Personal

Maria Royo
Philips
IB English B4
February 28, 2012
Short Stories Analysis
Title: “The Lost Phoebe”
Author: Theodore Dreiser
Plot- The Setting of the story takes place in a farm in the American Midwest. The setting of the indoors and outdoors suggests that the place is old and it’s deteriorating in several ways. The main characters are Henry and Phoebe Reifsneider. Henry is a farmerwho has been married to Phoebe for many years. He is also very set in his ways and does not feel like changing them because he has done them for so long. Phoebe Reifsneider is wife of farmer Henry Reifsneider, whom she has loved in the way people do when they have lived together for many years. She constantly threatens to leave Henry, but both Henry and she know these are false and she would neverleave him. Other side characters would include the neighbors and towns’ people. The conflict starts one day in the early spring Phoebe became sick and then dies causing Henry to become depressed and loose his sense in reality. The rising action starts one night after Henry goes to bed, the moonlight that fell on the old chair at the table in the bedroom and the half- open door made a shadowmaking it look like Phoebe was sitting by the table like she used to. After several nights of hallucinating Phoebe, one morning he awoke and made up his mind that maybe Phoebe was not dead and just left the house like threatened before. Henry travels to the country side looking for Phoebe. People try to reason with him but he just ignores them and continues looking for her. The climax begins afterseven years of Henry’s search for Phoebe, when he comes to Red hill, and that night he feels Phoebe to be closer to him than ever before. So he goes to the top of the hill, looks down into the valley visualizing Phoebe at the bottom of it and says “Wait Phoebe, I’m coming” (130). Then, the falling action and resolution happen when some farmer boys found Henry’s dead body at the bottom of the Hill.Even though his body was broken there was a tranquil smile on his face.
Diction-
1. “The creaky wooden loom… now stood like a dusty, bony skeleton, along with a broken rocking chair, a worm eaten cloth-press” (112). The adjectives have connotations of old age, decays and death. The first few pages of the story uses words alluding back to deterioration and establish a Gothic atmosphere, whichwill be present throughout the story.
2. “Old Reifsneider and his wife Phoebe were a loving couple. You perhaps know how it is with simple natures that fasten themselves like lichens on the stones of circumstances and weather their days to a crumbling conclusion” (114).The verbs “crumbling” and “fasten[ning]” implies that end of Henry’s and Phoebe’s lives is near. The following lines createjuxtaposition between Henry and Phoebe to be in the same situation as their deteriorating, old farm.
3. “The house was… in a very bad state. The bedclothes were in disorder not clean… It was terror to him” (115). The usage of terror has a negative connotation implying that Henry is frantic and trapped. The way terror is used as a noun/ direct object to Henry emphasizes the apprehension felt by thecharacter and sets an unsettling mood to the plot.
4. “If you don’t, I’ll leave yuh. I’ll get up and walk out of here someday… so yuh behave yourself …”(113). Phoebes language demonstrates her southern accent coming from the countryside and also that she and her husband are humble people and not wealthy. Her false threats of leaving help demonstrate Phoebe’s and Henry’s relationship. Sinceboth have lived and known each other for so long, Phoebe can say these types of things to Henry knowing that he will know she does not mean it.
5. “And feeling the lure of a world where love was young and Pheobe as this vision presented her, delightful epitome of their quondam youth.. he gave a cry and … leaped”( 130). The adjectives in the following lines allude to youth and rebirth. Also...