ben began to gradually persuade his son: first, bandage the wounds, then help crawl to the plane, then help climb inside. Finally, when they got on the plane, Ben said: "You have to get down to business yourself, Davy." The father told his son what to do, and led the take-off. But when they took to the air, he lost consciousness. It is good that he managed to explain to his son what course to fly. Ben woke up when they were already flying up to Cairo. At the end of the flight, he again helped the boy - this time to land the plane. They were saved thanks to ten-year-old Davy and the courage of Ben, who even before his death (he thought he would die) thought only about how to save his son. Ben lost his left hand in the hospital - it had to be cut off, but survived. And most importantly - he was able to find a way to the heart of his son. After this incident, they became much closer to each other. I even think that they first fell in love with each other - like a father and a son. Now Ben decided that he would never let Davy go from him and would take care of his upbringing. He decided that he must grow him a real person.
Describing the episode of the boy overcoming the last inch, Aldridge reveals the horror and excitement that is stunned by the child. Devi's face is focused, attentive. He must do the work of a grown man. It seems that he himself has already matured. He developed a sense of responsibility for himself and for his father. So, indeed, the last inches often come or remain in life, and most importantly, Ben now has the whole life that his son gave him. James Aldridge repeatedly draws the reader's attention to descriptions of the sea, desert, and the behavior of heroes. Indeed, it was in these fragments of the work that the writer's thought about the purpose of man, about its spiritual beauty, appeared. The topic of responsibility is one of the most important, since man is the creator of his destiny. The writer emphasizes that he is a perfect work of nature and must be worthy of the place that it occupies in the natural world.
The English writer James Aldridge gained widespread fame not only in his own country, but also abroad.
“In my books, the main theme is always the same - choice,” Aldridge wrote. “Choosing a path, choosing an action, choosing a worldview.”⁸ The author adheres to this theme throughout his career, comprehending it at various levels. Often in his works, the problem of mutual understanding between people is considered.
So the novel “The Last Inch” attracts special attention of readers not so much by a combination of unusual circumstances (the hero, the pilot, takes up his own business: he goes down to the bottom of the Red Sea, where he carries out underwater shooting of marine predators for television at the risk of his life), but his inner drama. When you read this work, you get the feeling that you have an eyewitness account - with such certainty, such power of feelings, lines are penetrated, such accuracy and conviction sound in them.
We vividly imagine a man who didn't have a very successful life, at forty-three years old "was left with nothing, except for the indifferent wife, who did not need him, but his ten-year-old son ... a stranger to both of them." We imagine a boy “lonely and restless”, unhappy that at the age of ten he understands: “his mother is not interested in him, and his father is a stranger, sharp and laconic.” The writer reveals to us the whole path that father and son had to go through in a difficult situation. But the main thing is the path that they went towards each other - this is the path to mutual understanding and friendship.
Taking off sharks underwater and being attacked by one of them, Ben desperately entered the fray with a predator and eventually managed to get ashore. He was bleeding, did not feel arms and legs, but he only thought about one thing: you need to get out of here, save your son. The only way to return home is by plane. But Ben is not able to control him. This must be done by Davy. Having gathered his last strength, the father tried to find the right words, to behave in such a way as not to cause fear in the soul of the child. “The boy should not know that he will have to drive the car,” he thought. “To say it, it will scare him to death.” The father tried to stay alert, convincing his son that the plane would fly by itself, and that the "wind itself would bring" them home. Ben thought that the main thing was to hold out to Cairo and "show the boy how to land the plane." He tried to speak so that his words reassured the scared son. And here Davy showed all the strength of his character and did as his father taught. He did not lose his temper, he strictly followed all the instructions of Ben and brought the plane to its destination. They flew by. And survived.
The writer showed how in harsh conditions the characters' characters are revealed: they were able to forget about the secondary, feeling a great responsibility for the life and fate of a loved one. The character of Davy changes throughout the story is revealed more fully. The boy in front of our eyes becomes more decisive, firm, courageous, acquires self-confidence. Overcoming the test, the father changes, he begins to look at his son with completely different eyes. And gradually Davy's distrust of his father decreases to the "last inch." And Ben now knows that he will certainly be able to find a way to the heart of his son. Only time is needed. But now, for the sake of this boy, he is ready for anything: "it was worth the time."
In the novel “The Last Inch”, as in many of his other works, James Aldridge writes that he is close to himself, which is part of what he has experienced and experienced. In search of life and human ideals, the heroes of his works seek and find the main thing that makes it possible to change the world for the better. Aldridge talks about the problems of relationships between people, about mutual understanding, about overcoming loneliness and alienation, and these topics remain important and relevant today.
With this story, D. Aldridge taught us a wonderful lesson in courage, perseverance and faith in a person, in his unlimited possibilities.