2324 - Level N - Stories of Ourselves - Core - Teacher's Guide

Stories of Ourselves
Level N - Core
Teacher’s Guide
AY 2023–2024
Level N - Core | 1
SABIS® Proprietary Page 1 of 61
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages
The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion……………………………………………. 6–14
The Lady’s Maid’s Bell..……………………………………………….……………………15–21
Gabriel-Ernest……..……………………………………….……………………………….. 22–27
The Doll’s House…………………………………………………………….………………28–32
A Warning to the Curious…….……………………………………………………………...33–37
Death in the Woods…..………………………………………………………………………38–42
Stability…………………….………………………………………………………………...43–48
The Tower……………………………………………….…………………………………...49–53
The Axe……...……………………………………………………………………………….54–58
An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge..………………………………………………………59–66
Level N - Core | 2
Glossary of Literary Terms:
Ambiguity: a word, phrase, or statement which contains more than one meaning
Allegory: a story that reveals a hidden meaning, a symbolic representation
Allusion: an indirect reference to something specially in literature
Alliteration: the repetition of initial stressed consonant sounds in a series of words within a phrase or
verse line
Anaphora: the repetition of certain words at the beginning of successive sentences
Anecdote: a short and interesting story
Assonance: the repetition of similar vowel sounds in two or more words within a line of poetry or prose
Antithesis: putting two opposite ideas together in a sentence to show a contrasting effect
Colloquial language: the use of informal or everyday language in literature
Conflict: a struggle between two opposing forces such as a struggle between a protagonist and an
antagonist
• Internal conflict: when a character struggles within a characters mind over what to do or
think in the story
• External conflict: a struggle between a character and some outside forces
Connotation: the use of a word to suggest a different association than its literal meaning
Consonance: a literary device that refers to the repetition of the same consonant sounds in a line
of a poem or text. The consonant sounds can appear at the beginning, middle, or end of words.
Contradiction: when two statements don’t seem to agree with each other
Dialect: a particular form of language that shows the accent and way people talk in a particular
area
Dialogue: a conversation between two or more people in a story
Diction: the word choice a writer uses to effectively convey an idea or a point of view
Dramatic Irony: irony that is inherent in a situation of a drama in which the audience knows more
about an event than the characters do
Dynamic character: a character that undergoes significant change throughout the story
Ellipsis: the omission of words that are obviously understood from contextual clues
Exaggeration: making something seem better, worse, larger or more important than what it
actually is
Flashback: moving the audience from the present moment in the narrative to a scene set in the past
Flat character: an uncomplicated character that does not change throughout the story
Foil character: a character that exhibits opposite traits to another character
Foreshadowing: giving the audience clues and hints of what is to come
Jargon: a specialized language used in a particular context or field
Homonym: two words that sound the same but differ in meaning
Humor: a literary tool that induces amusement or laughter
Hyperbole: an exaggerated statement
Idiom: a sentence that conveys a figurative meaning different from the words used
Level N - Core | 3
Imagery: the use of figurative language to represent objects, actions, or abstract ideas in a way
that appeals to the reader’s senses. There are five types of imagery:
- visual: appeals to the sense of sight
- auditory: appeals to the sense of hearing
- gustatory: appeals to the sense of taste
- tactile: appeals to the sense of touch
- olfactory: appeals to the sense of smell
Indirect question/interrogation: a question embedded inside a statement
Informal language: a casual, personal, and spontaneous speech
In Medias res: a Latin phrase, meaning “in the midst of things,” that is used as a literary term to
describe when a story opens with the character already in the middle of things, when it creates
a sense of suspense, and when it invites the reader to further explore the plot
Inversion: a literary device that refers to the reverse of the correct order of subjects and verbs in
a sentence. It is often used to place emphasis on certain words, mainly the one that initiates the
sentence
Inquisitive question: marked by inquiry and questioning, hence, searching out
Irony: the use of words to express something that is different from or opposite of the literal meaning
Intrusive narrator: an omniscient narrator who interrupts the story to provide a commentary
to the reader on some aspect of the story
Situational Irony: something that is different or the opposite of what is expected
to happen
Mood: a literary device that elicits certain feelings or vibes in readers ; it is the atmosphere in a
piece of writing
Metaphor: the comparison of two unrelated things
Monologue: a speech or verbal presentation given by a single character in order to
express thoughts and feelings
Extended metaphor: a metaphor introduced and then further developed throughout all or part of a
literary work, especially a poem
Onomatopoeia: a word that imitates the natural sound of a thing and creates a sound effect that
mimics the thing described in order to make the description more expressive and interesting
Overstatement: using language to exaggerate the intended meaning
Oxymoron: a figure of speech that combines two contradictory elements
Paradox: a statement that contradicts itself
Personification: the attribution of a human characteristic to non-human things
Point of view: who is telling or narrating a story
• First person point of view: the main character is telling the story
• Second person point of view: the writer has the narrator speaking to the reader
• Third person point of view omniscient: the narrator is all-knowing and has
insights on the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters in a story
Level N - Core | 4
• Third person point of view limited: the narrator has insight into one character’s
thought process in the story
• Third person subjective: the narrator adopts the point of view of one of the
characters in the story
Pun: a joke based on the exploitation of different possible meanings of a word
Rhetorical question: a question used for dramatic effect; it is not intended to be answered directly
Round character: a character with a complex personality
Sarcasm: an ironic or satirical remark that mocks, ridicules, or expresses contempt
Simile: a figure of speech that uses ‘like’ or ‘as’ to compare two different things
Sensory details: appeal to the five senses:sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste
Static character: a character that does not undergo important changes throughout the story
Stock character: a type of character that is quickly recognized by the reader and requires
no development by the writer
Symbol: a literary device that contains several layers of meaning and is representative of several
other aspects or concepts
Sibilance: a specific type of alliteration that uses the soft consonants to produce a hissing sound
Syntax: the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language
Tone: the author’s/poet’s attitude toward the subject matter
Traditional character: a character that is attached to tradition/old customs
Understatement: representing something as less than what it is
Villain: the antagonist in a story whose motives and actions oppose that of the protagonist
*Teachers should introduce students to the P.E.E.E. chain for all short and longer written
responses.
P=Point. What is the point you are trying to make?
E=Evidence. What evidence will you use to support the point you made?
E=Explanation. How does the evidence used support the point you made?
E=Effect. What is the effect on the audience?
Level N - Core | 5
The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
by Thomas Hardy (1889)
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928):

Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset, in rural south-west England. His father was a stonemason
and builder. The young Hardy excelled academically and would have qualified for a university
education at Oxford or Cambridge, but his parents could not afford the fees. Instead, he became
an architect, studying at King’s College in London.
Hardy was successful in his profession, winning several prestigious awards, but he felt restless
and unhappy in London. Hardy was acutely aware that his working-class background and rural
origins made him an outsider in London circles. After five years, he returned to Dorset and
decided to devote himself to his writing. He was to become a noted novelist and poet, admired
by many of his contemporaries.
Most of Hardy’s novels take place in Wessex, a semi-fictional region of England based on
Dorset and its neighbors. They are often critical of the hypocrisy and cruelty of English society,
while at the same time portraying an idyllic, wistfully beautiful picture of rural life. Tragic irony
is a common theme in Hardy’s stories. His protagonists are often ultimately destroyed by simple,
seemingly insignificant twists of fate, such as a letter going astray or a minor misunderstanding.
Historical Context:
“The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion” takes place during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–
1815). Hardy represents it as having been told to him as a teenager by its protagonist, Phyllis, an
old woman when Hardy knew her. King George III (1738-1820), England’s longest-ruling
monarch before Queen Victoria, ascended the British throne in 1760. During his 59-year reign,
he pushed through a British victory in the Seven Years’ War, led England’s successful resistance
to Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, and presided over the loss of the American Revolution.
A Brief Outlook on the Content:

Phyllis is the daughter of a country doctor in a remote village just north of the coast. The king
(George III) uses a nearby seaside town as a summer resort, which has brought many more
people than usual to the area. One of them is Humphrey Gould, a member of the gentry (that is, a
minor local aristocrat). He and Phyllis become engaged. Although she doesn’t feel particularly
warmly towards him, she is aware that her father wants her to marry Gould because of his social
connections.
Also staying in the area are the York Hussars, a regiment of the King’s German soldiers. While
Gould is away in Bath, Phyllis encounters one of them, Matthäus, when he walks past the garden
of her father’s house; the two talk, become friendly, and soon fall in love. Phyllis at first feels
she cannot act on her feelings because she is engaged to Gould. However, a rumor reaches her
that Gould does not consider their engagement binding, and may even be pursuing someone else.
At this point, Matthäus suggests to Phyllis that she run away with him; he plans to desert the
Level N - Core | 6
army and make his way back home to Germany. No longer feeling she owes Gould anything,
Phyllis agrees. However, while waiting for Matthäus in the lane beside her house that evening,
Gould and a friend pass by. Gould is explaining that he does not believe the rumors about
Phyllis’ flirtation with a Hussar, and that he has brought her back a gift from Bath. Phyllis is
stricken with guilt. When Matthäus appears, she tells him she cannot come with him.
The next morning, Gould calls on Phyllis. He gives her the gift from Bath – a mirror – but also
reveals that the rumors about him were true. He has married someone else and the mirror is more
or less a bribe to get Phyllis to go along with this. It is also revealed that Matthäus and his fellow
deserters have been caught; they are executed in front of the regiment while Phyllis watches in
horror from the garden wall.
Level N - Core | 7
Setting and Plot Structure
(The covered skills are labeled at the end of every question. The skills’ descriptions are
listed at the end of the study guide.)
Teacher’s Notes and Suggestions

The teacher should discuss the social and political context of the story a little with the class.
Hardy was writing about a time and place when people were acutely class-conscious. Part of the
reason that Phyllis is so lonely in the first place is because, as Hardy puts it, “not precisely a girl
of the village.” Because her father is a middle-class professional, she can’t socialize on equal
terms with the other young women of the village, and it would be unthinkable for her to marry
any of the young men. Likewise, even though she is unenthusiastic about Humphrey Gould, her
father pressures her to marry him because it’s a socially advantageous match.
Identify Setting
Place Time
Setting
Weather Mood/atmosphere
1. How does the season and weather affect the plot and mood of the story? [RL.11-12.1.3]
• The story takes place in summer. This is important to the plot because the king spends the
summer nearby. This is why Phyllis meets Humphrey Gould; Gould, having some
connections at Court, is part of the king’s wider local entourage. It is also why she meets
Matthäus; his regiment is quartered in the region in order to protect the king.
• But the fact that the story takes place in summer also affects the mood. The first time that
Phyllis sees the Hussar, it is in “bright sunlight,” and their connection develops over the
course of warm, soft evenings. The relationship between Phyllis and Matthäus is very
much a summer romance, one touched with a youthful “golden radiance.” It is clear that
the aged Phyllis is looking back with bittersweet nostalgia on this time in her life, aware
that it passed all too quickly.
Level N - Core | 8
2. How does the story’s historical setting affect its mood and atmosphere? [RL.11-12.1.3]
• The story begins with the image of the narrator walking over the downs, and imagining
the German soldiers’ camp. The Hussar’s uniforms are described in some detail and
several times throughout the story they are portrayed as being hugely impressive,
romantic, and glamorous at the time, even though now they are mostly forgotten and the
military in general is a more professional, pragmatic, and scientific force. This kind of
nostalgia is evident throughout the story.
• And so, the story takes on something of the resonance of a folktale, one of many stories
from that time and place which the narrator has collected. As such, it is not just
interesting because of the events it describes but all of the details from a forgotten time
and place that it captures in the telling. So, although the plot itself is tragic, its harshness
is softened by the pleasurable nostalgia that the narrator takes in narrating it.
Plot Structure
3. Enter the elements of the plot into the appropriate category and identify the narrative
structure. [RL.11-12.2.5]
Exposition: Phyllis’ situation and engagement to Humphrey Gould

Rising Action: Phyllis meets and gets to know the Hussar
Conflict: Phyllis falls in love with the Hussar but feels torn between him and her obligation
to Gould
Climax: Phyllis decides to elope with the Hussar, then overhears Gould in the lane
Falling Action: Phyllis learns the truth about Gould, and then watches the Hussar’s
execution
4. What event instigates the main conflict of the story? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• Phyllis and Matthäus see each other while Phyllis is sitting on the garden wall.
General Comprehension
1. Why do Phyllis and her father live in the village? [RL.11-12.1.2]
A. Her father is out of favor at Court.

B. Her father was born there.
C. Her father hates living in busy, bustling places.
D. Her father cannot afford to live in a bigger town.
E. Her father loves the scenery.
Level N - Core | 9
2. Why is the Hussar so melancholy when Phyllis first sees him? [RL.11-12.3.7]
A. His mother is dying.

