Atmosphere. Realistic; it has the “feel” of the typical American excursion. To achieve it, were necessary the author’s keen observation, sane vision, and sense of humor.
Accessory Details. Enhancing and emphasizing the reality of the occasion are the features, objects, and acts associated with excursions. The crunch of peanuts, the search for chewing gum, the squinting through ivory-headed canes,—such details of the composition indicate meticulous workmanship on the part of Miss Babcock. Notice whether these features appeal rather to sight, to hearing, or to other senses. What do you deduce?
General Methods of Miss Babcock. “To me, in writing, the story is keyed by a face, the note of a man’s or a woman’s voice, a bit of lonely moorland, a scene in a railway station, some little amusing bit some one tells me. Then comes incubation for an absurdly uncertain time. Then I dress up in a mass of what seems to me related detail the significant centre, trying usually to thrust in a few bits of humor for the simple reason that life is made of it and the huge wonder is that the whole world does not ‘grin like a dog and go about the city.’... I love to paint things I’ve seen—particularly natural things....”
CRUELTIES
Starting Point. Edwina Stanton Babcock says that “Cruelties” was written around the figure of the spinster, Frenzy, at whom she has had peeps for nearly eighteen years. Her formal and carefully elaborate English,—her garden, and her worries over it—all are drawn from what Miss Babcock considers story material “for any one.” Mrs. Tyarck and Mrs. Capron were painted in contrasts, and “little Johnny Tyarck and what went on inside of his wispy head at prayer meeting was put in because of my own ceaseless wonder as to what goes on inside the heads of the Johnny Tyarcks of this world.”
“Cruelties” took a long time to crystallize and it seemed to me that the dénouement never really consummated. I longed to have the wayward girl more of a person, but the confines of the story would not allow it. I wrote four drafts of it, cutting out quantities each time.”
Plot. Compared with “The Excursion,” this story possesses a framework more substantial and of better architecture. Though most readers will be interested in the personality of the characters, rather than in the action, nevertheless they will enjoy the steady and perceptible progress to the solution of the slight complication. This complication the author has effected through the entangling of two interests. The first is the one-sided struggle which arises between the women, Mrs. Tyarck et al, and Miss Giddings—one-sided, inasmuch as the former are active, while the latter is passive. It is motivated by Frenzy’s attempt to rid her roses of worms. (Is this motivation sufficient to account for the animosity? What circumstance abets it? What value has the fact that Mrs. Capron is a tract distributor?) The second line of interest has to do with the young girl’s downfall and rehabilitation. The fact that Miss Giddings becomes her champion increases the petty animosity. The outcome of the complication shows Frenzy triumphant, in the scene between her and Mrs. Tyarck.
Are you satisfied with this dénouement? Why?
What motivation has Miss Babcock employed to explain the girl’s taking refuge with Miss Giddings? Is it adequate and convincing?
Initial Incident: Two phases, each suggesting an individual line of interest. 1. Scene in Frenzy’s shop; the women see the girl pass. 2. Scene in Frenzy’s garden, emphasizing the struggle between Frenzy and insects. (What significance has the fact that the ladies enter into relations with the fly-paper? What symbolic part has the cherry tree?)