Presentation. The story is recounted ten years later, after a formal dinner, by the student whom Miss Haviland had helplessly, impulsively, taken into her half-confidence. Her auditor is the narrator, presumably Mr. Johnson, himself. The related story is exceptionally well told with regard to the assumed narrator; she betrays just enough of the school-girl character and manner to enliven the drama of middle age. From a stylistic point of view, the narrative testifies to the author’s craftmanship; for it is almost as if told by a young woman.
Characterization. Mary Haviland was interesting to the girl narrator because of her native ability, determination, and her acquired connoisseurship. Harmonizing her fundamental power with her culture, hitting off little discrepancies and exaggerations that the reader might see her whole—these demanded a highly conscious technique. Further, to regard her half-seriously, half-lightly, yet in the end to demand the reader’s sympathy and admiration for her, required nothing short of Meredithian genius. Finally, the bubble of fun blown out at the last: “She was no doubt in the tub,” etc., indicates an irresponsible humor which makes play of the whole situation.
THE STRANGE-LOOKING MAN
The Starting Point. “I got the idea for ‘The Strange-Looking Man,’” says Mrs. Costello, “from reading of the homecoming of a Canadian soldier, limbless, partially blind, wholly demented, to his young wife—Homebringing, I should have said. As I read, I simply saw the story as it was written, nor could I help feeling as I wrote that my little boy symbolized Germany as she is and my young man life, as we are now so strongly hoping it may come to be.”
The statement from the author serves, also, to explain her symbolical treatment.
Setting. Should you judge, from the connotation, that the time is the near or far future? What is the place? How is it indicated?
Action. Brief; it begins “One morning,” page 363, and ends with the final words, page 364. Do you foresee the dénouement?
The narrative is remarkable in that it supposes a condition the reverse, in many respects, of life in ante bellum days. The child rocks his father’s cradle. He is frightened by a whole man. The wrecks of men, in the pictured setting, contrast sharply with the traveler, pages 363, 364.
Theme. State the underlying idea, and show how it is intensified by subsidiary ideas.