HALF-PAST TEN
Classification. As a short-story of situation, this narrative achieves that concentration found in Barrie’s “Half Hour” Plays. It may be studied as all the preceding examples have been studied, but attention is called to
Skill in Presentation.
1. In the suspense, (a) the reader senses a tragedy, but has not all the details until the end of the first seven or eight hundred words, (b) the reader waits the news of Jim’s death.
2. In the new rise of interest after Al’s announcement, “All over.”
3. In depicting the characters almost wholly through acts and speeches.
4. In satisfying the reader. Jim died for a crime committed by another, but he seems to have deserved death on general principles. Again, the surviving family have the poor knowledge and consolation that he was immediately innocent.
5. In the objective method (already suggested under 3) which conveys directly the grim tragedy and sordid realism.
A slip in the method is found in the fact that the mind of the child is invaded once or twice. It would seem that at the beginning the author meant to present the whole tragedy from the point of view of Rhoda, who would not comprehend it all, of course, and would therefore serve a purpose similar to that of the thirteen year old boy in “Ching, Ching, Chinaman.” But either the task proved too difficult, or the author changed her purpose, without the revision which would have given perfection to the method. (See, e.g., page 349, “Rhoda took stock of them....” This illustrates her “angle” or the author’s exercise of omniscience over her baby mentality.)