B. He misses his homeland.
C. He is in love with Phyllis.
D. He has been demoted.
E. It is just his nature.
3. How do the rumors that Phyllis hears from Bath about Humphrey Gould foreshadow the
twist at the end of the story? [RL.11-12.2.6]
• Phyllis hears that Gould has been saying that he doesn’t consider himself and Phyllis to
be properly engaged, and that he doesn’t think either of them should consider themselves
bound by it. By the end of the story, he reveals that he has secretly married someone else;
by taking this perspective on his engagement to Phyllis earlier in the story, he is
obviously trying to justify his own behavior.
4. Why does Phyllis change her mind about eloping with Matthäus? [RL.11-12.3.7]
• She overhears Gould talking with a friend in the lane and receives the (incorrect)
impression that he still considers their engagement on. For this reason, she feels honor-
bound to stay and marry him instead of eloping with Matthaus.
5. Why did Humphrey Gould buy Phyllis a looking-glass? [RL.11-12.1.4.1]
• Gould buys Phyllis a looking-glass as a kind of simultaneous apology and bribe. He is

going to break off their engagement, and also ask her to lie to his father that she is the one
who broke it off, because he doesn’t have the nerve to tell him the truth – that he has
married someone else, implied to be of lower-class.
Level N - Core | 10
Theme and Characterization

When discussing the themes of the story, tell your students a little about Hardy’s life – the fact
that his lower social status held him back and made him an outsider in London society. How is
this fact connected to his favored themes? How is it connected to the events of the story itself?
In discussing characterization in the story, ask your students to compare and contrast the ways
that Phyllis and Matthäus act with the ways that other characters in the story, such as Humphrey
Gould and Phyllis’ father, behave. What is the difference? Who behaves well and who behaves
badly, and what are the consequences for them respectively?
Theme
A theme is the unifying subject or idea of a work of literature which pervades the entire text and
helps to distinguish its voice and message.
1. What is the central theme of the story? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• The central theme of the story is of freedom being forbidden by a hypocritical and
sanctimonious society.
2. How is this theme developed throughout the story? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• Phyllis is given no agency over her own life and no choice in who she has to marry.
Although Matthäus is a better man than Gould, he is not considered an acceptable
husband for her because he is a foreigner and a soldier. It is implied that the other
villagers have been spreading malicious gossip about the relationship between Matthäus
and Phyllis, despite the fact that it is completely chaste; she cannot even talk to whom she
chooses.
• Matthäus’ situation is a parallel to Phyllis’. Like her, he has no choice in where he goes
or what he does. His movements are tightly controlled (he is demoted just for being late
back to the camp) and he is expected to fight and even die for a king and country that are
not his own.
• Even Humphrey Gould, a much more privileged person than either Phyllis or Matthäus,
is in the same basic position: he isn’t free to openly acknowledge his own marriage
because he fears society’s disapproval.
• Ultimately, the couple’s attempt to rebel against society ends in tragedy; Matthäus is
executed and Phyllis is implied to live a long, lonely life without him.
Level N - Core | 11
3. What other themes are present in the story? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• One of the story’s other noteworthy themes is that of fate and chance. A simple
coincidence – overhearing Gould in the lane – leads Phyllis to back out of the elopement
and so sacrifice her chance at happiness and freedom. But there is also an implication that
the lovers were doomed from the start. Matthäus and his comrades were caught. If Phyllis
has been with them, she would at the very least have been publicly disgraced and
probably disowned by her father. There may never have been any true hopes for escape.
Characterization
4. How are Matthäus Tina and Humphrey Gould characterized respectively? How does the
narrative highlight the contrasts in their characters? What point is it making? [RL.11-12.1.3.1]
• Humphrey Gould is characterized from the start as a mediocre person who is not
particularly striking in any way, other than his social connections (although even these
are probably more impressive to Phyllis and her father than they would be to be less
isolated people). Phyllis is said to admire him in some ways but the subtext is that this is
really envy rather than sincere admiration: she wishes she had his freedom and his
privileges as a man and a member of the gentry.
• Gould behaves selfishly – he breaks his engagement to Phyllis. He expresses some regret
over this, both to Phyllis and to his friend, but on the whole seems more worried about
his father’s reaction. This seems in line with what we know of him – it’s not that he’s a
monster, he’s just a shallow and unremarkable man.
• Matthäus also breaks a promise, in his case his vow to the king, but unlike Gould he is
risking his life to do so and his motives are much more creditable: he is in England
against his will and he wants to return home to his mother. We also see that he is a
courageous and honorable person. When Phyllis backs out of their plans to elope, he
doesn’t try to bully or cajole her into changing her mind but accepts her decision
instantly. When he and his friends are captured in Jersey, he and Christoph insist on
taking the full blame for the desertion, so that the other two are spared death.
• In short, Matthäus is a better man than Gould but everything is weighted against him in
English society: he is shot as a deserter while Gould will most likely get everything he
wants.
5. How does Phyllis’ reaction to Gould’s gift and confession characterize her? [RL.11-12.1.3.1]
• In the first place, Phyllis is pleased by the gift of the mirror. This does not mean that she
has already gotten over the loss of Matthäus; on the contrary, she is in despair. But it’s
Level N - Core | 12
still a very attractive gift, and she can’t help but feel a little happy that it’s hers to keep.
• She is prepared to marry Gould, although she obviously dreads it. When he tells her the
truth, her first reaction is relief that she won’t have to marry him after all, not pique that
he’s betrayed her or even regret that she could have left with Matthäus after all (though
that quickly follows). She even considers telling Gould the whole story, just to have a
confidant.
• Phyllis’ reaction is nuanced and realistic. Despite the circumstances, she isn’t indifferent
to the present itself; she’s a human being, after all. But she also shows that, despite her
youth, she’s mature and principled; it never occurs to her to feel slighted by Gould’s
behavior or to try to use the situation to manipulate or blackmail him.
Irony and Foreshadowing

In discussing irony and foreshadowing with your class, discuss the way that some books can
seem very different the second time the reader experiences them. Knowing the various twists in
the narrative, it is easier for the reader to understand the way that the plot functions. It is now
possible to see moments in the narrative that hinted at and laid the groundwork for these twists.
In this way, we gain a greater appreciation of the care with which the narrative is constructed.
There are also moments that may now seem funnier or more significant in retrospect, with our
knowledge of what happens next giving it a context that we did not have the first time around.
Irony
Irony refers to an incongruity or discrepancy between what is expected/said and what actually
happens/ is meant. In simple words, it is a difference between appearance and reality.
In verbal irony words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from, or
contrary to the actual meaning of the words. In situational irony, a situation ends up in quite a
different way than generally anticipated. Dramatic irony refers to information that a reader or
audience knows and that has an impact on the events, but which a character is unaware of.
1. Give an example of dramatic irony within the narrative. [RL.11-12.2.6]
• The clearest example of dramatic irony in the narrative occurs when Phyllis overhears
Gould and his friend discussing her. The way that Phyllis (and the reader, the first time
reading the story) interpret his words, he still considers himself engaged to Phyllis and
regrets not writing more consistently. Because of this understanding of his words, Phyllis
decides not to elope with the Hussar after all.
• But, as the reader will be aware when rereading the story, Gould actually means exactly
the opposite: he has broken his engagement to Phyllis and married someone else, which
Level N - Core | 13
is what is causing him to feel regret.
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary technique which involves hinting at future events in the narrative
before they occur, sometimes in a very indirect way and sometimes more clearly.
2. Give an example of foreshadowing in the narrative and explain its significance. [RL.11-12.2.5]
• Before deciding to elope with the Hussar, Phyllis hears that Gould does not consider their
engagement binding. He even mentions that both parties should feel free to pursue other
people if they want to. In retrospect, this is clearly foreshadowing his own decision to
break his engagement to Phyllis and to marry someone else.
3. In a sense, the story’s ending is foreshadowed by its beginning: if the narrator heard this
story from Phyllis herself in Dorset some sixty years later, she presumably never did flee
with Matthiäs. What impact does this have on the story’s effectiveness? [RL.11-12.2.5]
• On the one hand, this foreshadowing diminishes some of the story’s tension. Whatever
happens with Matthiäs and Gould, we know how this story ends: with Phyllis as a self-
effacing old countrywoman, still living in Dorset many years later.
• On the other hand, this also enriches the story’s implication that Phyllis and Matthiäs
would never have been able to make it back to his home in Germany in any case. By
ruling out this possibility at the start, the story’s mood of melancholic fatalism is
enhanced.
Level N - Core | 14
The Lady’s Maid’s Bell
by Edith Wharton (1902)
Edith Wharton (1862–1937):

Edith Wharton was born in New York to a wealthy, upper-class family. Her family travelled
extensively across Europe while she was a child. As a result, she became fluent in several
European languages and gained a lifelong love of travel and interest in architecture and design
influenced by French and Italian culture. An independent-minded and strong-willed young
woman, she defied convention by embarking on a career as a writer. This was not considered
appropriate for a woman of her class and so her first writings, before she gained her
independence, were written anonymously or under pseudonyms. Her best-known novels and
stories portray the ‘old New York’ of her youth, both celebrating and satirizing the genteel,
privileged world of the city’s aristocrats and intellectuals in the late nineteenth century. In 1921,
she won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence. She was the first female recipient
of the award.
Historical Background:
Edith Wharton narrates an enigmatic panic that beset her for seven years as a child, when she
was recuperating from an almost lethal case of typhoid, as she describes marking “the dividing
line between my little childhood and the next stage.” On her sickbed, Wharton is drawn to ghost
stories, then she becomes so afraid that she is unable to sleep alone due to formless terrors, “It
was like some dark undefinable menace, forever dogging my steps, lurking, and threatening; I
was conscious of it wherever I went by day, and at night it made sleep impossible, unless a light
and a nurse-maid were in the room. But whatever it was, it was most formidable and pressing
when I was returning from my daily walk (which I always took with a maid or governess, or with
my father).” In Wharton's anecdote, her mother (a comfort or an object of desire, fear, or
loathing) is replaced by servants. Her most primal psychic dramas, that is, were determined not
by fixed positions of “Mother,” “Father,” and “Daughter,” but by provisional practices of
domestic labor and sociality as would have been the case for most wealthy children in the latter
half of the nineteenth century. Attending to the historical reality of American domestic service in
the industrial era stimulates us to reevaluate how we interpret servants as both performers in
social history and characters in literature. Far from remaining merely subsidiary to the primitive
family drama, literary servants fracture myths of a hermetically-sealed nuclear family, becoming
involved in the original web of aspiration, distress, and empathy in the Female Gothic.

“The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” is narrated by Alice Hartley, a lady’s maid (that is, the female servant
who directly serves the lady of the house). Out of work due to a recent struggle with TB, Alice
accepts a job serving Mrs. Brympton, a woman who lives in a remote and secluded part of New
York’s Hudson Valley. Alice finds her house gloomy and oppressive, but she takes an immediate
Level N - Core | 15
liking to her new mistress. She learns that Mrs. Brympton’s previous lady’s maid, the deceased
Emma Saxon, was with her for twenty years and was devoted to her.
Over the next few weeks, Alice meets Mrs. Brympton’s husband, who is rarely home and who
proves to be an unpleasant, cheating bully, and also Mr. Ranford, a kind and friendly gentleman
of the neighborhood, who is very close to Mrs. Brympton.
One night, Alice has a strange and frightening experience. The bell in her room (which Mrs.
Brympton never uses) starts ringing furiously. When she hurries out of her room, she believes
that she sees a figure hurrying down the hallway in front of her. When she gets to Mrs.
Brympton’s room, Mr. Brympton is there; the implication is that she has interrupted him in the
act of assaulting his wife.
Alice realizes from an old photograph that the woman that she saw that night is Emma Saxon.
She then sees her again, and follows her out of the house and through the woods to Mr.
Ranford’s house, but does not understand what she is supposed to do or say when she gets there.
The climax of the novel happens that night. The bell in Alice’s room rings again and once again
she makes her way to Mrs. Brympton’s room. The implication is that Mr. Ranford is also there,
hiding in her dressing room. At that moment, Mr. Brympton arrives home unexpectedly and
storms up the stairs and into her room, obviously hoping to catch Mr. Ranford. He throws open
the dressing room door but the ghost of Emma Saxon, clearly visible to both him and Alice
blocks the way. At this moment, Mrs. Brympton dies of shock.

