Freytag

Inciting incident

Rising action

Climax

Falling action

Conclusion

Incarnations of Burned Children

"[A] wisp of steam came lazy from under the wrapped towel's hem and the parents' eye met and widened--the diaper... ."

"[They] unfastened the softened tabs and tried to remove [the diaper which caused] new high cries... their baby's diaper burned their hand... they saw where the real water'd fallen and pooled and been burning their baby all this time... ."

"...when they got [the diaper] off and saw the state of what was there the Mommy said their God's first name and grabbed the table to keep her feet while the father turned away and threw a haymaker in the air... ."

In the climax the parents realized why their child was still hysterical and could not be calmed.

"...they diapered the child as best they could in gauze and two crossed handtowels... ran him out to the hot truck and burned custom rubber all the way to town and the clinic's ER... ."

The falling action in this story is quite brief as well leaving very little between the climax and the resolution.

"...Mommy down on one knee with the dishrag dabbing pointlessly at him and matching the [child's] screams with her own."

"...the Daddy's first act was to take the child under the arms [lifting him out of the hot water] and take him to the sink, [he] struck the tap [to run cold water] over the boy's feet... his cupped hand he gathered and poured or flung more cold water over [the boy's] head and shoulders and chest.

"...the Daddy moving quickly and well and his man's mind empty of everything but purpose... ."

"The worst scalds seemed to be the right arm and shoulder, the chest and stomach's red was fading to pink under the cold water... ."

"[The father tried] to calm the toddler's cries but still the child breathlessly screamed... ."

In the rising action the parents are doing whatever they can to save their child and they believed the worst was over.

Resolution

"...when [the pain] wouldn't stop and they couldn't make it the child had learned to leave himself and watch the [everything] from a point overhead... ."

"...whatever was lost never thenceforth mattered, and the child's body expanded and walked about and drew pay and lived it's life untenanted... its self's soul so much like vapor aloft... ."

Their is no happy resolution and in this part of the story the reader might be lead to believe that the baby died.

Ending is just as brief as the exposition, and here Wallace depicts a child that grows into a shadow of a man. He isn't dead, but it sounds as though he wasn't very connected to living.

Exposition

"...the Daddy had taken the scene in whole,... ."

"The Daddy was around the side of the house hanging a door... he heard the child's screams and the Mommy's voice gone high... ."

"...the overturned pot on the floor before the stove... floor's pool of water still steaming as its many arms extended, the toddler in his baggy diaper... steam coming off his hair and his chest and shoulders scarlet... ."

The exposition is the first line of the story and immediately after, David Foster Wallace goes into the inciting incident.

The inciting incident in a nutshell is that the baby got burned by the flipped over pot of boiling water.