Compare, also, the subordinate characters with those in “Laughter.” What do most of them in this story think or feel about Minetti? How does the author indicate their attitudes?
Details. Is the angle of narration similar to that in “Laughter”? What details appeal to the reader’s gustatory sense? Study the symbolic use of the pepper-tree. Compare it with the cherry-tree in “Cruelties.” What details of setting emphasize the locality?
THE LOST PHOEBE
Starting Point. The beginning of this story lay in a bit about an insane man in Missouri, a story which came to Mr. Dreiser quite ten years before he developed it. The story quality testifies to the value of the long dormant period.
Setting. Study the narrative, observing with respect to place that although you may feel you have your mind on the exact locality, it presently flits to another probable setting. This is because Mr. Dreiser attaches no importance to the locality of his short stories, so long as the incidents are American—and either urban or rural. The gain is, of course, in favor of the essential nationality; the loss is to the individual community. Does the first grasp of setting bring with it the atmosphere of the narrative?
Classification. A story of a search, at last successful. It may be classed, also, as a story of the supernatural, wherein the vision is one of a crazed brain. So beautifully has the author handled the fancy and the vision, however, that the reaction on the reader causes wonder as to whether sanity and insanity are not relative, or even interchangeable.
Presentation. By the omniscient author, who exercises omniscience particularly over the mind of the main character.
Characters. Henry Reifsneider, Phoebe Ann (his wife), and background characters of the community folk. These last exist to give verisimilitude, for contrast, and as plot pivots. Cite an instance for each use.
Plot.
Initial Incident: Phoebe dies.