In discussing the setting and mood of the story, ask your students to think about their favorite
scary stories and films. How is fear established and built up over the course of a narrative? What
kind of tricks are used to make you identify with the protagonist and feel fear for them? Does
Wharton use any of these in the story?
Then ask them to consider the fact that there are different kinds of fear. Why are ghost stories
frightening, for instance? Ghosts aren’t always, or even usually, malign in this kind of fiction and
they rarely represent a physical threat to the living – Emma Saxon, in the story, doesn’t attempt
to hurt Alice. Nevertheless, she is a deeply unsettling and frightening presence. Why?
Level N - Core | 16
Identify Setting
Place Time
Setting
1. What is the atmosphere of the story and how is it developed? [RL.11-12.2.4.1]
• The story has an eerie, melancholy atmosphere that gradually becomes more oppressive
as it goes on, until finally climaxing in Mrs. Brympton’s death and Emma Saxon’s final
and most startling appearance.
• This is developed in various ways. From the beginning, Alice is warned that Mrs.
Brympton’s house is a gloomy and lonely place. Once she gets there, there is a repeated
emphasis on how oppressively dark the house is. Ominous events, such as Alice’s first
sighting of Emma Saxon and the other servants’ refusal to discuss certain topics, not to
mention Alice’s discovery that several lady’s maids before her at the house have refused
to stay there for very long, add to the air of growing unease.
2. How does the weather throughout the story affect its atmosphere? [RL.11-12.1.3.1]
• The story begins in autumn, and the constant rain adds to the melancholy, moody
atmosphere. When the season changes to winter, and snow begins to fall, Alice and the
reader feel a momentary sense of uplift and relief. But the fallen snow ultimately makes
the setting feel more eerie and forlorn, particularly during the scene in which Alice
follows Emma Saxon’s ghost through the woods.
3. Where is the story set, and how does this affect the plot? [RL.11-12.1.3.1]
• The story is set in the rural Hudson Valley, outside New York City. This remote setting is
why Mrs. Brympton feels so isolated, and probably part of what causes her to turn to Mr.
Ranford.
Level N - Core | 17
Plot Structure
structure. [RL.11-12.1.3.1]
Exposition: Alice takes the job with Mrs. Brympton
Rising Action: Alice meets Mrs. Brympton, her husband, and Mr. Ranford, and sees Emma
Saxon
Conflict: Alice becomes involved in the conflict between Mr. and Mrs. Brympton
Climax: Alice is brought by Emma Saxon to intervene in the final confrontation between the
Brymptons
Falling Action: Mrs. Brympton’s funeral
5. What event instigates the main conflict of the story? [RL.11-12.1.2.1]
• Alice’s bell rings for the first time.
1. How does the narrator’s perspective affect our understanding of the story? [RL.11-12.2.4]
• Alice is just an employee of the Brymptons, and one who is new to the household. She
doesn’t understand the dynamics of the Brymptons’ marriage and doesn’t, for instance,
appear to understand that Mrs. Brympton and Mr. Ranford are having an affair, or that
Mr. Brympton suspects this. The story would be very different if it were told, for
instance, by Mrs. Blinder or Mr. Wace, both of whom have been in the Brymptons’
employment for much longer.
• Because of Alice’s limited knowledge, the reader is required to put together the pieces of
the story for themselves.
2. How does the narrator feel about her fellow servants at Mrs. Brympton’s house? [RL.11-12.2.6]
A. She likes them.

B. She fears them.
C. She is indifferent to them.
D. She hates them.
E. She finds them amusing.
Level N - Core | 18
3. What is the significance to the plot of the narrator’s brush with tuberculosis? [RL.11-12.1.3]
• The narrator has been left near-penniless after her three months in hospital, and she is
also unemployed. She is anxious to find work, and she is particularly keen to work
somewhere secluded and restful, so Mrs. Brympton’s home seems ideal.
4. How does Mr. Brympton react to the narrator when they first meet? [RL.11-12.2.6]
A. He flirts with her aggressively.

B. He is hostile and suspicious.
C. He is rudely dismissive towards her.
D. He is outwardly friendly.
E. He is cold but polite.
5. Why does the narrator’s bell ring for the first time? [RL.11-12.2.6]
• We can infer that Emma Saxon causes it to ring. She wants Alice to come to Mrs.
Brympton’s room and intervene, because her husband is on the verge of killing her over
his suspicions that she is having an affair.
6. Why does Emma Saxon lead Alice through the woods to Mr. Ranford’s house? [RL.11-12.2.6]
• We can infer that Emma Saxon wants Alice to warn Mr. Ranford that Mr. Brympton is
planning to return unexpectedly that night, in the hopes of catching him with his wife.
But Emma Saxon has no way of conveying this to Alice, so the trip ends in failure.
7. What does Mr. Brympton mean by telling Alice that he is “going to meet a friend” during
their confrontation in Mrs. Brympton’s room? [RL.11-12.2.4.1]
• Mr. Brympton knows or is at least virtually certain that Mr. Ranford is hiding in the
dressing room. He is going to “meet” him – to find him and presumably kill him.
8. What is the significance of the fact that Mr. Ranford is walking with a stick at the end of the
story? [RL.11-12.1.3]
• He has presumably injured his leg jumping out of Mrs. Brympton’s dressing room
window.
Level N - Core | 19

Ask students to consider the ways that Alice’s “below-stairs” perspective affects her view of the
story’s characters. Her judgement of Mrs. Brympton, Mr. Brympton, and Mr. Ranford is based
primarily on how they treat their social inferiors. But some things are lost on her – for instance,
she doesn’t realize just how consumed with hate and jealousy Mr. Brympton has become,
because even he feels a certain obligation to maintain appearances in front of the servants, and so
he restrains himself.
Identify Theme
1. What is the central theme of the story? [RL.11-12.1.2.1]
A. loyal service transcending death

B. suspicion of the outsider
C. the city versus the countryside
D. the nature of love
E. betrayal and punishment
2. What symbolizes this theme throughout the story and why? [RL.11-12.1.2.1]
• The bell itself symbolizes the themes of loyalty and service. In itself, it represents a
maid’s service to her mistress: no matter when the bell is rung, she is expected to get up
and attend to her since her mistress’ needs come first.
• Throughout the story, the bell is rung twice. Both times, it is implicitly by Emma Saxon’s
agency, but it still expresses Mrs. Blympton’s very real need of Alice, in both cases, to
save her from her husband. Emma Saxon expects Alice to help her, even though she
might even be endangering herself in the process, because Alice, like Emma herself, is a
lady’s maid and thus duty-bound to put her mistress before herself.
3. What other themes does the story explore? [RL.11-12.1.2.1]
• One prominent theme is the mistreatment of women by men, the silence with which they
have to endure this abuse, and the double standards involved. Mr. Brympton is unfaithful
to his wife and both verbally and physically abusive, but nobody can or will do anything
about it. Emma Saxon and Alice do not just try to help Mrs. Brympton because they are
her servants: they feel an especial sympathy for her as a fellow woman (Emma Saxon and
Mrs. Brympton are described at one point in the narrative as having been as “close as
sisters”).
Level N - Core | 20
Characterization
4. How is the narrator characterized throughout the narrative? What do we learn about her from
the way she tells the story? How does this affect the story itself? [RL.11-12.2.6.1]
• We learn early on that Alice is quite a practical-minded and sensible young woman. She
doesn’t indulge in gossip (“I was never one to get my notion of new masters from their
servants”) and she is measured in her reactions (she notes just that the house looked “a bit
gloomy” – this appears to be a decided understatement). She surprises herself with her
immediate devotion to Mrs. Brympton – we’re to understand that she’s usually more
reserved. She understands immediately that Mr. Brympton is a sexual predator and is
relieved rather than put out when he clearly finds her unattractive.
• All of these qualities make the supernatural events which Alice experiences all the more
frightening – since she is clearly level-headed and tough, the terror which she feels by the
end is genuinely disturbing to the reader.
5. What is the significance of the red spot which sometimes appears on Mr. Brympton’s
forehead? [RL.11-12.2.4]
• The red spot indicates that Mr. Brympton is furious; it is like the flush that covers his face
when he has been drinking, except it is localized.
Level N - Core | 21
Gabriel-Ernest
by Saki (1909)
Saki (1870–1916):
Hector Hugh Munro, better known by the pen name “Saki,” was born in Burma, which at the
time was part of the British Empire. His father was Inspector General of the British police there.
Saki’s mother died when he was just two and his father sent him and his siblings back to England
to be raised by his aunts. Their household was strict and joyless and Saki disliked living with
them intensely; many of his stories depict humorless, pompous, and severe aunts based on his
own.
As an adult, Saki followed his father into the imperial police in Burma, but the hot, humid
climate there affected his health too badly to remain. He returned to England and became a
writer instead, starting out as a political satirist and historian but soon finding his calling as the
author of plays and short stories. When war with Germany was declared in 1914, Saki insisted on
joining up as a common soldier, even though he was 45 at this point and had been offered a
commission as an officer. He was killed by a German sniper in France.
Saki’s stories are known for their mixture of sparkling wit and their dark, misanthropic
worldview. They typically expose and mock the hypocrisy of English society, often contrasting it
with the simplicity and honesty of the kill-or-be-killed life of the animal kingdom.

The story takes place in rural England, on the lands of Van Cheele, the local justice of the peace.
Out for a walk in his woods one morning, Van Cheele encounters a strange, wild boy of about
sixteen, who talks about hunting and eating children. Van Cheele is disturbed by him, all the
more so when he shows up in his house the next day. However, Van Cheele’s aunt, who lives
with him, becomes very taken by the boy and decides to take him in until his parents can be
found. She gives him clothes and names him “Gabriel-Ernest,” and has him help her at her
Sunday-school class.
Van Cheele now remembers something that Cunningham, an artist friend of his who had been
staying with him, said about there being a “wild beast” in the woods. He decides to go to
Cunningham and ask what he meant, sensing that it’s connected to Gabriel-Ernest. Cunningham
reluctantly reveals that he saw Gabriel-Ernest in the woods and saw him turn into a wolf; the boy
is a werewolf.
Van Cheele races back home, to discover that his aunt has sent Gabriel-Ernest to walk one of the
Sunday-school infants back home. Van Cheele tries to catch up with them, but he is too late:
night falls and Van Cheele hears the child scream in fear. The implication is that Gabriel-Ernest
has taken on his wolf form and taken the child away to devour it. However, his aunt believes that
the child must have slipped and fallen into the river, and that Gabriel-Ernest lost his life trying to
save it.
Level N - Core | 22

Ask students to consider not just the events of the story but the way that the story is told. Notice
the way that the ironic, tongue-in-cheek tone of the narrative does not change even after the
revelation that Gabriel-Ernest is a werewolf and after he murders a child, and the way that the
story ends on a joke. Is the primary purpose to horrify or to amuse the reader? Can events as
horrific as the killing of a child ever be depicted in a comic way? How does the narrative
approach this problem? Are there ways that the brutality of the act is downplayed?
Identify Setting
Place Time
Setting
Social Setting Mood/atmosphere
1. Where is the story set? How does this affect the atmosphere of the story? [RL.11-12.1.3.1]
• The story is set somewhere in rural England, in a wooded region. This serves two
purposes. On the one hand, it is set in a quiet, orderly part of the world. A werewolf
appearing here is much more incongruous and therefore shocking than it would be in a
more conventionally romantic and untamed setting, like the forests of Eastern Europe or
even the Scottish Highlands.
• On the other hand, the story also reminds us that even English woodlands were once wild
and dangerous places, and hints that some of that wildness and danger might still be
lurking somewhere under the trees in the form of monsters like Gabriel-Ernest.
2. What is the social status of Van Cheele and his aunt? How does this affect the plot?
[RL.11-12.1.3]
• Van Cheele and his aunt are upper-class (or at least upper middle-class) landowners.
They see themselves as being responsible for the peace and order of the area. This is what
sets the plot in motion: Van Cheele feels compelled to order Gabriel-Ernest to leave the
Level N - Core | 23
woods, which brings him to Van Cheele’s house. Once he’s there, Van Cheele’s aunt, as
a prominent member of the community, decides to take an interest in his case, find him
clothes, and have him help look after her Sunday-school class, which of course ends in
disaster.
Plot Structure
Exposition: Cunningham tells Van Cheele that there is a wild beast in his woods
Rising Action: Van Cheele encounters Gabriel-Ernest
Conflict: Gabriel-Ernest appears in Van Cheele’s home
Climax: Van Cheele races home to try to stop Gabriel-Ernest
Falling Action: the memorial to Gabriel-Ernest is established
4. What event instigates the main conflict of the story? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• Van Cheele tells Gabriel-Ernest he has to leave the woods.
1. What profession is Cunningham? [RL.11-12.1.1]
A. He is a lawyer.
B. He is a landowner.
C. He is an artist.
D. He is a writer.
E. He is a politician.
2. How does Van Cheele react to Gabriel-Ernest? [RL.11-12.6.1]
A. He feels sorry for him.

