Description:
The assessment will test you to understanding of the materials on plot analysis by writing a well-organized paragraph (180 words) in which they briefly analyze the plot structure of a short story.
Guidelines
1- Read the short story in the attached file.
2- Write a well-organized paragraph with title covering all the elements of the plot.
3- The analysis should be relevant to the short story in the attached file.
*** Words count = 180 words.
*** In-Text Citations and References using Harvard style.
*** I’ve uploaded the story in file named “Cemetery Path”.
Attachments area
“Cemetery Path”
By Leonard Q. Ross
Ivan was a timid little man – so timid that the villagers called him “Pigeon,” or
mocked him with the title “Ivan the Terrible.” Every night Ivan stopped at the
tavern which was on the edge of the village cemetery. Ivan never crossed the
cemetery to get to his lonely shack on the other side. The path through the
cemetery would save him many minutes, but he had never taken it – not even in
the full light of the moon.
Late one winter’s night, when bitter wind and snow beat against the tavern, the
customers took up their familiar mockery.
Ivan’s sickly protest only fed their taunts, and they jeered cruelly when the young
Cossack lieutenant flung his horrid challenge at their quarry. “You are a pigeon,
Ivan. You’ll walk all around the cemetery in this cold – but you dare not cross the
cemetery.”
Ivan murmured, “The cemetery is nothing to cross, Lieutenant. It is nothing but
earth, like all the other earth.” The lieutenant cried, “A challenge, then! Cross the
cemetery tonight, Ivan, and I’ll give you five rubles – five gold rubles!” Perhaps it
was the drink. Perhaps it was the temptation of the five gold rubles. No one ever
knew why Ivan, moistening his lips, said suddenly: Yes, Lieutenant. I’ll cross the
cemetery!”
The tavern echoed with their disbelief. The lieutenant winked to the men and
unbuckled his saber. “Here, Ivan. When you get to the center of the cemetery, in
front of the biggest tomb, stick the saber into the ground. In the morning we shall
go there. And if the saber is in the ground – five gold rubles to you!”
Ivan took the saber. The men drank a toast: “To Ivan the Terrible!” They roared
with laughter. The wind howled around Ivan as he closed the door of the tavern
behind him. The cold was knife-sharp. He buttoned his long coat and crossed the
dirt road. He could hear the lieutenant’s voice, louder than the rest, yelling after
him, “Five rubles, pigeon! If you live!”
Ivan pushed the cemetery gate open. He walked fast. “Earth, just earth…like any
other earth.” But the darkness was a massive dread. “Five gold rubles…” The
wind was so cruel, and the saber was like ice in his hands. Ivan shivered under
the long, thick coat and broke into a limping run. He recognized the large tomb.
He must have sobbed – that was drowned in the wind. And he kneeled, cold and
terrified, and drove the saber into the hard ground. With his fist, he beat it down
to the hilt. It was done. The cemetery…the challenge…five gold rubles. Ivan
started to rise from his knees. But he could not move. Something held him.
Something gripped him in an unyielding and implacable hold. Ivan tugged and
lurched and pulled – gasping in his panic, shaken by a monstrous fear. But
something held Ivan. He cried out in terror, then made senseless gurgling noises.
They found Ivan, next morning, on the ground in front of the tomb that was in the
center of the cemetery. His face was not that of a frozen man’s, but of a man
killed by some nameless horror. And the lieutenant’s saber was in the ground
where Ivan had pounded it through the dragging folds of his long coat.
Ross, L. “Cemetery Path” (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://cmsnorthstar.weebly.com/uploads/5/6/6/3/56635067/cemetery_path__by_leonard_q__1_.pdf
