Genre
Fiction
Setting and Context
Denver, Colorado.
Narrator and Point of View
Third-person narration from the point of view of an omniscient narrator.
Tone and Mood
Humorous, Derisive,
Protagonist and Antagonist
Mrs. McPherson is the protagonist while her children are the antagonists.
Major Conflict
The siblings arrive to honor their father’s funeral, but they are in a hurry to leave. They discuss the fate of their widowed mother with each declining the offer to take her in. Every sibling feels like their mother would be a burden to them. They look forward to the will of their father being read so that each of them can get what is written under their names. They become surprised that their father had signed everything over to their mother while he was sick. They are also shocked that their mother has a plan for how she is going to spend her remaining life.
Climax
The story climaxes when their mother walks in with the lawyer and announces that everything had been assigned to her by their father. She also announces her well-laid-out plan on how to spend her remaining time on earth.
Foreshadowing
The will written by their father ten years ago foreshadowed his death and how things should be handled in his absence.
Understatement
n/a
Allusions
The story alludes to “The Woman question” in the late nineteenth century when activists were fighting patriarchy.
Imagery
“This place was a piece of rolling land within ten miles of Denver. It had a bit of river bottom, and ran up towards the foothills. From the house the view ran north and south along the precipitous ranks of the Big Rockies to westward. To the east lay the vast stretches of sloping plain.” This a vivid description of their family estate where their mother currently lives.
Paradox
“I’m going to do what I never did before. I’m going to live!” The statement in a way does not make any sense since we know by the definition of living that as long you are breathing then you are living. The way their mother explains how living is not only existing and taking care of others, but also taking of your needs as a person, then it suddenly makes sense.
Parallelism
“I think a woman is always happier living with a son than with a daughter’s husband,” Adelaide compares how her mother would feel comfortable living with James and not her.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
n/a
Personification
“A long illness eats up everything.” Illness has been personified by the ability to eat. Only living things can eat and therefore illness given the ability to eat is personification.
