Genre
Short Story
Setting and Context
The time is Christmas time. The place is a country house.
Narrator and Point of View
First-person point of view; the narrator is an unnamed seven-year-old boy.
Tone and Mood
The tone is joyful. The mood is playful and jolly.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is the narrator. The antagonist is not mentioned.
Major Conflict
The major conflict of the story is the ability to give and share when you possess very little. The generosity of one’s soul is the main idea of the story.
Climax
The climax comes in the end of the story when the narrator finds out about his friend’s death.
Foreshadowing
The friendship between an elderly lady and a seven-year-old boy foreshadows a loss of a close person for the last.
Understatement
The depth of the boy’s meaning in the life of the old lady is understated. Probably, this is because the story tell the boy’s point of view and his personal recollections of his childhood, but he had as an important place in the old lady’s life, as she had in his.
Allusions
The story alludes to President Roosevelt.
Imagery
n/a
Paradox
The old lady feels herself more comfortable in the company of people she does not know closely than in the company of her relatives, except for the boy.
Parallelism
n/a
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“Those who Know Best” is the synecdoche for the adults.
Personification
“Lovely dimes, the liveliest coin, the one that really jingles” – the coin is personified as the source of enjoyment; the boy receives one every Saturday and goes to watch a picture, which gives him a lot of joy.
