Sunday, April 29, 2012

What is the rising action of "The Lady or the Tiger?"

When figuring out the rising action of a story, think of a plot diagram that is shaped somewhat like a triangle. The top of the triangle is the climax of the story, so right before the story reaches that final revelatory point, the rising action takes place. The big question to be decided at the climactic point of the story is whether the princess will inform her lover which door to choose to save his life. Therefore, the climax would be the point that the young man opens the door and the answer is revealed. Part of the rising action is when the man is walking into the arena and looks up to the princess for help. However, the author discusses the dilemma facing the princess by describing how she has wrestled with the decision. Right before the man is to choose a door, there are two paragraphs explaining her internal deliberations--should she kill him or allow him to marry another? The rising action right before the revealing climax is the princess struggling with her decision.



"Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi barbaric futurity? And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood! Her decision had been indicated in an instant, but it had been made after days and nights of anguished deliberation."



As shown above, the "anguished deliberation" is the rising action displayed before the climax of the story.

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