4. The ice began to crack all about them. 5. The ladder would not reach. The Middle. 85. After the characters and the setting have been introduced the obstacle usually appears. Then begins the clash of the opposing forces, which may take a variety of forms, according to the character of the chief actor and the nature of the obstacle. When the actor encounters the obstacle his first impulse, if he is a man of spirit, is to overcome it. He tries to break it down or to destroy it or to move it out of his path. Failing in this, he attempts to get over or around it. These endeavors result in the incidents of the story. As the struggle goes on, the interest grows more and more intense until it reaches its highest point, or, as it is sometimes termed, its climax. The actor puts forth his utmost endeavors. The reader waits with breathless expectancy. Something happens the most momentous thing in the story. The tension is then released, and the story, if it does not end at the climax, goes on to a fitting conclusion. 86. Assignments on the Middle. A. In the following narratives where is the obstacle first brought into play? What is the climax, or the highest point of the collision? Where is the climax? 1. I will describe a single combat of a very terrible nature I once witnessed between two little spiders belonging to the same species. One had a small web against a wall, and of this web the other coveted possession. After vainly trying by a series of strategic movements to drive out the lawful owner, it rushed on to the web, and the two envenomed little duelists closed in mortal combat. They did nothing so vulgar and natural as to make use of their falces, and never once actually touched each other, but the fight was none the less deadly. Rapidly revolving about, or leaping over, or passing under, each other, each endeavored to impede or entangle his adversary, and the dexterity with which each avoided the cunningly thrown snare, trying at the same time to entangle its opponent, was wonderful to see. At length, after this equal battle had raged for some time, one of the combatants made some fatal mistake, and for a moment there occurred a break in his motions; instantly the other perceived his advantage and began leaping backward and forward over across his struggling adversary with such rapidity as to confuse the sight, producing the appearance of two spiders attacking a third one lying between them. He then changed his tactics and began revolving round and round his prisoner, and very soon the poor vanquished wretch - the aggressor, let us hope, in the interests of justice was closely wrapped in a silvery cocoon, which, unlike the cocoon the caterpillar weaves for itself, was also its winding-sheet. HUDSON: The Naturalist in La Plata, p. 193. 2. And so the soldiers stand to their arms, or lie within instant reach of their arms, all night; being upon an engagement very difficult indeed. The night is wild and wet; 2d of September means 12th by our calendar: the Harvest Moon wades deep among clouds of sleet and hail. Whoever has a heart for prayer, let him pray now, for the wrestle of death is at hand. Pray, and withal keep his powder dry! And be ready for extremities, and quit him-self like a man!-Thus they passed the night; making that Dunbar Peninsula and Brock Rivulet long memorable to me. We English have some tents; the Scots have none. The hoarse sea moans bodeful, swinging low and heavy against these whinstone bays; the sea and the tempests are abroad, all else asleep but we, and there is One that rides on the wings of the wind. . ... And now is the hour when the attack should be, and no Lambert is yet here, he is ordering the line far to the right yet; and Oliver occasionally, in Hodgson's hearing, is impatient for him. The Scots, too, on this wing, are awake; thinking to surprise us; there is their trumpet sounding, we heard it once; and Lambert, who was to lead the attack, is not here. The Lord General is impatient; — behold Lambert at last! The trumpets peal, shattering with fierce clangor Night's silence; the cannons awaken all along the Line: "The Lord of Hosts!" "The Lord of Hosts!" On, my brave ones; on! The dispute "on this right wing was hot and stiff, for three-quarters of an hour." Plenty of fire, from field-pieces, snaphances, matchlocks, entertains the Scotch main-battle across the Brock; poor stiffened men roused from the corn-shocks with their matches all out! But here on the right, their horse, "with lances in the front rank," charge desperately; drive us back across the hollow of the Rivulet; back a little; but the Lord gives us courage, and we storm home again, horse and foot, upon them, with a shock like tornado tempests; break them, beat them, drive them all adrift. "Some fled towards Copperspath, but most across their own foot." Their own poor foot, whose matches were hardly well alight yet! Poor men, it was a terrible awakening for them: field-pieces and charge of foot across the Brocksburn; and now here is their own horse in mad panic trampling them to death. Above three-thousand killed upon the place: "I never saw such a charge of foot and horse," says one; nor did I. Oliver was still near to Yorkshire Hodgson when the shock succeeded; Hodg son heard him say, "They run! I profess they run!" And over St. Abb's Head and the German Ocean just then burst the first gleam of the level Sun upon us, "and I heard Nol say, in the words of the Psalmist, 'Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered.'" CARLYLE: Oliver Cromwell, vol. i, p. 465. B. Continue one of Stevenson's beginnings (p. 256) until you have (1) introduced an obstacle; (2) produced a struggle; (3) reached a climax. Or begin a new story and carry it through these three stages. The following may suggest a story: 1. A poor tenement district in New York. - Children play on roofs. A mother, going away to work all day, tethers her four-year-old to one of the chimneys, at end of long clothesline. Firemen in engine-house across street startled to see a child dangling high in mid-air at end of a line. Attempted rescue. Longest ladders barely reach. At last tallest fireman at top of longest ladder manages to get within reach. Suddenly child slips out of rope and (horror of crowd below) disappears utterly. - Widow Murphy on fireescape at third floor later discovers a four-year-old playing on a mattress that she had put out on fire-escape to air. 2. Two boys living in an abandoned mining district are walking along a slope when one suddenly sinks through the surface. Other tries to rescue him and also falls in. After long exploring, they finally come out in the vegetablecellar of a house half a mile away. conscience revolts at 3. A young girl in a large city is compelled by a drunken mother to beg on the street. - Girl's the lies she must tell day after day. ences. Hits upon a plan for honest professionrepairer of rag dolls. form of the mother. - Some of her experi self-support. A queer Final success, and re - 4. Two boys in a big city high school have exactly the same name, though not related one a fine student; other, careless, rich, and a failure. At end of term, each takes home the other's report card. How the matter was straightened out. The End. 87. A narrative may close in several different ways. The chief actor, after struggle with the obstacle, may succeed in overcoming it and go on his way rejoicing. In that case we have a cheerful conclusion. Or he may struggle with it and be overcome by it and die. In that case we have a painful conclusion. Sometimes it appears in the course of the story that the chief character is himself responsible for the obstacle. With his own hand, however unwittingly, he put it there. He dug the pit into which he himself falls. The trap he set for some one else catches him. Some slight defect in his character, or the indulgence of some whim, turns out to be an obstacle to the fulfilment of his dearest hopes. Then, if the end is the death or ruin of the hero, we have what is called a tragic ending. In a well-constructed plot there is but one main line of incidents. Along this track the action presses right forward to its goal, the climax. Minor incidents there may be in abundance, but upon examination they will be found to be so used as to contribute in some way to the forward movement of the main action. The incidents of this action are closely bound together. Each one, after the first, grows naturally out of the incident that precedes it, and each one except the last grows naturally into the incident that follows it. The |