William Saroyan (1908-1981) is an American author whose stories and plays celebrated optimism in the middle of trials and difficulties of the Great Depression. Many of Saroyan's stories were based on his childhood or dealt with the rootlessness of the immigrants’ life. Saroyan endeavored to create a prose style full of zest for life and seemingly impressionistic, that came to be called "Saroyanesque". His great humor and irony forced readers to maintain enthusiastic and positive mood even in the most difficult situations. His advice to a young writer was: "Try to learn to breathe deeply; really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell." W. Saroyan narrates about a human distress and loneliness in the world of bourgeois lifestyle, where a person is placed in the brutal conditions which don’t meet human fundamental needs and aspirations. The text under the study, “The Guilty Party”, is a short story, which is written not in a familiar way. The author rejects the traditional form of narrative. The plot in this case is not a simple sequence of events, but a well thought out composition. The author appears as a critic of social ills of his epoch, such as jealousy, misconduct, indifference, insincerity and so on. Nevertheless, the author represses his sympathies. There is an external narrator in the story. The story moves dexterously backwards and forwards in time, and the end of the story is in keeping with the title.At the beginning the story takes place in an ordinary street of the some city, where lived an ordinary family: “a red-haired, unshaven, untidy man”, a woman cooking a supper and twelve year old girl Lizzie. The characters are mostly described indirectly: through their speech and behavior, but the author uses epithets “red-haired, unshaven and untidy” and repetition to emphasize these traits. The next part of the story narrates about an incident in the Small Hours Social Club, caused by jealousy, alcohol, misunderstanding and so on. The main character of this part is Liz. Description of Liz’s appearance makes an impression of attractive, but slovenly girl. Her behavior is unrestrained and she is quick-tempered. The other character, Kid Mullaly, Liz’s boyfriend, is an authoritative and insensible. After his deliberate provocation (a dance with another girl), Liz has committed a shocking act: she leaped out from the circle of spectators with a knife, but then ran out and found her last refuge in the river. In the last part of the story the narrator tells about his dream, in which the court officer blames that red-haired, unshaven, untidy man, who paid no attention to his daughter Lizzie. The connection between the title of the story and the end shows readers the main idea - abundance of sin in the city, destruction of family values and its putrid influence on people. The author uses different stylistic devices to emphasize his attitude to the situation: the house, where Lizzie’s family lived, named House of Sin; at the Climax of the story there are metaphors “Fate” and “nom de guerre” in relation to Liz. It is worth noting that the author doesn’t forget about an irony even exposing the worst evils of the society. To sum it up, I would like to say that W. Saroyan in a very lively and ironic way raises the most urgent problems of his time. Moreover, he does it masterfully, and that’s why his works worth being called masterpieces.