A. _Setting_: The locality is conveyed in the first sentence. Where
is it repeated, and how? What contrasts do you find in the larger
setting? What details, for example, contribute to the Oriental
characteristics? Which to the American? Value of the opium? of
the schooner of beer? of the ivory sticks? Why is the flat (page
5) described in detail as to furnishings? (Give two reasons, from
two points of view.) What is the value of the contrast between
indications of wealth and of the neighborhood features?
B. _Customs_: What customs testify to Captain Abdullah’s intimate
acquaintance with the Chinese?
C. _Speech_: Compare the Oriental matter, manner, and meaning with
the American matter, manner, and meaning.
D. _Dress_: What bearing on character have the accessories of dress?
Yung Long’s bowler hat, his loose sleeves and fan, Fanny’s furs, the
earrings of jade, and the bracelet--all serve what purpose?
_Atmosphere_: Captain Abdullah says (page 4) “the tale is of the
Orient.” Note that he has secured the Oriental _feel_, or atmosphere,
modified slightly by the American intrusion, through the harmonizing
of character, speech, dress, customs,--above all, by emphasizing
the things “which matter most to the Oriental.” Contrast to similar
Occidental characteristics is subordinated to the intensification,
and is, therefore, contributory to the larger impression.
As to the short-story, Captain Abdullah thinks that length has nothing
to do with it. “It can be seven hundred words long, or seventy
thousand. As to the latter length, I consider Frank Swinnerton’s
_Nocturne_ a short-story.” And he offers as a tentative definition
this: “The short-story is a story grouped logically about the same
character and characters, every bit of plot and action working together
to affect, influence, and make a background for the same character and
characters, eliminating, in contrast to a novel, all side issues.”...