B. He is intimidated by him.
C. He likes him.
D. He disregards him.
E. He is fascinated by him.
3. What does Gabriel-Ernest mean by saying that he hunts “on four feet”? [RL.11-12.4.1]
• He hunts in his wolf-form, at night.
Level N - Core | 24
4. Why is there some doubt as to whether the miller’s child did indeed drown, as most people
assume? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• Just before the child disappeared, the miller’s wife heard a scream from completely the
opposite direction from the waterside of the house.
5. Why does Gabriel-Ernest turn up in Van Cheele’s house? [RL.11-12.1.1]
• Gabriel-Ernest claims he’s complying with Van Cheele’s orders to leave the woods, but
he’s clearly just mocking him: Van Cheele has no power whatsoever to make Gabriel-
Ernest do anything that he doesn’t want to do.
• It’s more likely that Gabriel-Ernest just feels like toying with Van Cheele for a little
while. Perhaps he also already has a plan in mind to get access to the Sunday-school
infants, but this seems more opportunistic than anything else, and he doesn’t really come
across as a schemer.
6. Why is Cunningham initially reluctant to discuss what he saw in the woods? [RL.11-12.1.1]
• Mental illness runs in Cunningham’s family, and he worries that what he saw is a sign
that he’s starting to lose his mind.
7. What has happened to Gabriel-Ernest and the Toop child by the end of the story?
[RL.11-12.5.1]
• Gabriel-Ernest has assumed his wolf-form, discarded the clothes he was in, and snatched
the Toop child away. He has presumably gone back to the woods, or perhaps moved on
elsewhere.
• Van Cheele’s aunt, of course, believes that both drowned: Gabriel-Ernest trying to save
the child.
Theme, Characterization, and Imagery

In discussing the theme of the story, explain to students the contradictions of the Edwardian era.
It was a time of immense social inequality and upheaval, of brewing international tensions that
would ultimately climax in the horrors of the Great War, and yet the British upper-classes were
more focused than ever on questions of manners and etiquette. Saki’s stories often satirize the
pomposity and complacency of his society and its refusal to acknowledge the brutal realities of
life.
Level N - Core | 25
Theme
• The central theme of the story is the wildness and danger which Gabriel-Ernest
represents, and the way that it disrupts and destroys the complacency and false security
with which Van Cheele lives his life.
• Van Cheele is represented from the start as a pompous, talkative, but rather weak and
conventional man who lives a “primly ordered” existence with his aunt. Gabriel-Ernest
shocks him because of his complete indifference to the social norms which Van Cheele
places so much stock in, and his obvious strength and confidence.
• Van Cheele’s aunt tries to “tame” Gabriel-Ernest by naming him and dressing him, but
this proves to be futile: Gabriel-Ernest is a wild beast and one can’t change that just by
giving him a name.
Characterization
3. How is Van Cheele’s character portrayed in the story? Does he change at all? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• Van Cheele is portrayed as an endlessly talkative but completely conventional person: he

only says things that are completely trite and obvious, like the fact that the bluebells are
in bloom. He’s very pleased with himself and likes feeling like a local authority, but it’s
clear that he doesn’t really have any strength of character: his attempts to intimidate
Gabriel-Ernest are laughably ineffectual.
• By the end of the story, Van Cheele has arguably grown a little. He shows some courage
and presence of mind in trying to save the Toop child, and some backbone in standing up
to his aunt.
4. How is Gabriel-Ernest portrayed throughout the story? How does this relate to the story’s
themes? [RL.11-12.2.1] & [RL.11-12.3.1]
• From the beginning of the story, Gabriel-Ernest is portrayed as being completely

confident and in control. He does not even make any effort to hide his true nature, or the
fact that he eats children, from Van Cheele; he clearly doesn’t think that there’s anything
Level N - Core | 26
Van Cheele can do to stop him even if he does take him seriously.
• Gabriel-Ernest’s ruthlessness, strength, and even his strange honesty all make him a
representative of nature “red in tooth and claw.” He represents the reality of life, stripped
down to its essentials, which Van Cheele prefers to ignore.
Imagery
5. What kind of imagery is used to describe Gabriel-Ernest? What is its significance?

[RL.11-12.5.1]
• Gabriel-Ernest is frequently compared to a wild animal, both by the narrative and the
characters. His eyes are described as yellow and “tigerish.” Cunningham also compares
him to a wild faun of pagan times.
• All of these images both serve to foreshadow the revelation that Gabriel-Ernest is a
werewolf, but also link him to the theme of wild nature.
Level N - Core | 27
The Doll’s House
by Katherine Mansfield (1923)
Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923):

Katherine Mansfield was born in New Zealand, to a well-known and wealthy family; her father
was the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand. Mansfield’s childhood in rural New Zealand was
happy, but as she got older, she became discontented with life in the colonies. In particular, she
was horrified by the racism and injustice of the British colonists’ treatment of the Maori. At the
age of nineteen, she left New Zealand forever.
Mansfield settled in London, where she became part of the bohemian literary circle around
Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group. She suffered greatly from tuberculosis and spent a
great deal of time experimenting with different cures and courses of treatment. The illness finally
claimed her life at a retreat in France.
Much of Manfield’s fiction is based on her early life and experiences in New Zealand. She
nostalgically describes the beauty of the New Zealand scenery, and the color and excitement of
social events such as balls and garden parties in a young girl’s life, but also of the injustice and
inequality which was all around her and which makes the characters’ comfortable lifestyles
possible, even though they may only be fleetingly aware of it.
Historical Context:
While no one in Europe was completely unhurt by the menace of the WWI, Katherine Mansfield
was affected when her dear younger brother, Leslie Heron Beauchamp, was killed in 1915 just
weeks after arriving at the front. Mansfield had seen her brother in London before he dispatched
out and they talked for hours of their cheeriest years together as children. Upon news of Leslie’s
death, Mansfield yearned to return to a childhood that was unconscious of the dreadful events
that shook Europe and the world. She felt she owed it to her brother to use her writing to
reconstruct the New Zealand of her childhood. She wrote, “I have a duty to perform to the lovely
time when we were both alive. I want to write about it and he [her brother] wanted me to.”
Mansfield’s “The Doll’s House” takes place in a village town just like the one the Beauchamp
family moved to when Katherine was just a girl.

In this story, the three Burnell girls (Isabel, Lottie, and Kezia) are given a large doll’s house as a
present by a guest of their parents. They are delighted with it and are particularly keen to show
off their new possession to the other girls at school. Isabel, the oldest sister, takes them to the
doll’s house two by two, and they are suitably awed by it.
However, two girls are never invited to see it. These are the Kelvey girls, Lil and Else. They are
the washerwoman’s daughters, and everybody in the school looks down on them, sometimes
viciously bullying them. It would be unthinkable for them to be allowed to visit the upper-class
Burnells’ home, or to see the doll’s house.
Level N - Core | 28
Kezia, however, feels sorry for the Kelveys and secretly takes them to see the doll’s house. They
get just a glimpse of it before Kezia’s Aunt Beryl sees them and chases them away.
Level N - Core | 29
Setting, Plot Structure, and Symbolism

In discussing this story with your students, ask them to think back on their own childhoods. Do
they remember the toys that they had and the ways that having a particularly rare or expensive
toy gave one status in the schoolyard? Were they even vaguely aware of any social distinctions
within their class? Ask them to consider what Mansfield is saying, in this story, about the way
that social prejudice among children is formed and reinforced by adults.
Identify Setting
Place Time
Setting
1. How does the time and place that this story take place in affect the plot? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• The story takes place in rural New Zealand, during the colonial era. Because this is a
remote district, there is only one school for all the children of the area. This means that
the children of well-to-do families such as the Burnells are attending the same school as
poor children such as the Kelveys, a situation that would be unlikely to occur in a more
populated part of the British Empire.
2. From whose perspective is the story told? How does this affect the mood? [RL.11-12.4.1]
• The story is told, for the most part, from Kezia’s point of view (the perspective briefly
switches to that of Aunt Beryl, and to the Kelveys themselves at the end). This
contributes to the naïve and slightly dreamlike atmosphere of the story. The story is told
the way a little girl might tell it (“But perfect, perfect little house!”), dwelling on the
details that might be important or striking to her (like the “large red blobs” on the
newspaper wrapping the Kelveys’ jam sandwiches).
Level N - Core | 30
Plot Structure
Exposition: the doll’s house arrives
Rising Action: Isabel makes plans to show off the doll’s house
Conflict: the Kelveys are ignored and then mocked
Climax: Kezia shows the Kelveys the doll’s house and Aunt Beryl sees them
Falling Action: the Kelveys sit down to rest
4. What event instigates the main conflict of the story? [RL.11-12.2]
• The Kelveys’ presence at the edge of the group around Isabel.
Identify and Explain Symbolism
5. What is the key symbol of the story? What does it represent and how is it used? [RL.11-12.5.1]
• The key symbol of “The Doll’s House” is the doll’s house itself. To Isabel, it represents
money and social status. She uses it to cement her position as the leader of the other girls
at school. For Kezia, it seems to represent beauty in general. She’s more interested in the
house’s “little lamp” than anything else, because of the way it just seems so perfect and
complete in its miniature loveliness. This is the way that both Lil and Else seem to see it
too and the implication is that Kezia is less showing it off to them (although there is an
element of that) and more genuinely wants them to share in her vision of beauty.
Level N - Core | 31
1. Where does the story take place? [RL.11-12.3.1]
A. Dunedin, New Zealand

B. rural New Zealand
C. the Scottish countryside
D. the English countryside
E. London
2. Why is the doll’s house left in the courtyard? [RL.11-12.1.1]
• It is too big and bulky, and it still smells of fresh paint.
3. Why are the Kelveys so looked down on at school? [RL.11-12.1.1]
A. because of their appearance

B. because of their eating habits
C. because of their social class
D. because of their personalities
E. because they are bad at schoolwork
4. How and why does Lena Logan start teasing Lil? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• Lena asks Lil if she’s going to be a servant when she grows up and then, annoyed that Lil
doesn’t seem to mind, says that her father’s in prison. Her motive is to impress the other
girls.
5. Why does Aunt Beryl react so angrily when she sees the Kelveys? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• In the first place, because the Kelveys are lower-class and not permitted around the house
but also because she is in the middle of some kind of dispute, probably the end of an
affair, with a man named Willie Brent, and so she is in a foul mood anyway.
Level N - Core | 32
A Warning to the Curious
by M. R. James (1925)
M.R. James (1862–1936):

Montague Rhodes James was born in Kent although he spent a great deal of time growing up in
Suffolk, on England’s eastern coast. As a schoolboy, he attended Eton College and studied at
King’s College, Cambridge, as an undergraduate. His abilities were exceptional, and he was to
remain in the academic world for the rest of his life, eventually becoming Provost of King’s
College and later of Eton. James also enjoyed travel, particularly walking and cycling tours
across France and Scandinavia.
In addition to his scholarly work, James was a noted and influential author of ghost stories.
These typically take place in some old medieval town or church in England or on the Continent,
and feature a hapless academic protagonist whose habit of sifting through the past ends up
unleashing some kind of ghost or terrible spirit. James’ vast historical knowledge meant that
these stories feel exceptionally authentic and are therefore all the more effective.

The story takes place in Seaburgh, a coastal town in Suffolk, and is told to the narrator by
another, unnamed man. It appears that he and a friend, Henry Long, used to go to Seaburgh to
play golf every spring. On one occasion, they encounter a nervous, scholarly young man named
Paxton, who is staying at the same inn and who seems troubled and distressed.
Paxton explains that he recently heard a folktale of the “three holy crowns of East Anglia,” said
to have been buried along the coast long ago to keep England’s enemies at bay. One has been
dug up and melted down, one has been lost to the sea, but the third still remains buried. Until
recently, a local family, the Agers, had the sacred duty of guarding it, but the last of that line,
William Ager has died without leaving an heir. Paxton managed to find the last crown’s location
and dug it up, but ever since then he has had the obsessive idea that he has been followed. He is
convinced that he must return the crown but doesn’t dare to do it alone.
Long and the protagonist agree to accompany Paxton while he reburies the crown. However,
even after doing so, Paxton still feels that William Ager’s ghost is stalking him. While the other
two are elsewhere, Paxton is lured out by the ghost and brought down to the beach, where he is
thrown from the wall of the ruined fortification there and is killed by the fall.
Level N - Core | 33

