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.)
AT ISHAM’S
Setting and idea overbalance plot and characterization in this story, which hardly concerns itself with narrative form. True, it supports—rather than is supported by—an embryonic plot; and, true, the plot is marked by a struggle element in the guise of antagonism between two men. But the author is interested in his question and in the debate.
The starting point of the argument is this query, propounded by Norvel, at Isham’s restaurant: “If Mars is inhabited by a race so similar to ourselves, what means of communication between us is there so unmistakably of human origin that a sight of it or a sound from it would unmistakably convince them of our relationship?”