Local Color. To what extent do the details of setting (including customs, dialect, dress) typify any American rural community? Can you justify the full paragraph on the buttons?
Time Element. How has the author handled the flight of months without seeming unduly to prolong the action or to break the unity of effect?
Atmosphere. Realistic, it reflects the mood of the author who sees life as it is, rather than of the author dominated by so-called “temperament.” She sees characters and events, for the most part, through the kindly glow of humor.
What double cause for smiling exists in the title of the tract delivered in the first scene? Point out other examples of humor.
“Usually in beginning a story,” Miss Babcock says, “the first paragraph sets a sort of mechanism going in me and controls the tone and atmosphere of the story. Thus, you see, I almost have to begin with a paragraph a little long. My great difficulty is my love of description and painting of pictures—I despair of characters because I know that one really never gets the whole character into the story, any more than one gets it in life. I think the writer must make the character act like its description. A spit-curl character must have spit-curl ideas and behavior. The more I write the more I am convinced that the writer is a slave to two contradictory convictions; that is, that he must give the truth of the story as he has visioned it, and that there is no truth but that the story-telling art has its very beginning in creating illusions.”
ONNIE
Classification. Onnie is a story of character; the trait exploited leads to the tragic dénouement.
Germinal Idea. “The genesis of ‘Onnie’ was a desire to record the dialect of one Patrick Qualey, a gardener, now extinct. Patrick had preserved to the age of seventy his Celtic fibre quite unimpaired. I think he rather prided himself on the act, and, perhaps, embroidered the garment of his speech a trifle. He died very tamely of pneumonia, and Forest County, Pa., was not his abiding place. As for Onnie, I confess that I am weary of lovely Irishwomen, and a witty Irishwoman I have never met....”—Thomas Beer.
Characterization. Read the story rapidly, and immediately ask yourself, “What impression have I received of Onnie, physically, mentally, and spiritually?” Go over the story again, making note of every mention of Onnie, and observe how forcefully, yet adroitly, the author has emphasized details. What is the value of having different characters observe her monstrousness and her homeliness?
Notice that Onnie’s superstition makes her say, “The gifts of children are the blessin’s of Mary’s self,” but that her “odd scapular” has a sinister significance throughout. Is this sinister suggestion in harmony with the final sacrifice? Estimate the number of words in the story, then the number emphasizing Onnie; finally, the proportion devoted to the main incident and preparation for it. What is the length of time over which Onnie’s devotion to San extends? The length of the “story” part of the narrative? If the proportion were reversed, what would be the effect on the character work? On the poignancy?