Throw the time back to the youth of Giovanni and Rosa. Develop, at length, the love affair of the two young people. (This, alone, would require several pages.) Show the struggle of the girl, torn between religion and love. Present her prayer to the Virgin, the answer, and her decision (done dramatically, all this, perhaps in two pages), and her entrance into the nunnery. (So much would be done, logically, from Rosa’s point of view.) Shifting the spot-light to Giovanni, show him stabbing the picture of the Virgin; his disappearance; his meeting the funeral, and his being informed of Rosa’s death. The fact that it occurred at the time he stabbed the picture, as the coincidence, revealed after so long a development, would lack comparative height or worth.
Consider such treatment, and by force of comparison see that the author did best to treat the occurrences at a time long after they happened. The rehearsed story is in this instance undoubtedly the best. Further, by its use, the last words (page 188), “I am Giovanni,” are possible, intensifying the effect.
Considering the plot, what should you say are the chief steps in the development? Analyze both the inner story and in its relation to the enveloping action. The initial impulse, for instance, in the whole narrative is, the motivation for the monk’s telling his story. The dénouement, similarly, is the fact that Giovanni and the monk are identical. What are initial impulse and dénouement of the rehearsed narrative?
Setting. What is the worth of the setting in such a story, both as regards unity and convincingness? Note all the details which are distinctly Italian. What connotation have the cypress trees? Do they intensify the mood? In connection with the immediate scene in the chapel, what value has the sentence, “Beneath it, on a little stand, lay a slim-bladed vicious knife, covered with dust”?
Characterization. What added theme is conveyed in the description, “He was old, the oldest man Blagden had ever seen, etc.”? Does one get it on first reading, or on reflection?
Is Blagden a character, or a reason for telling the story?
Details. Point out the several examples of mysticism.
THE WHALE AND THE GRASSHOPPER
Classification. “You are right,” says Mr. O’Brien, “about ‘The Whale and the Grasshopper.’ It is a sort of fable and like the other sketches in my book it was written for the sake of the philosophy and humor. The starting point of the narrative was the remark of Padna Dan ‘As the Whale said to the Grasshopper,’ which I considered a good title, and accordingly wrote the phantasy.”
Read as a sort of parallel, Emerson’s “The Mountain and the Squirrel.” What is the difference in the mental attitude of the two authors?