Steps toward the Climax of Action: The “gay dog” business begins: Jo buys a car, he takes expensive apartments, he tries to solace himself with the friendship of a demi-mondaine. Eva sees him buying a hat for the woman; Estelle crosses them in a restaurant; Ethel, Eva’s daughter, meets him in her company at the theatre. Eva and Estelle determine to visit Jo and call a halt. They drive to his apartment. Meantime Jo has been watching the boys marching, has come across Emily, has helped her to see her boy (Jo) march, and has told her good-by.
Climax of Action, and Dénouement: The climax is dramatically worked out in the scene between the sisters and Jo. They flee terrified at Jo’s counter-charges. “The game was over—the game he had been playing against loneliness and disappointment.”
Draw a diagram to indicate the minor climaxes and other points of interest.
Characterization. What is the first picture the reader receives of Jo? Why is it given first? As related to the order of plot events, is it the dénouement picture?
How does Miss Ferber enlist the reader’s sympathy for Jo at twenty-seven? How is his unselfishness displayed? Why is it more credible presented in the little scene-suggestions (pages 211, 212) than if affirmed by the author? How does his falling in love with Emily reveal his character? What trait is emphasized in his letting Emily go? What traits are responsible for his development as a loop-hound? Is he consistently developed? Does the story, through Jo, present a universal situation?
What traits of the girls, as a group, are contrasted with the dominant one of Jo? What ironic moral is visible, between the lines, in the dénouement on the respective advantages of selfishness and unselfishness?
How is each sister respectively individualized without requiring too much of the reader’s interest?
What are Emily’s most dominant characteristics? Is her portrait on pages 229 and 230 the fit successor to the earlier one?
Is there any objection to the names—Eva, Estelle, Emily, Ethel—used in the same story? Why?
Details. To use Miss Ferber’s own adoption of the photoplay term, “throw-backs,” how many times has she reverted to preceding action? How many times, to note the counterpart of the throw-back, has she introduced an act or picture which has its chronological place later on? What is the dramatic value of having the sisters wait for Jo, to see him enter with red eyes, after which the author pauses to narrate the cause of his emotion (page 228)?