DOWN ON THEIR KNEES
Classification. This is, primarily, a love story, having a strongly marked struggle between the first and second characters, and a complicating thread of interest drawn from the relations between the first and third characters. It is of the familiar “triangle” type, but of a unique individuality.
The struggle appears to be motivated by something like hate; but the dénouement reveals that the acts resulting from apparent hatred or contempt were only negative or distorted expressions of the real or positive passion.
Presentation. The narrator is the author (third person), who focuses the spot-light on Angel.
Plot. Analyze the plot, marking out the main steps. What is the turning point in the struggle, or the dramatic climax?
Compare the manipulation of the plot elements with the management of those in “The Yellow Cat” plot. Which is simpler?
Setting. Among the Portuguese on Urkey Island. The time is the present.
Characterization. The racial type chosen is one, through which passionate and contradictory expression might well flow. A colder-tempered, more logical people, would here be impossible. Or if individuals of the milder tempered race were chosen, the task of making them convincing (as a group) would be an added difficulty.
What impression of Peter Um Perna do you receive at first? By what method or methods of portrayal is this impression conveyed?
Where is the second Peter, his second self, first revealed? Where in full? What is the significance of the relationship of the one who explains him?
What is the chief trait of Angel? How is your opinion of her maintained or changed? At what point, and why, does she leave off caring for Man’el?
What marked characteristics of Peter and Man’el are contrasted? (See e.g., page 329: “Yeh!” He had planned to lie about that.”)
What is the value of the older characters—the Avo and Mena?
Why are the life-savers numbered 1, 2, 5 and so on?
Details. Is there anywhere a clue to Angel’s love for Peter? To his for her?
Wherein lies the element of suspense? Where is your curiosity first satisfied? What becomes a new cause for reading on? How is suspense increased near the final outcome?
Why at first reading are you not sure of the place at which Angel no longer loves Man’el? What purpose of the author leads him to leave the reader doubtful?
What vividness is given to the description of the setting, in the first paragraph?
What plot convenience exists in the Avo being Peter’s laundress?
How is the name Philomena used? In what other story of these collections do you find it similarly non-descriptive?
Why is the title “Down on Their Knees”?
What indications in this story, in the way of color and form, do you find of Mr. Steele’s being also an artist of the brush?
What plot purpose does Man’el perform in his dare to Peter, to “go fishin’”? Does he serve to get the situation over the impasse? Is it a too obvious trick?
The struggle in the last lap of the action is one against the elements. What are the two subdivisions of this struggle? Is the outcome satisfactory? What symbolic value has the final sentence?