Where does the story really begin?
[40] How could you know the time, if the first page were not there? Is it a delicate way of telling “when”?
Notice that time, place, and principal characters all are introduced into the first paragraph of the real story.
Why does the author note the change in Tobias’s circumstances? Does it add to the interest of the story? Would you omit it?
Do you think this plot more complicated than that of “The Great Stone Face”?
What is the use of the description on p. 31?
What do you note as the difference between
(a) second line of p. 19, sixth line of p. 27, sixteenth line of p. 29, and (b) fourth line of p. 25, the figure in the complete paragraph on p. 40?
THE GRAY CHAMPION.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 145.)
Note the successive stages by which the time is approached. (Compare with the beginning of “Silas Marner.”)
Can you feel any difference between the movement of this story and the movement in “The Gentle Boy”?