CLASSIFICATION. A story of situation, suggesting numerous small
struggles. (See below.) It is a remarkable example of the _multum in
parvo_ management required of the short-story. The action requires a
brief part of one day.
PLOT. The _impulse_ of the action lies in the telephone message
announcing Bessie Lowe’s death.
The _dramatic climax_ is in Dick’s perjury: his declaration that Bessie
Lowe was the girl _he_ had cared for.
The _climax of action_ lies in the narrator’s discovery that
Standish--not Dick--had been Bessie’s lover.
The _dénouement_ is the narrator’s “poisoned arrow” flash of light that
Dick had loved Leila and had sacrificed his own fiancée to the hurt to
save Leila’s feelings. With the recognition dawns the realization that
she and Dick must go their ways.
Struggle moments suggested are: 1. In the heart of Standish. Shall
he confess to his wife? 2. In the heart of Dick. Shall he sacrifice
his fiancée to save Leila’s feelings? 3. On Leila’s part. Shall she
indicate that she knows Dick is lying? 4. On the part of the narrator.
What shall she do about it? In each case, the outcome arrives with
celerity, and love is the ruling motive in each struggle. The decision,
as affected by love, testifies to the character of each person.
CHARACTERIZATION. Is each character so described, and does he show
such action and interaction as to make logical the behavior in the
particular struggle? Must the reader accept any one of the decisions on
faith alone?
SETTING. What is it? Has it particular contributory value, or might the
locale have been, say, New York? How is it integrated with atmosphere
and action? (See, e.g., page 468, “Through the purpling twilight of
that St. John’s eve.”)
DETAILS. How might the narrator have hoodwinked herself as to Dick’s
motive? How might Dick have explained so as either 1. to satisfy the
narrator, or 2. to leave her--and the reader--in doubt? Which of the
three choices would have been cheapest and easiest? Which would have
destroyed, altogether, the individuality of the story?
Study the sound effects, beginning in the very first paragraph; Is
there a suggestion of disturbed harmonies, in a spiritual sense? Notice
that the sounds suggest the entire London background against which the
individual tragedy stands out, etched in a few lines.
What value have the poetic passages which Miss Synon is fond of
introducing into her stories? Do they seem to be external, or have they
been made an essentially vital part of the whole?
What does lavender, at the close, signify?
Wherein lies the deepest pathos of the story? How is it conveyed--by
notice or neglect or by a happy restraint?