There are two main characters in this short story, the narrator and her mother.

They are both

described in detail in the text. They are both very round characters that are presented to us in

direct detail in the text. Many adjectives used in the text clearly describe them to the reader. It

can be argued that the mother is a static character as she has continued to show an element of

strength and resilience throughout the difficulties she has faced in her life. In contrast, it can be

argued that the narrator is a dynamic character as she has undergone a change and there has been

understanding taking place when it comes to her mother. She speaks about the discoveries of her

mother’s strength and how she now, at the end of the text, has come home to provide her mother

with the support she needs.

Both the narrator and her mother are the protagonists in this story. Without them, the story could

not happen. I could not class either of the secondary characters as antagonists as they do not

oppose or foil either protagonist. They add to their story.

There are also some secondary, static, and flat characters that we only hear from in certain parts

of the text; we know little about them but even so, are relevant to the story being told, these are

Mr. Avalon and the narrator’s father. Some of the information about the secondary characters is

provided in indirect detail as we learn from analyzing what is said about them.

Various conflicts take place in the story, the accident in the tent, her mother’s saving the narrator

from the fire. All of which are interlinked and you cannot get the gist of the text without them

being present. You need to understand the mother’s past to admire and value her strength now.

She is an incredibly able and independent now-blind woman that was part of a blindfold trapeze
act in her past. It seems like fate prepared the mother for the situation she faces now. She seems

unfazed by it all.

This story is about a daughter, the narrator, who is amazed by the strength and resilience her

mother has shown throughout her life and how this show of strength has had an impact on her

and her mother’s current condition. This is a story of the conflict between the character and

herself as she learns more and more about her mother while narrating her life.

The inciting action takes place when the narrator starts describing her being grateful to the

mother for saving her life on several occasions. This guides the reader into the story and makes

us wonder what those situations are. One story is about the accident when she was performing

her blindfold act and she mentions how grateful she is that her mother saved herself, this implies

that she would not have come into this world should the worst had happened to her mother in the

accident at the tent. And another is her meeting the narrator’s father.

There are two climaxes in the story as well. The very graphic and emotional description of the

accident where the mother’s first husband died. It was a force of nature, a lightning strike, that

changed all and the couple in question found their lives changed so very quickly. And the one

where the narrator is being saved by the mother from the fire that took place in her family home.

We have the incredible description of her mother’s efforts to save her from the burning house

when the narrator was only seven. It is clear in the story how the neighbors, firemen, and

everyone watching were amazed by her actions but we can see that the narrator was not. It could

be said that she took it for granted, as she wasn’t surprised at all. The narrator’s mother climbed
onto a tree and managed to get herself to her daughter’s window and then took her to safety.

Nowhere else did she feel safe but in the arms of her mother.

The falling action would be described as the description of the changes that the mother had to

endure: losing her husband, confinement to a hospital bed, and a baby lost. The narrator

remembers knowing about this lost child, but also recalls not considering her a lost sister as she

expressed it may have been due to the egocentrism of all young children.

All of which leads to the resolution of this story, the narrator has returned to the town where the

accident took place, where her parents met and where the child that did not survive was buried to

be able to give her mother one of the greatest joys she had in the second part of her life, books,

her late father used to read to her mother and now after his death, the narrator has returned to do

this important task for her mother.