Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
"The Yellow Wallpaper" (1892)
Ambrose Bierce,
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1891)
What? (Plot)
- Inciting incidents?
- Characters?
- Climax?
- Conclusion?
How?
- First person or third? (What's the format?)
- How does the yellow wallpaper "evolve?"
Why?
- Why does she go mad? (Hint: what's hysteria?)
What tropes have we seen so far?
What? (Plot)
- Setting?
- Characters?
- Flashback?
- Inciting incidents/climax?
- Conclusion?
How?
- What happens in each section? What's the order/chronology?
- Situational irony?
Why?
- What does Farquhar want? Does he get it? Why not?
Guy de Maupassant, "The Necklace" (1884)
What?
- Inciting incidents?
- Characters?
- Climax?
- Conclusion?
How?
- Building irony
- Descriptions: Upper class vs. middle class vs. working class.
- Surprise!
Why?
- Why does Mathilde seem to "age?" What happens to her class status?
- What role does debt play in the story?
Oscar Wilde, "The Happy Prince" (1888)
What?
- Characters?
- Format: Fable
- Setting as character: The Happy Prince's city
- Setting as character: Egypt
- Inciting incidents? Climax? Conclusion?
How?
- Descriptions of death, riches; class.
Why?
- What's the moral of this fable?
Last time, in ENG 102 . . .
Late 19th Century Short Stories ENG 102