Ask students why they think that M.R. James employs a double, or even triple if one counts
Paxton’s story, narration in this story. It is all being told to the narrator, who wasn’t there at all.
The second narrator personally witnesses some unsettling things, but never anything that is
completely and without a doubt supernatural. All of the most extreme manifestations of the
supernatural happen “off-screen”. Why do they think that James does it this way? Does it make
the story more or less frightening?
Identify Setting
Place Time
Setting
1. How does the detailed description of Seaburgh at the start of the story affect the story’s mood
and plot? Why is it included? [RL.11-12.2.4]
• Seaburgh is described in a clear and detailed way. This is important to the action of the
story later on, to give the reader a mental picture of where important areas such as the
mound and the battery are located. But it also helps establish the town as a real, grounded
setting. When supernatural elements start to intrude, they become all the more unsettling
because they are taking place in such a realistic and familiar setting, not in some kind of
imaginary Gothic location.
• There is also an element of wistful melancholy to the description of Seaburgh, a sense
that the narrator is revisiting his childhood as he talks about it. This note recurs
throughout the story.
2. The author links the story of the three crowns, as told to Paxton by the rector, with past wars
both relatively recent (the Great War, the Boer War, the Franco-Prussian War), and long ago
(references to invasions by the French and the Danes). What is the purpose of doing this?
[RL.11-12.5.1]
• The rector’s story gives us a sense of just how old the crowns are, and how remarkably
Level N - Core | 34
enduring the local tradition concerning them has been. This tradition is presented as
something timeless and primeval and untouched by the passage of time, in which
England’s enemies may change but the means of warding them off remains the same. The
reader is intended to feel a sense of awe and worry that Paxton intends to disturb
something so ancient and magical.
3. How does the weather throughout the story affect both the plot and the mood? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• Most of the story is implied to take place during hot spring weather, with sunny days and
soft and brilliantly moonlit nights. This adds to the pleasantly relaxed feel of the early
moments of the story, lulling the reader and the characters alike. Later on, despite the
sun, Long and the protagonist find themselves walking into a bank of mist on the beach.
This is important to the plot – the mist is implied to have been conjured up by William
Ager’s ghost to help him kill Paxton – but it also adds to the story’s sense of mystery and
the inexplicable.
Plot Structure
Exposition: the narrator describes Seaburgh
Rising Action: Long and the other man meet Paxton, who tells his story
Conflict: Paxton becomes convinced he is being followed
Climax: Paxton is lured out on to the beach and killed
Falling Action: the recovery of Paxton’s body and the inquest
5. What event puts the conflict of the story in motion? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• Paxton digging up the crown.
1. What is Paxton’s motivation in digging up the crown? [RL.11-12.2.3]
A. greed
B. desire for fame
C. desire to preserve the past
D. desire to learn
E. curiosity
Level N - Core | 35
2. Why is Paxton so determined to talk to the protagonist and Long? [RL.11-12.1.1]
• He is very frightened and wants the reassurance of their company.
3. Who are the Agers and what is their role in the folktale of the three crowns? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• The Agers are an old (but not aristocratic) local family. They are the guardians of the last
crown. During times of war and uncertainty, they camp out by its burial place to watch
over it and make sure that it isn’t stolen.
4. What do the protagonist and Long originally think Paxton should do with the crown?
[RL.11-12.2.4]
A. sell it
B. melt it down
C. bury it again
D. give it to the nation
E. throw it into the sea
5. Why does Paxton go out by himself on to the beach at the end of the story? [RL.11-12.5.1]
• The ghost of William Ager takes on the form and imitates the voices of Long and the
protagonist and walks in front of him. Paxton thinks that he is chasing after his friends.
6. How does Paxton die? [RL.11-12.5.1]
A. He drowns.
B. The ghost strangles him.
C. He falls from a high wall.
D. His heart stops.
E. He is buried alive.

In discussing the theme, ask the students to consider the fact that M.R. James himself was an
antiquarian, an academic who was fascinated by history. In Paxton’s position, he would
presumably also have dug up the crown. So why does he portray this as such a terrible mistake?
Is it a way of considering and discussing the kinds of dilemmas that historians and archaeologists
often face, of balancing respect for the past with their own desire to study and preserve that past?
Level N - Core | 36
Theme
• The central theme of the story is the conflict between an intellectual, academic
understanding of history, represented by Paxton, Long, and the protagonist, and the
timeless, folkloric understanding of history represented by the Agers, the old man in the
church, and the common people of Seaburgh generally.
• When Paxton hears the story of the three crowns from the old man and the rector, it does
not even occur to him to do as the Agers would have wished and leave the crown where it
is. It is not that he is greedy or selfish; he just assumes that as an educated man, he is in a
better position to decide what to do with it than any local.
Characterization
3. How is the character of Paxton developed throughout the narrative? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• Paxton is portrayed as a timid young man. He has enough respect for the social
conventions that, even though he is desperate to talk to somebody, he pretends to read a
book rather than strike up a conversation with Long and the protagonist.
• As he tells his story, it is clear that he is well-educated and intelligent – impressing the
old deacon and the rector with his knowledge. There is also something unexpectedly and
off-puttingly sly about him. He is not honest about his quest for the last crown and lies
about knowing William Ager in order to find its location. He obviously realizes that the
locals would object to his theft of the crown, since he does it by night, but he doesn’t
consider not doing so. He appears to be primarily motivated by curiosity.
4. How does Paxton’s characterization affect the plot and mood of the story? [RL.11-12.4]
• In the first place, if Paxton wasn’t driven by curiosity and dismissive of folk warnings, he
wouldn’t have dug up the crown – it is this that drives the action.
• In the second place, Paxton’s personality and actions give the story a moral dimension.
Although his death is horrifying, Paxton isn’t exactly innocent: he was disrespectful of
other people’s beliefs and of the memory of the Ager family. There is a sense that the
story is, as the title suggests, a warning or cautionary story.
Level N - Core | 37
Death in the Woods
by Sherwood Anderson (1926)
Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941):

Sherwood Anderson was born in rural Ohio. Due to his father’s financial problems, the family
moved around a great deal and Anderson was working in his spare time from an early age in
order to bring in extra cash. Throughout his childhood, adolescence, and early manhood, he
worked a great variety of jobs, from farm-work, horse-tending, and newspaper vending to a spell
in the United States army during the Spanish-American War. He ultimately found success in
advertising and started his own business, but the stress proved too much from him and in 1912 he
suffered an extended nervous breakdown, disappearing without a word to his family or
employees for four days.
After emerging from this fugue state, Anderson decided to dedicate himself full-time to his
writing. Although little-remembered now, he was influential in his time, and acted as something
of a mentor to literary giants such as Ernest Hemingway in their youth.
Anderson’s stories and novels frequently draw on his Midwest upbringing, telling stories of
hardship and struggle in a simple and unaffected style.

The story takes place in the rural Midwest, most likely Ohio. It features a woman, Mrs. Grimes,
although the story only ever refers to her as “the old woman” (she is, in fact, in her late 30s, but
looks much older). Her abusive husband, Grimes, is a horse thief and their son is likewise a
criminal. The narrator is recalling the story of Mrs. Grimes’ death, an episode from his
childhood.
Mrs. Grimes, who does all the work around the house, comes into town with the dogs on a
snowy winter’s evening to buy supplies. Her husband and son have taken the household buggy,
so she needs to walk, carrying everything she’s bought. The strain is too much for her and she
collapses halfway back, to die of exposure. The hungry dogs end up tearing open the pack on her
back to get at the dog meat she bought for them.
The narrator then recalls being among the party who went out to examine her body after a hunter
found her. He admits that many of the story’s details are actually based on his own experiences
or conjectures and discusses why he found the experience so moving.
Level N - Core | 38

Ask the students about similar episodes that they remember from their childhood – accidents or
crimes that took place in their neighborhood. Do they remember how adults talked about these
things, and how they gradually pieced together what had happened from overhearing these
discussions? Looking back on them now, do they have a different understanding of what had
happened, or a different reaction to it?
Identify Setting
Place Time
Setting
1. What is the significance of the time and setting to the story’s atmosphere? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• The story is set in the rural Midwest, in the late nineteenth century. The Midwest was still
a frontier at this point, and life was hard. This contributes to the story’s matter-of-fact
harshness and brutality – the “old woman” lives a life of appalling hardship and abuse but
she is not unusual in that respect and nobody, not even she herself, gives her situation
much thought.
2. How does the weather affect the plot and mood of the story? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• The cold and falling snow seal the old woman’s fate – when she drops from exhaustion,
she quickly dies of exposure.
• But the snow also adds an eerily beautiful element to the story: the old woman’s body is
discovered lying amidst it, like some kind of strange fairy tale. The purity and whiteness
of the snow seems among the factors that inspire the narrator’s musing that there is
something beautiful and perfect about the old woman’s end.
Level N - Core | 39
3. How does the style of narration affect the mood of the story? [RL.11-12.5.1]
• The story is told in a clear and unsentimental fashion (“Well, she was dead now.”). The
horror of the story’s events is made to stand out more clearly because of this matter-of-
fact narration.
Plot Structure
Exposition: the narrator describes the old woman’s visit to town
Rising Action: the old woman’s past and married life are outlined
Conflict: the old woman needs to get her heavy load of supplies home
Climax: the old woman dies in the clearing
Falling Action: the narrator and his brother see the body and reflect on it.
5. What event puts the conflict of the story in motion? [RL.11-12.1.1] & [RL.11-12.2.1]
• The old woman begins her return trip home.
1. Grimes, the old woman’s husband, is [RL.11-12.1.1]
A. a horse-dealer
B. a farmer
C. a sign-painter
D. a hunter
E. a blacksmith
2. How did the old woman meet Grimes? [RL.11-12.2.3]
• She was an indentured servant at a farm at which he did some temporary work.
3. How does the old woman make enough money to buy supplies? [RL.11-12.2.3]
• She sells the eggs which her chickens lay.
4. Why does the butcher become angry when the old woman comes in? [RL.11-12.1.1]
Level N - Core | 40
A. He dislikes her.
B. He thinks the dogs are going to steal meat.
C. He is indignant at the way her husband and son treat her.
D. He knows her husband and son are criminals.
E. He feels angry with himself for feeling sorry for her.
5. Why doesn’t the old woman follow the road home? [RL.11-12.1.1]
• There’s a shortcut through the woods that takes a mile off the journey.
6. Why does the narrator say nothing when his brother tells the story of the old woman’s death?
[RL.11-12.1.2]
A. He is angry that his brother is being so disrespectful.
B. He doesn’t understand what they saw.
C. He is too frightened by what they saw.
D. He thinks his brother has missed the spiritual significance of what they saw.
E. He is happy to let his brother take all the attention.
Theme and Symbolism

In discussing the imagery, ask the students to read through the story carefully, looking for any
indication of the central character’s age. Just how old is the “old woman” of the narrator’s story,
and why is she always referred to as such? What is the significance of the mistake concerning
her identity that the hunter makes when he finds her body?
Theme
• The central theme of the story is the sacrifice of personhood (the central character’s
youth, health, and ultimately life) in order to feed the material (the “animals” – the dogs,
horses, chickens, and men of her household.)
• The theme is developed throughout the narrator’s account of the life of the “old woman.”
Level N - Core | 41
All of her life, she has been a victim of male animal hunger, and it is clear that her
existence in Grimes’ home is one long, relentless cycle of desperately ensuring that the
men and the animals have enough to eat, since otherwise she’ll be badly beaten. The
pressures of this occupation, and the cruelty and deprivation of her earlier life, have
turned her into an “old woman” before she has even turned forty. She has had no
opportunity to develop herself in any way, emotionally or intellectually. The story
attributes virtually no feelings to her beyond fear, worry, and exhaustion – she does not
appear to resent her husband’s abuse or her son’s disrespect, nor is it ever suggested that
she loves either of them. She has turned herself into a machine for feeding them.
Imagery
3. What is the central image of the story? [RL.11-12.2]
• The central image of the story is of the old woman’s half-naked body lying face down in
the snow, seeming so slight and slender that the hunter mistakes it for that of a “beautiful
young girl.”
4. How does this image relate to the story’s theme? [RL.11-12.2.2]
• In the first place, the hunter and the others are seeing the old woman as she could have
been, if her life had been less filled with cruelty and abuse.
• In the second place, the dogs have torn her dress half-off her shoulder. The hunter
presumably thinks she was the victim of murder. The imagery of the torn dress and her
apparent youth recalls this episode – and emphasizes the way that farmer, Grimes, and
even the dogs view her as nothing more than a means to satisfying hunger of one kind or
another.
Level N - Core | 42
Stability
by Philip K. Dick (1947)
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982):

Philip Kindred Dick was born in Chicago but lived most of his life in California, where his
parents moved while he was still a child. He attended the University of Berkeley there but
dropped out without graduating due to an ongoing problem with anxiety.
Mental health issues plagued Dick; he experienced several nervous breakdowns throughout his
life (most dramatically in 1974) and was married five times, each marriage ending
catastrophically. His long-held ambition was to write realistic literary fiction, but none of his
work in this genre was published during his lifetime. His science fiction (which he wrote
somewhat grudgingly and often at high speed in order to pay bills) was much better received;
even at the time, many of his peers in the genre considered Dick a visionary and he is today
considered one of the most important science fiction authors of the twentieth century. His stories
are frequently adapted by Hollywood, the most notable example being Ridley Scott’s seminal
Blade Runner.
Dick’s science fiction is notable for its wide range of ideas and its pervasive and inescapable
sense of paranoia.

