Minor Climax: She refuses. The kos has become a symbol for both. Mara in releasing it would surrender her will power; Gavrilo releasing it would see an emblem of freedom for all Serbs.
Gavrilo engages in the plot, but remembering his promise he refuses to “participate in certain matters.” He and Mara are happy so long as the bird is not mentioned. When he puts leaves into the cage, however, Mara begs him not to do so; she fears they are poisonous, as the bird is growing weaker. Gavrilo insists that captivity is killing it.
Dramatic Climax: On the evening of June 27, the bird dies. “It was not a dead bird that I saw, but a climax in a parable.”
Steps toward the Climax of Action: Gavrilo and Mara, filled with emotion, dispute over the cause of death. Mara insists that the bird man must determine the cause, and affects to believe that Gavrilo has poisoned it. He runs from the garden, frantic. The bird man comes; he points out the lice. Mara sends for Gavrilo. He cannot be found. The Archduke, his wife, and their suite arrive.
Climax of Action: On the morning of June 28, Gavrilo shoots the Archduke and the Archduchess as they ride through the streets of Sarajevo.
Dénouement: Gavrilo dies, four years later, in prison.
The struggle, then, is one of wills—Gavrilo’s against Mara’s. The two lines of interest forming the complication are 1st, the love story of Gavrilo and Mara; 2nd, the relations between Serbians and Austria. This complication begins with the initial impulse of the story and finds its solution only with the climax of action.
Examples of good craftsmanship in details are 1st, making Gavrilo a good shot, and at the same time introducing the bird motif; 2nd, strengthening Mara’s will and antagonizing Gavrilo by the cousin, who is introduced with the first mention of Gavrilo’s love affair. Point out other instances of plot finish.
Presentation. The story, as told by a man in a smoking-car, is immediately and logically motivated by the newspaper account of Gavrilo Prinzip’s death. The dénouement, therefore, is presented first, though it appears from the conclusion that the narrator’s fellow-travelers do not recognize this fact until the series of events comes full circle.
In connection with the plot, notice how the narrator is bound up with it. What advantages do you find in the author’s presenting the story in the rehearsed, rather than in the dramatic way? “In order to show what I was driving at,” says Mr. Street, “it was necessary for me to use the form of the inner, related story—a form which is always awkward, but which sometimes succeeds in spite of its awkwardness, for the reason that the reader becomes so absorbed in the inner story that he forgets that an individual is supposed to be speaking, and that, too often, that individual is talking like a book, rather than a human being, let alone an easy raconteur.