GET READY THE WREATHS
Germinal Idea. “‘Get Ready the Wreaths’ was, of course, inspired by the overwhelming drama of the Russian Revolution and my own feeling that even Siberia had at last been justified.”—Fannie Hurst.
Analysis. The predominating interest and hence line of action, since it composes a line of action, is Mrs. Horowitz’s desire, struggle, to return to Russia. This struggle has been going on for years; it has its roots and beginnings in the past. Alone it would not make a short-story; for the conflict is too level, too empty of actual event.
The beginning of the complication is the engagement of Selene Coblenz, her love affair constituting the second line of interest. This is the truly complicating line, although there is also a third line of interest, properly subdued. It enters as a factor, first, in the first line. Mark Haas shows his interest in Mrs. Coblenz by offering to arrange for her the details of the Siberian journey. For a long time this interest exists, seemingly, only as a means for developing the main struggle: there is an entire amalgamation of the two interests. (See e.g., page 342, “Mark Haas is going to fix it for me,” etc.).
Selene Coblenz’s request brings on the immediate struggle. It is only a step, however, in Mrs. Horowitz’s long fight to get back. It turns out to be not a deciding step, but one in complication. See that by considering the old lady’s struggle and the daughter’s mental anguish, Shila’s search for ways and means starts from it, rather than is decided by it. There is no specific struggle after it, only a complication waiting to be solved. Mrs. Coblenz could not have started for Russia until after the reception, anyway. If Mrs. Horowitz had lived, she could have gone. Nothing is determined by this minor climax: much mental trouble starts from it for Shila. It simply advances events to a state, where at a later moment they will need a struggle and a decision.
But for another reason this decision of Mrs. Coblenz’s is a big crisis, though not the big plot crisis; especially is this true if you regard the story as a character story. Shila’s devotion to her mother: her devotion to her daughter—which will win? Will her sense of duty triumph over her indulgence? The girl’s reasoning, the impracticability of her mother’s desire assist to “play up” the struggle. Selene is dominant with Shila. She is a great-hearted woman, but she has a weakness. If she had not had, Selene might have been a less self-centred girl.
With the news of the reception evening, the three lines of interest come together; the high point of the complication is reached. There is a momentary crisis for Mrs. Coblenz. Her mother can go back to Russia now; she will insist. Selene’s line enters as an accomplished fact to prevent: It helps with the other to compose a crisis here. The third line is present as a factor to assist: But Mrs. Coblenz is blind to it: it is a suspended resource.
If, as you might have expected, the writer had derived her solution from that line, she would have done the obvious thing. Also she would have made Shila’s escape from her weakness, easy. And, last of all, she would have finished a struggle which had its derivation in blood and sacrifice with a conclusion too quiet and unheroic.
The author did what technically might have been a very bad thing. To get your solution out of a physical or natural stroke, by sudden illness or an accident of nature, is equivalent to using a god from the machine,—a charge often laid at the feet of Euripides. But here the death is so logical a consequence—so well prepared for—that you cannot quarrel with it. And there is a heroic touch in having Mrs. Horowitz die beneath her tremendous recollection and appreciation of all the triumph had cost. The outcome is satisfying: she died in a high moment. Shila is not too much to blame, and consolation for her is at hand. And Selene, being right from her angle of youth and life, is both happy and sufficiently rebuked.
The story, then, has both an opposing and an assisting line. The climax at which all meet and the forces balance is the Revolution news. It is not the deciding moment in the Selene story: that is over.