“Stability” takes place in the future, at some point past the twenty-fifth century. The protagonist
is a man named Robert Benton, who lives in the City of Lightness. Human society has reached a
level of permanent, changeless “Stability”: it neither progresses nor declines, thanks to constant
monitoring and enforcement of the rules. One of these rules is that all new inventions must be
examined by the Control Office to make sure that they would not upset Stability.
Benton is summoned to the Control Office, where he is told that the invention he has submitted
cannot be put into use: it represents a danger to Stability. Benton is confused by this, because he
has not submitted (or even invented) anything. He is given the device that he submits and takes it
home to examine it.
The device turns out to be a time machine and it transports him to a place in the distant past,
where he stumbles across a glass globe. Although a voice warns him not to, he picks up the glass
globe, which also seems to be speaking to him, and returns back with it to his own time, a few
days before the start of the story, so he can submit the time machine to the Control Office for
review and so close the time loop.
The authorities have figured out what had happened and come to confiscate the time machine,
but Benton no longer possesses it. The Controller takes an interest in the globe, which Benton
tries to pass off as a paperweight, and recounts a legend of a city so wicked that God imprisoned
it inside a glass globe forever. The Controller and his peers realize that this globe is the one from
the legend – the city within contrived for Benton to rescue it. The Controller attempts to take the
globe, but Benton smashes it instead.
Level N - Core | 43
Smashing the globe releases the city, which grows and swells and replaces the City of Lightness.
Benton and everyone else are now slaves to the machines that rule the evil city, laboring
endlessly in their furnaces and factories.
Level N - Core | 44

Consider discussing theories of history with your students in connection with this story. Many
people believe that human society advances steadily along with history: with each century, we
progress both morally and technologically. Others see history as a perpetual cycle of rises and
falls, in which one civilization after another expands, achieves greatness, then goes into decline
and shrinks into irrelevance. Which theory does this story appear to endorse? And is there
anything to suggest that its attitude is more complex than it seems?
Identify Setting
Place Time
Setting
1. What is the priority of the political system depicted in this story? How does this drive the
plot of the story? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• In this story, the priority of the authorities is to preserve “Stability,” the idea of total
social stasis. This is what drives the conflict of the story: Benton’s actions, whether he
wishes them or not, are affecting Stability and so the authorities wish to stop them.
2. What is the atmosphere of the story? How is this atmosphere achieved? [RL.11-12.6.1]
• The atmosphere of the story is one of hazy paranoia and confusion. This is instilled early
on, as Benton and the Controller discuss an invention which Benton is certain he never
submitted for review. The reader is put more on edge by the revelation of how this
society deals with those seen as threats to Stability; by causing them to simply disappear.
This means there is a great deal at stake for Benton if he has somehow created a risk to
Stability. As the story goes on, and Benton uses the time machine and is transported to
the grain fields, the heat and dryness there adds to the sense of dazed, hazy confusion and
Level N - Core | 45
dream logic, a mood which never dissipates from this point on but only intensifies even
after Benton returns to the future.
3. How is the setting of the story, the City of Lightness, described? What is the relevance of this
to the story’s plot? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• We are given only a few details on the City of Lightness, but they are revealing. The City
is linked by a series of busy underground tunnels; “communications cars” piloted by
robots can take people through this network. People also fly on the air currents over the
city using artificial wings and enjoy racing one another through the skies. The City is
very safe: few people bother locking their doors. All of this strongly suggests that
Stability works, however harshly it may be enforced: life for most people in the City of
Lightness seems to be relatively enjoyable and carefree, unlike the nightmarish industrial
City which replaces it at the end of the story.
Plot Structure
Exposition: Benton and the Controller discuss Stability
Rising Action: Benton travels into the past
Conflict: The authorities decide that Benton is a threat to Stability
Climax: Benton grabs the globe from the Controller and breaks it
Falling Action: Benton wakes up and enters the evil city
• Benton picking up the glass globe
1. How does the Controller treat Benton when Benton goes to see him at the start of the story?
[RL.11-12.1.1]
A. He is suspicious.
B. He is contemptuous.
C. He is admiring.
D. He is polite.
E. He is indifferent.
2. How is Stability enforced? [RL.11-12.1.1]
Level N - Core | 46
• An intense fifteen-year education is required for all children (one which seems to implant
the idea of Stability as absolute dogma). Every year, everyone undertakes a difficult
week-long examination to make sure that they’re remaining at the level required for
Stability. Those who fail are implied to be executed. And the Control Offices vet any new
inventions to make sure they don’t pose a threat to Stability.
3. What is the invention that Benton has apparently submitted to the Control Office?
[RL.11-12.1.2]
A. a teleporter
B. a city in a glass globe
C. a time machine
D. wings
E. The story never makes this clear.
4. Why does Benton decide to pick up the glass globe? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• He thinks that it is somehow keeping him cool and protected from thirst and the heat of
the sun. According to the globe’s guardian, this is actually because the evil city within the
globe is manipulating his mind and compelling him to act against his will.
5. Why do the Control Council decide to visit Benton? [RL.11-12.1.1]
• Their “Central Graph” predicts that a serious threat to Stability is about to emerge. Given
that Benton seems to have just invented and used a time machine, he seems the most
likely cause of this disruption.
6. How does the story end? [RL.11-12.5.1]
A. Benton is going to be executed.

B. Benton is going to lead a revolution.
C. Benton is just another slave in the evil city.
D. Benton is going to be the new ruler of the evil city.
E. Benton has been dreaming this entire time.
Genre and Symbolism
Genre
The genre of a text is the kind of story that it is, the kinds of plot elements and characters that it
possesses, the themes that it explores, and the expectations that we have of it.
Level N - Core | 47
1. What is the genre of this story? What features of this genre does it possess? [RL.11-12.5.1]
• “Stability” is a science fiction story. Like most science fiction stories, it is set in the
future and portrays futuristic technology such as robot drivers, time machines, and wings
that allow humans to fly. Like many classic works of science fiction, it is interested in
using its futuristic setting to explore ideas about politics and society, in this case the idea
that it might (or might not) be desirable for humanity to enforce a state of rigid,
changeless social stasis upon itself rather than risk decline. It also uses the idea of time
travel to create an intriguing, paradoxical situation: a man using a time machine to give
his past self the time machine he is using.
2. Are there any elements of the story that conflict with the expectations of this genre? What are
they, and what is their effect on the mood of the story? [RL.11-12.3.1], [RL.11-12.1.2]& [RL.11-
12.5.1]
• The strangest element of the story is not the time travel (which is a relatively common
plot device in science fiction) but the city in a glass globe. Although this is a science
fiction story, we are offered no scientific explanation for its existence (not even one
invoking fictional technology), but a bizarre legend about God cursing it and trapping it
in glass. What’s more, the legend appears to be the literal truth and all of the characters
accept it as such. This is a very strange turn for a sci-fi story to take and it adds to the
hazy, dream-like atmosphere of the second half of the story.
Symbolism
3. What do the “huge, white wings” that Benton wears at the start of the story and the City of
Lightness that he flies through symbolize? What are these symbols’ significance?
[RL.11-12.4.1]
• We usually associate white-winged humanoids flying through the clouds with angels. The
point of the imagery is not so much that Benton himself is a particularly angelic figure,
but that the City of Lightness is like Heaven: its name suggests both the airiness and
sunlit brilliance of popular depictions of Heaven.
4. What kind of symbolism is evoked by the imagery at the end of the story? How is this related
to the themes of the story? [RL.11-12.4.1]
• The end of the story depicts pale, bent-backed slaves laboring endlessly to feed blazing
furnaces of “steel and power.” From the reference to “sleeping cubes,” they are either
underground or in airless, windowless buildings. All of this strongly suggests Hell, the
“dark Satanic mills” of William Blake’s “Jerusalem.”
• The point of this symbolism is that Benton’s actions have replaced Heaven (albeit a
Heaven built and maintained at great moral cost) with Hell.
Level N - Core | 48
The Tower
by Marghanita Laski (1955)
Marghanita Laski (1915–1988):

Marghanita Laski was born in Manchester to a family of noted intellectuals and writers. A
voracious reader, she studied English at Oxford and worked in journalism after graduating. In
addition to her fiction, she was also a major contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary,
submitting around 250,000 literary quotations to illustrate its definitions. Her best-known novel
today is Little Boy Lost, written in 1949 and featuring an Englishman searching through post-war
France for his son.

The story’s protagonist is Caroline, a young woman who has recently moved to Tuscany with her
husband Neville, a British Council representative. Her husband’s job is to promote cultural
exchange between Britain and Italy. Caroline feels embarrassed by her lack of knowledge of
Italian art and culture and is out sightseeing for the day.
The last place she visits is the so-called Tower of Sacrifice, built by Niccolo di Ferramano in
1535. Thinking back, she recalls seeing portraits of this man and his young bride in a castle that
she and Neville visited – Neville speculated that Niccolo was a practitioner of black magic,
based on his sinister reputation and the books he is painted with.
Without quite understanding why, Caroline feels compelled to climb up the tower, counting the
steps on the way (her guidebook says that there are 470 of them). When she reaches the exterior
ledge at the top, she feels a strong compulsion to throw herself off it, inexplicably believing that
this is the only way down. She resists the impulse and begins descending the stairs instead, now
hysterically frightened. Once again, she keeps count of the steps – the story ends as her count
reaches 504.
Level N - Core | 49

Explain to the students the significance of the story’s Italian setting. From the eighteenth century
onwards, the British were fascinated by Italy: its rich classical heritage; its ancient rituals and
traditions; the contrast between the sophistication of its stunning art and culture during the
Renaissance with the intense violence and political intrigue of this period. Many British Gothic
novels, such as Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, were set in Italy, portraying it as a
kind of dark fairyland where anything might be possible. “The Tower” plays upon and draws
from this tradition.
Identify Setting
Place Time
Setting
1. What is the atmosphere of the story? How does the setting develop it? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• The story’s atmosphere is one of menacing yet alluring mystery. The setting is crucial to
this atmosphere: Tuscany is a beautiful region with a long, rich history which has often
also been bloody and violent.
2. Is there any suggestion that there is a difference in social status between Caroline and her
husband? What is the significance of this for the story’s plot? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• Neville is implied to be older than Caroline (she is his “young wife”) and he is much
more familiar with classical culture than she is. His voice is described as “well-bred” –
Caroline’s observation, suggesting that she is especially sensitive to this kind of thing.
• The possible class difference between them is another reason why Caroline feels that her
husband has all the power in their relationship, and it is that, that drives her to her
sightseeing trip – she wants to impress him with the things she has done by herself.
Level N - Core | 50
3. The story only hints at why Niccolo di Ferramano was so feared and what the significance of
the Tower of Sacrifice was. Why isn’t it made more explicit? What impact does this have on
the story’s atmosphere? [RL.11-12.3.1] & [RL.11-12.1.2]
• The story implies that there is some kind of link between the Tower and the early death
of Ferramano’s young bride, and also hints that there is some kind of connection between
her and Caroline, but it does not do more than this.
• This is because to say more would turn the story into a more clearly defined genre
exercise: a ghost story. By giving a clear explanation for the events of the story, even a
supernatural one, it would dilute its haunting and disturbing power.
Plot Structure
Exposition: Caroline arrives at the tower
Rising Action: Caroline recalls seeing the portraits of Giovanna and Niccolo di Ferramano
Conflict: Caroline feels compelled to climb the tower against her will
Climax: Caroline reaches the top
Falling Action: Caroline begins her descent
• Caroline’s decision to climb the tower despite her misgivings.
1. What mood is Caroline in at the start of the story? [RL.11-12.4.1]
A. angry
B. fearful
C. proud
D. contented
E. confused
2. Why is Caroline in this mood? [RL.11-12.6.1]
• She has driven the car by herself in Italy for the first time, and she has had a successful
afternoon of sightseeing.
Level N - Core | 51
3. What kind of work does Caroline’s husband, Neville, do? [RL.11-12.1.1]
• He works for the British Council, promoting cultural exchange between Britain and Italy.
4. How does Caroline react to the portrait of Niccolo di Ferramano? [RL.11-12.1.1]
A. She is indifferent.
B. She is frightened.
C. She is fascinated.
D. She is puzzled.
E. She is amused.
5. What does Caroline find at the top of the tower? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• The stairs themselves stop before the top, but a door there leads to a ledge on the outside
of the building.
6. What does Caroline encounter on her way back down the tower? [RL.11-12.1.2]
A. a ghost
B. a strange man
C. a spider
D. rats
E. a flock of bats
Theme
• The central theme of the story is women being controlled by the men in their lives.
• The theme is most clearly developed through the relationship between Caroline and
Neville. Neville is probably older than Caroline and he treats her patronizingly, more like
Level N - Core | 52
a student than a partner and equal. He ignores her own preferences and instead makes her
visit the places he finds appropriate, as though trying to mold her character into
something he finds suitable. Caroline has internalized this and is desperate to impress
him.
• The theme finds a muted echo in the marriage between Giovanna and Niccolo di
Ferramano. We don’t know anything about it, except that Giovanna died very young, but
the portraits suggest that something terrible happened to the innocent and “radiantly
virginal” Giovanna (she was either “lost” or “damned,” according to the owner of the
portraits), presumably at the hands of her sinister husband. The parallels between
Caroline and Giovanna are explicit, those between Neville and Niccolo less so but
Neville does seem to feel a similar urge to control his wife.
Characterization
3. How is Caroline characterized in this story? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• Caroline is characterized as being naïve, innocent, and somewhat shallow. She takes a
schoolgirl-like pride in doing things by herself and impressing her husband. She is not a
particularly deep or thoughtful person; she doesn’t have much personal interest in art and
is mostly trying to please her husband by studying it. She likes the cachet of being
married to an educated, influential man like Neville but would really rather be shopping
than visiting art galleries.
4. What is the deeper significance of Caroline’s characterization? How does it affect the
reader’s reaction to the story? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• In the first place, there are clear parallels between Caroline and Giovanna di Ferramano,
who seems to have the same quality of innocence. This is why Caroline is so drawn to the
picture, and Neville later comments on the similarity between them. This foreshadows
Caroline’s fate; the story hints that Giovanna may also have been trapped in the Tower of
Sacrifice in the same way that Caroline is by the end of the story.
• Caroline’s qualities also make the reader more alarmed for her by the end of the story,
making her seem even more helpless and vulnerable than anyone else would be; note the
childlike way she ends up going down the first steps of the tower on her bottom.
Level N - Core | 53
The Axe
by Penelope Fitzgerald (1975)
Penelope Fitzgerald (1916–2000):

Penelope Fitzgerald was born Penelope Knox in Lincoln, England. Many members of her family
were prominent intellectuals and scholars. She studied at Oxford and worked for the BBC during
World War II.
In the 1950s, she and her husband edited a literary magazine which was the first in Britain to
publish certain major American authors, such as J.D. Salinger and Norman Mailer. However, her
husband’s personal and professional struggles led to the family becoming impoverished and even
homeless for a time. In order to make ends meet, Fitzgerald worked as a teacher and in a
bookshop for a time. She only began writing at the age of 58, producing a series of biographies
followed by some autobiographical and historical novels.

The story is framed as a report that the manager of an office is sending to the owner of the
company, although the narrator mentions early on that he does not expect his boss to read more
than the first couple of sentences.
The owner has recently instructed the narrator to fire four of the office’s employees for economic
reasons. In fact, he is told to inform them of this and then persuade them to resign instead to
avoid humiliation, so that the company need not pay them any compensation. One of the people
selected by the owner is W.S. Singlebury, an elderly, mild, and conscientious man.
The narrator is well aware that Singlebury has no real-life outside work and will be neither
personally nor financially able to cope without it, but he complies with his boss’ instructions.
Singlebury doesn’t protest, and even invites the narrator over for dinner. They have an awkward
meal together, and Singlebury’s desperation is clear to the narrator.
After Singlebury leaves, the office’s existing problem of damp smells becomes markedly worse.
It seems not just to be present in the office but to cling to the narrator’s clothes, as he discovers
during a visit to a party at his boss’ house.
Partly in order to take his mind off his growing fear, the narrator stays working late at the office
the following Monday. Returning back from dinner at a café, he hears footsteps behind him and
sees Singlebury behind him. His head sways from side to side, and the narrator realizes that his
throat has been slit so forcefully that the head is partly detached.
The narrator flees into his own office and locks the door, but he hears Singlebury sit down at his
old desk outside it, the only way in and out. He can hear him looking through the drawers of the
desk. At this point, the narrator reveals that he is currently writing the report, trapped in his
office by terror.
Level N - Core | 54
Setting, Plot Structure, and Character

Students should be aware that “to give someone the axe” is slang for firing them in Britain. They
should also be aware that the 1970s, in Britain, were a time of high unemployment, strikes, and
economic crisis, during which employer/employee relationships were at an all-time low.
Identify Setting
Place Time
Setting
Economic Context Mood/atmosphere
1. How does the economic context of the story affect its plot and mood? [RL.11-12.3.1] &
[RL.11-12.4.1]
• The story is set at a time of an economic downturn, for the “Company” of the story and
also more generally. Particularly for older people like Mr. Singlebury, losing their jobs is
a disaster: he doesn’t have the flexibility and options of the younger people in the story,
such as Patel or the two girls whom the narrator also makes redundant.
• The narrator knows what a blow losing his job will be for Singlebury, but he carries out
his orders anyway. We learn that he himself is under financial pressure (he mentions
feeling grateful for the overtime work Singlebury’s departure leaves him with) and he
feels he has to keep his own job, no matter what he is asked to do.
• All of this sets a mood of desperation and degradation in the story: Singlebury is
humiliated as well as economically devastated by losing his job; the narrator feels deep
guilt and shame.
2. How does the damp in the office, to which the narrator refers repeatedly, affect the mood of
the story? [RL.11-12.4.1]
• The damp creates an unpleasant odor, to which many of the office’s employees object to,
but it seems impossible to remove, adding to the story’s atmosphere of frustration and
Level N - Core | 55
decline. Singlebury suggests that it is the smell of “disappointment” linking it to the
building’s history (and, unwittingly, to his own situation).
• As the story goes on, the damp smell intensifies and seems to cling in particular to the
narrator, representing his guilt and self-loathing. Increasingly, there seems to be
something supernatural about this odor, which reinforces the story’s mounting sense of
fear and unease.
3. In the story, the narrator visits both Singlebury’s home and the home of the owner of the
company. How are the two contrasted? What is the significance of this contrast?
[RL.11-12.5.1]
• Singlebury lives in Clapham, an undistinguished London suburb, some distance from the
Underground station. He has a small, single room above a cleaner’s shop, and shares a
toilet. It is stuffy and oppressive, though tidy, and does not have any cooking facility: the
implication is that Singlebury usually eats cheap food from a café.
• The owner of the Company lives in a town house in “Suffolk Park Gardens” – a fictional
neighborhood, but one that we can assume is affluent. The house is implied to be huge,
with halls and marble-floored rooms. The food is excellent, prepared by one of the
catering outfits owned by the Company.
• In short, the owner’s home and lifestyle are everything that Singlebury’s is not.
Plot Structure
Exposition: the narrator describes Singlebury and his instructions to make him and the others
redundant
Rising Action: the narrator makes the four employees redundant and has dinner with
Singlebury
Conflict: the narrator feels guilty over what he has done
Climax: the narrator sees Singlebury behind him in the office building
Falling Action: the narrator reveals that he is trapped in his office
5. What event puts the conflict of the story in motion? [RL.11-12.2]
• the narrator making Singlebury redundant
Character
6. How is the character of Singlebury developed throughout the story? [RL.11-12.3.1]
Level N - Core | 56
• Singlebury is portrayed from the beginning as a conscientious, routine-oriented man. He
dresses neatly according to a rigid weekly pattern and is very particular about the way the
things on his desk are arranged. He is mild and quiet. After he is made redundant, the
narrator realizes that he did an exceptional amount of the office’s work.
• He has a couple of peculiarities. He suggests that in some way the building is haunted by
the grief, fear, and disappointment of the women who lost relatives at sea during World
War II, and came there to seek news from the Admiralty; this reveals an unexpected
mystic or superstitious streak. Likewise, he rather cryptically insists that “the mind is the
blood” while talking with the narrator after dinner.
1. Who is the narrator of the story? [RL.11-12.6.1]
A. the owner of the Company

B. one of Singlebury’s colleagues
C. Singlebury’s manager
D. Singlebury’s replacement
E. a “fixer” for the company
2. How does the narrator feel towards his boss? [RL.11-12.36.1]
• He loathes and despises him and hates the fact that he is dependent upon him and has to
do as he says.
3. How do the employees who are made redundant react? [RL.11-12.1.1]
• Singlebury is very quiet and does not say much at all: the narrator surmises that he is in a
state of shock. The two girls aren’t particularly upset: they seem to have guessed that it
was coming and already found themselves jobs elsewhere. Mrs. Horrocks, “of Filing,” is
extremely aggressive and demands a higher severance pay packet: we learn that she
continues to call and harass the narrator throughout the rest of the story.
4. What does Singlebury mean by saying “the mind and the body are the same”? [RL.11-12.4.1]
• Singlebury is rejecting the idea (sometimes called “dualism”) that there is some kind of
distinction between our minds and our bodies. As far as he is concerned, we do not
inhabit our bodies, we are our bodies.
Level N - Core | 57
5. Which of the following best describes the conversation between the narrator and the man to
whom the report is addressed, when they talk in the latter’s house in Suffolk Park Gardens?
[RL.11-12.4.1]
A. tense and hostile
B. friendly and convivial
C. matter-of-fact and neutral
D. secretive and conspiratorial
E. aggressively competitive
6. What happens at the end of the story? [RL.11-12.5.1]
A. The narrator sees Singlebury’s ghost.

B. The narrator sees Singlebury just after he has killed himself.
C. The narrator murders Singlebury.
D. The narrator goes mad and begins hallucinating.
E. It is not clear whether the narrator has seen a dying Singlebury or Singlebury’s ghost.
Level N - Core | 58
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
by Ambrose Bierce (1888)
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914):

Ambrose Bierce was born in rural Ohio. His parents fostered a lifelong love of books and writing
in him, and he first began working as a journalist as a teenager. When the American Civil War
broke out, Bierce, who was an abolitionist, signed up with the Union army. Over the course of
the war, he saw some of the bloodiest battles of the war, and received commendations for
bravery, a promotion to staff officer, and a serious head injury. He remained in the army after the
war, joining General William Hazen on an expedition across the Great Plains to San Francisco.
He resigned from the army and settled down there to rejoin the field of journalism, where he
became noted for his acerbic wit and passionate political activism. Bierce was ferocious in print,
mercilessly satirizing political corruption and mendacity. In 1913, 71 years old and in poor
health, he decided to travel to Mexico to report on the Mexican Revolution. He disappeared
there, his last known location was the city of Chihuaha. Bierce’s stories are usually as cutting
and merciless as his journalism. Drawing on his experience of the unimaginable violence of the
Civil War and his own jaundiced and misanthropic view of humanity, his stories are often cruel
but sometimes also darkly humorous.
Historical Context:
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is set during the Civil War, which was fought from 1861
to 1865, and claimed 525,000 American lives. The Civil War was a bloody battle that began
when the states of the American South withdrew from the Union, arguing that the U.S.
Constitution gave them the right to do so if they chose. When President Abraham Lincoln
disagreed with their decision, war broke out between the Northern States. Because the South had
a much smaller populace and soldiers, a decision was made in 1861 to establish guerrilla combat
against Union troops. These guerrillas would insinuate camps behind the battle lines to interrupt
the enemy’s infrastructures and supplies by burning bridges, arresting emissaries, and blowing
up stored ammunition and food. Civilians were organized into troops of wardens to wage
guerrilla warfare against Union troops, while special units of the Confederate Army were created
to act as hit-and-run attackers behind Union lines.

The story takes place during the American Civil War. The Union (or Federal, as the story refers
to it) Army is advancing across northern Alabama and has just taken the titular bridge. A local
southern landowner, Peyton Farquhar, has been caught trying to sabotage the bridge; as the story
opens, he is about to be hanged from it.
However, as he is being let drop from the bridge, the rope breaks. Farquhar falls into the water
and manages to free his hands, then pulls the noose off. The Union soldiers fire on him but he
manages to escape by diving beneath the water and letting the current pull him downstream.
Level N - Core | 59
He pulls himself out in a part of the forest that he does not recognize and spends the rest of the
day wandering through untamed and completely unfamiliar woodland. By nightfall, he reaches a
mysterious broad avenue, with the stars arranged in alien constellations overhead. He blacks out,
then seems to find himself standing outside the gate of his own home, with his wife just inside
waiting for him. But when he tries to enter, he feels a massive blow to the back of his neck and
experiences a blaze of white light, followed by “darkness and silence.” The last line reveals that
Farquhar never escaped at all and has been hanged – everything he experienced after dropping
from the bridge was a hallucination playing out in the single moment before the noose snapped
his neck.
Level N - Core | 60

Make sure that students understand the significance of the American Civil War setting and
Farquhar’s motivation, as a slave-owner, in attempting to sabotage the Union advance.
In discussing the theme, ask students whether they think what happens to Farquhar in the story is
unfair. As a civilian who breaks the rules of war by attempting sabotage, does he deserve
execution? Does the fact that the Union forces deliberately lured him into a trap change our
attitude? Or the fact that he has a wife and children, or the fact that he is a slave-owner? Or is the
story suggesting that there is neither justice nor injustice, just events?
Identify Setting
Place Time
Setting
Military Context Mood/atmosphere
1. How does the military context affect the plot of the story? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• The Union or Federal Army is advancing through northern Alabama, which is a

Confederate state. Farquhar, as a slave-owner, is opposed to the Union and supports the
Confederacy, which is why it is so easy to lure him into his attempt to sabotage Owl
Creek Bridge.
2. What kind of landscape does the story take place in? How does this affect the atmosphere of
the story? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• The story is set among the woods of northern Alabama. Even though most of the setting
is just an imaginary version of this place, the fact that the real terrain is so heavily
wooded prevents the reader from realizing the truth at first, and adds to the eerie fairy tale
quality of the later sections of the story.
Level N - Core | 61
3. How and why does the mood change as the story goes on? [RL.11-12.4.1]
• At the start of the story, the mood is dispassionate and detached – we are observing the
preparations for Farquhar’s execution from the outside. This changes as the perspective
shifts to Farquhar’s own point of view – suddenly, we feel everything that he feels. The
story becomes more frantic and more emotive as Farquhar “escapes” and we follow him
trying to find his way home. By the end of the story, with the haunting vision of the
avenue of trees in the woods, the mood has become truly Gothic and chilling, almost
hysterical, before switching back to the original tone of passive observation with the last
sentence.
Plot Structure
Exposition: the description of the preparations for the execution
Rising Action: the flashback to the Union soldier who lures Farquhar into attempting to
sabotage the bridge
Conflict: Farquhar escapes and tries to return home
Climax: Farquhar appears to reach his home and tries to embrace his wife
Falling Action: the description of Farquhar’s dangling body
• Farquhar’s “escape” from his hanging
1. How is Farquhar going to be hanged? [RL.11-12.1.1]
• The Union soldiers set up makeshift gallows on the railroad bridge. They tie a rope
around an overhead beam and a noose around Farquhar’s neck, and position him and
themselves on planks balanced on the railway sleepers. Farquhar is standing on the end of
one plank, suspended between two sleepers; a sergeant is standing on the other end.
When this sergeant steps off the plank and removes the counterbalance of his weight,
Farquhar’s own weight will cause the plank to tip downwards. He’ll fall down towards
the river and the noose will tighten and break his neck.
2. Why does Farquhar want to sabotage Owl Creek Bridge? [RL.11-12.1.1]
Level N - Core | 62
• Farquhar is a slave-owner, and the Civil War is being fought over the issue of slavery. If
the Union wins, the economic basis for his family’s way of life will be destroyed.
3. What is the significance of the fact that the soldier who talks to Farquhar rides north
afterwards? [RL.11-12.1.2]
• He is not, as he led Farquhar and his wife to believe, a Confederate soldier but a Union
scout.
4. Why does the soldier who talks to Farquhar encourage him to sabotage Owl Creek Bridge?
[RL.11-12.1.1]
• Although a civilian, Farquhar has already been active in the Confederate cause; we are
not told doing exactly what, but we can presume that it has made the Union advance
more difficult. The Union forces have guessed that he is responsible and they want to
catch him in the act, so as to be able to execute him and put an end to his activities, so
they have sent a scout, disguised as a Confederate, to lure him into a trap.
5. To what does Farquhar attribute his ability to dodge the first volley of fire from the Union
soldiers after his escape? [RL.11-12.1.1]
• The soldiers have been instructed to fire in a single volley instead of at will. This makes it
easier for Farquhar to avoid being hit, because the guns are being fired simultaneously,
with every soldier aiming at the same point.
6. Why does the cannon switch from single shot to grape after firing once upon Farquhar?
[RL.11-12.1.1]
• For the same reason that the soldiers switch to firing at will – because a cluster of small
shot, dispersed across a wide area, makes it easier to hit a moving target than a single
cannonball.
7. Why are Farquhar’s tongue and eyes so swollen by the end of his time in the woods?
[RL.11-12.1.1]
• Farquhar is actually feeling, in the midst of his fantasy, the strangulation that the noose
around his throat is causing in the moments before it breaks his neck.
8. What happens to Farquhar as he approaches his wife and why? [RL.11-12.3.1]
• His neck breaks. This is because he never escaped at all; everything he experienced after
dropping down from the sleepers was a fantasy or hallucination, taking place in the few
Level N - Core | 63
moments before the rope tightened and broke his neck.
Theme and Character
Theme
• The central theme of the story is the inevitability of death.
• Farquhar is doomed from the start of the story. A desperate plan for escape forms in his
mind, and plays out in the form of a vivid fantasy just before the rope snaps his neck, but
in reality, he is in a completely inescapable situation. This is why, even in the
hallucination, he never actually manages to return home. Instead, he finds himself
wandering through an endless forest (which may itself be some kind of kingdom of
death) and is pulled back to the reality of death just before he could hug his wife.
• Adding to the theme is the revelation that his sabotage mission never had a chance from
the very beginning: he was set up by a Union scout, and the Union soldiers were waiting
for him at Owl Creek Bridge all along.
Character
3. How does the story get the reader to sympathize with the character of Farquhar? Why is it
important the reader be able to empathize with him in this way? [RL.11-12.5.1]
• Farquhar is described at the beginning of the story as an attractive, “kindly”-looking man

– not the kind of person you would expect to see on the gallows. He is trying to focus his
mind on his family and getting home to them remains his motivation throughout the rest
of the story. This makes him sympathetic to us: his motivations are human and relatable
and those of a loving father and husband.
• It is important we empathize with Farquhar because if we do not, the story lacks tension
and, in particular, the twist ending becomes much less shocking.
4. Are there any aspects of Farquhar’s character that make him less sympathetic? How do these
affect our understanding of the story? [RL.11-12.3.1] & [RL.11-12.5.1]
Level N - Core | 64
• Farquhar is a slave-owner. This isn’t an incidental detail, even though it’s only mentioned
once in the story and no slaves appear in the text. His motivation for trying to sabotage
the bridge is because he fears losing his ownership of other human beings. We should not
forget that the comfort of his home, to which he is so desperate to return to, is built on
exploitation. Furthermore, his attitude towards war is deluded and based on dreams of
honor and glory that bear little relation to reality, as he discovers.
• The overall effect is to rethink at least some of our sympathy for Farquhar, particularly on
a second reading of the story. He is placed in a horrific situation, but he knowingly made
all the decisions that put his neck in the gallows in the first place.
Writing Style and Twist Endings

In discussing twist endings with the class, ask if they can think of any twist endings in films
(Fight Club, The Sixth Sense, and The Usual Suspects are all possible suggestions). What is the
point of a twist like that? Re-watching the film, is it more or less interesting knowing the twist at
the end?
Explain that twist endings in stories were particularly popular in Ambrose Bierce’s time – an
author called O. Henry became particularly famous for them, to the point where an “O. Henry
twist” became a known literary cliché. O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi,” like “An Occurrence
at Owl Creek Bridge,” is one of the most famous “twist” stories ever written.
Writing Style
1. What is the writing style of the first section of the story? [RL.11-12.5.1]
• The writing style of the first section is crisp, detailed, and dispassionate. It makes sure
that we have a clear and vivid picture of the scene, and in particular the mechanics of the
execution about to be enacted. As it shifts from the perspective of a hypothetical outside
observer to that of the condemned man, it becomes more emotional, in revealing the
desperation of his thoughts.
2. How does the writing style change after Farquhar’s escape? [RL.11-12.5.1]
• The writing style becomes far wilder and more fantastic. We are now much more closely
aligned with Farquhar’s point of view, to the point at which we have little objective sense
of what is going on: we only experience what Farquhar experiences, with all the
confusion and panic and elation that involves.
Level N - Core | 65
• The writing also becomes notably vaguer. After the extremely precise and detailed
description of Owl Creek Bridge itself, the woods in which Farquhar finds himself are
not very clearly described at all. The avenue of trees is a partial exception, but even that
is such a strange image that it feels very different from the realism with which the bridge
is described.
3. What narrative purpose does this shift in writing serve? [RL.11-12.5.1]
• The scene on the bridge (and the flashback immediately after it) are the only parts of the
story that take place in reality; everything thereafter takes place in Farquhar’s mind (or
perhaps some kind of supernatural limbo, or some combination of the two). The
difference in the writing style is one of the clues that this has happened; the descriptions
are vaguer and more surreal because we are no longer in the real world at all, and there is
no objective weight or reality to anything that Farquhar sees at this point.
Twist Endings
4. How is the story’s twist ending foreshadowed from the beginning? [RL.11-12.5.1]
• In the opening section of the story, Farquhar is fantasizing about somehow getting free of
his restraints, diving into the river, and returning back home through the woods. The
narration notes that these thoughts passed very quickly through his mind.
• Events then go exactly as Farquhar imagined, which should make the reader suspicious,
as should the fact that Farquhar somehow manages to dodge two rifle volleys and a shot
from a cannon. The fact that he becomes so lost in his woods should also hint that
something strange is going on, but most chilling is the way that his throat starts to swell
and bruise, his eyes and tongue pop out, and he cannot feel the ground beneath his feet:
all strong indications that in reality he is still dangling from the bridge in a noose.
Level N - Core | 66
RL 01
11-12.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says
explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves
matters uncertain.
11-12.1.1 Provides strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text
says explicitly and/or inferences drawn from the text.
11-12.1.2 Provides a determination of where the text leaves matters uncertain.
11-12.2 Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development
over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a
complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
11-12.2.1 Provides a statement of two or more themes or central ideas of a text.
11-12.2.2 Provides an analysis of how two or more themes or central ideas interact and build on
one another to produce a complex account over the course of the text.
11-12.2.3 Provides an objective summary of a text.
11-12.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements
of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are
introduced and developed).
11-12.3.1 Provides an analysis of the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop
and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how
the characters are introduced and developed).
RL 02
11-12.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including
figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning
and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh,
engaging, or beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
11-12.4.1 Demonstrates the ability to determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are
used in a text (e.g., figurative, connotative) and/or provides an analysis of the impact of specific
word choice on meaning and/or tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is
particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful.
11-12.5 Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text
(e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic
resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.
11-12.5.1 Provides an analysis of how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific
parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic
or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning.
11-12.6 Analyze a case in which grasping a point of view requires distinguishing what is directly
Level N - Core | 67
stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).
11-12.6.1 Provides an analysis of a case in which grasping a point of view requires
distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm,
irony, or understatement).
RL 03
11-12.7 Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live
production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the
source text. (Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist.)
11-12.9 Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century
foundational works of American literature, including how two or more texts from the same
period treat similar themes or topics.
11-12.9.1 Demonstrates knowledge of how two eighteenth-century foundational works of
American literature, two nineteenth-century foundational works of American literature, or
two early-twentieth-century foundational works of American literature treat similar themes
or topics.
RL 04
11-12.10 By the end of grade 11, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and
poems, in the grades 11-CCR text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at
the high end of the range.
By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at
the high end of the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.
By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at
the high end of the grades 11–CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Level N - Core | 68

2324 - Level N - Stories of Ourselves - Core - Teacher&#39;s Guide

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

2324 - Level N - Stories of Ourselves - Core - Teacher&#39;s Guide

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Stories of Ourselves

The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion……………………………………………. 6–14

The Lady’s Maid’s Bell..……………………………………………….……………………15–21

The Doll’s House…………………………………………………………….………………28–32

A Warning to the Curious…….……………………………………………………………...33–37

Death in the Woods…..………………………………………………………………………38–42

An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge..………………………………………………………59–66

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928):

A Brief Outlook on the Content:

Teacher’s Notes and Suggestions

Exposition: Phyllis’ situation and engagement to Humphrey Gould

4. What event instigates the main conflict of the story? [RL.11-12.1.2]

1. Why do Phyllis and her father live in the village? [RL.11-12.1.2]

A. Her father is out of favor at Court.

A. His mother is dying.

5. Why did Humphrey Gould buy Phyllis a looking-glass? [RL.11-12.1.4.1]

• Gould buys Phyllis a looking-glass as a kind of simultaneous apology and bribe. He is

Teacher’s Notes and Suggestions

1. What is the central theme of the story? [RL.11-12.1.2]

2. How is this theme developed throughout the story? [RL.11-12.1.2]

Irony and Foreshadowing

Teacher’s Notes and Suggestions

1. Give an example of dramatic irony within the narrative. [RL.11-12.2.6]

Edith Wharton (1862–1937):

A Brief Outlook on the Content:

Setting and Plot Structure

Teacher’s Notes and Suggestions

1. What is the atmosphere of the story and how is it developed? [RL.11-12.2.4.1]

5. What event instigates the main conflict of the story? [RL.11-12.1.2.1]

• Alice’s bell rings for the first time.

A. She likes them.

A. He flirts with her aggressively.

Teacher’s Notes and Suggestions

1. What is the central theme of the story? [RL.11-12.1.2.1]

A. loyal service transcending death

3. What other themes does the story explore? [RL.11-12.1.2.1]

A Brief Outlook on the Content:

Teacher’s Notes and Suggestions

Social Setting Mood/atmosphere

4. What event instigates the main conflict of the story? [RL.11-12.1.2]

• Van Cheele tells Gabriel-Ernest he has to leave the woods.

1. What profession is Cunningham? [RL.11-12.1.1]

2. How does Van Cheele react to Gabriel-Ernest? [RL.11-12.6.1]

A. He feels sorry for him.

• He hunts in his wolf-form, at night.

5. Why does Gabriel-Ernest turn up in Van Cheele’s house? [RL.11-12.1.1]

Theme, Characterization, and Imagery

Teacher’s Notes and Suggestions

1. What is the central theme of the story? [RL.11-12.2.1]

2. How is this theme developed throughout the story? [RL.11-12.2.1]

• Van Cheele is portrayed as an endlessly talkative but completely conventional person: he

• From the beginning of the story, Gabriel-Ernest is portrayed as being completely

5. What kind of imagery is used to describe Gabriel-Ernest? What is its significance?

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923):

A Brief Outlook on the Content:

Teacher’s Notes and Suggestions

Social Setting Mood/atmosphere

4. What event instigates the main conflict of the story? [RL.11-12.2]

• The Kelveys’ presence at the edge of the group around Isabel.

Identify and Explain Symbolism

1. Where does the story take place? [RL.11-12.3.1]

A. Dunedin, New Zealand

2. Why is the doll’s house left in the courtyard? [RL.11-12.1.1]

• It is too big and bulky, and it still smells of fresh paint.

2324 - Level N - Stories of Ourselves - Core - Teacher's Guide

2324 - Level N - Stories of Ourselves - Core - Teacher's Guide