UNIT – 1

The New Icons: An Anthology of prose and Short story, Oxford University Press

1.1 A.G. Gardiner: All about a Dog

      Introduction:

Alfred George Gardiner (1865 – 1946) was an English journalist, editor and author. His essays are highly regarded, they are written under the alias "Alpha of the Plough". He was working as the Chairman of the National Anti-Sweating League.

Alfred George Gardiner presented his writings to The Star under the pen name Alpha of the Plough. At the time The Star had many unknown essayists whose pen names were the names of stars. Invited to select the name of a star as a pseudonym, he selected the name of the brightest (alpha) star in the collection "the Plough." His essays are consistently graceful, charming and amusing. His individuality lay in his capability to educate the essential truths of life in an easy and entertaining approach. 

Pebbles on the Shore, Pillars of Society, Leaves in the Wind and Many Furrows are some of his familiar writings. His writings incite the readers to discuss the subtle reality which is many times missed in the maze of appearance. His language is lucid and his expressions are straight, conversational but they have many times, more than appearance meaning. The implied irony enriches his writings.

We have the theme of willpower, class, antipathy, control, power, disobedience and change in “All about a Dog” by A.G. Gardiner. The story is narrated in the first person by an anonymous storyteller taken from his Leaves in the Wind collection and the reader realizes from the commencement of the story that Gardiner may be searching out the theme of willpower. The bus conductor is firm that the woman with the dog should bring the dog to the top of the bus. He has rules that must be adhered to and he is certain that the woman will pursue them.

The woman on the other hand has other thoughts and it’s not organized to change her mind (at least not for now). This may be significant as Gardiner may be introducing the theme of class with the woman representing the upper classes and being stubborn to instructions from someone of a lower class than her. She too has rules that she will not break for the time being and only changes her mind when she feels completely conquered by the conductor. Who all through the story seems to be happy with the fact that he is in control of the situation and that others must stick to his determination. Most likely, something that is uncommon for the conductor.

There is also a common sense that the conductor has a hew on his shoulder. Something that is clearer to the reader by way of his eagerness to inflict his set of laws on the woman. It is as if the conductor resents the situation he finds himself in and as such he is waiting for any moment that may arise in whereby he can put forth power.

The fact that he tries to move the woman upstairs might be seen as gender prejudiced as one does not wait for the conductor to do the same should a man come onto the bus with a dog. If anything both the conductor and the woman have a massive and instant dislike for each other. With issues of gender and class prejudice being raised. It might also be significant that everyone who is on the bus supports the woman and her negative response to go to the top of the bus. However it is more effective on that the same individuals lose patience and end up getting off the bus overall. The sense of unity does not last.

There may also be some imagery in the story which might be significant. The evening is resentfully cold which in many ways mirrors how the conductor feels towards the woman with the dog. The woman’s manner with the conductor at the beginning of the story also suggests a tone of disobedience. She is not ready to do as she is informed. Possibly again Gardiner is symptomatic of that those who are higher class believe themselves above others. Though at the same time travelling by bus would be considered a great leveler for those of the higher classes, typically one would expect someone who is higher class to travel by personal vehicle.

The fact that the woman has a cough could also be important as Gardiner might be using the cough to lay a center on the woman’s accent. She has one and is ready to use it. Only when it is actually necessary does she go to the top of the bus and even then she tries to go back down the stairs and return to her unique seat next to her friends.

The conclusion of the story is attractive as the storyteller engages with the conductor and describes to him that he took his rules too critically and by doing so he became part of the problem too. The storyteller has a substitute take on how things should have happened and it is attractive that the conductor does not essentially deviate with the narrator.

This could be significant as it suggests that the conductor has the capability to change. That he may not respond as he did should he be faced with the same difficulty again. If the conductor has misrepresented so too has the woman with the dog. She does not question the conductor on the second time when he tells her to go back to the top of the bus which may be the point that Gardiner is trying to make.

He may be symptomatic of that people in spite of of their unique differences can change and act in a different way when faced with a well-known trouble. It is the spirit of the rule which is significant for Gardiner and knowing when to be stricter and knowing when to be relaxed.

      Conclusion:

A.G.Gardiner in this essay shows how a man may be right in relation to the letter of the law but mistaken in accordance with the spirit of the law. If we glance around many of our troubles happen from our lack of the desire to go by the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law is also constructive and its aim is honest fairness to all without any prejudice. According to A.G.Gardiner, there are unusual rules framed for public leadership. Meaning and intention of rules should be borne in our mind. They are intended to be practical in the spirit but not in letter.

1.2 O’Henry: The Last Leaf

      Introduction:

O. Henry, pen name of William Sydney Porter, original name William Sidney Porter was born in 1862, U.S and died in 1910, New York. He was American short-story writer whose tales romanticized the ordinary place in particular the life of regular people in New York City. His stories uttered the consequence of coincidence on quality through comedy, harsh or sarcastic, and often had shock endings, a device that became recognized with his name and cost him critical favour when its trend had approved.

O. Henry got literary reputation under the pen name. His hallmark was the sarcastic twist at the end of a short story. “The Last Leaf” is a story from his “The Trimmed Lamp” and Other Stories. The greater part of his stories are set in the “present” time frame relation to that in which he composed them, the early part of the twentieth century. New York City is a recurrent location and his characters tend to be ordinary people with ordinary jobs.

In New York City’s Greenwich Village “The Last Leaf” takes place during the second decade of the twentieth century and it has as its essential characters an old actor, Behrman, whose path crosses with that of a young performer, Johnsy, and who gives her and motivation to live when she was seriously ill. Sue, a third artist, is another young woman with whom Johnsy lives.

      Summary in Detail:

"The Last Leaf “was published by O’Henry in 1907 in his collection The Trimmed Lamp and Other Story. The story is set during a pneumonia epidemic in Greenwich Village. It narrates the story of an old artist who saves the life of a young adjacent performer, dying of pneumonia, by giving her the will to live. As autumn turns into winter, she can watch an old tree through her window slowly flaking its leaves. She thought that she will die when the last leaf falls.

When all the leaves fall day by day, the last lone leaf stays on for many days. The woman got well very fast. In the end of the story, we come to know that the old artist, who always wanted to do a masterpiece painting but had never had any victory, had one night spent significant time painting with great pragmatism a leaf on the wall. In addition, the old artist himself expires of pneumonia constricted while being out in the wet and cold.

“The Last Leaf” is deceivingly easy. In the beginning of the story, it becomes obvious that it is really a deep searching of friendship and the commitments and self-sacrifices that are central to such relationships.“The Last Leaf” reveals the three characters to be of one mind in a sense. Sue is dedicated to the piece she is working on all through the story.

Behrman begins to work on an incomplete, in truth missing masterpiece. Johnsy, even though an artist, is not as dedicated to her art as are the other two, but she is single-mindedly faithful to accepting that she will face her death during the falling of the final leaf from the ivy vine. They all share an aptitude to stay paying attention on a goal, and it may not be important if their aims are the same or not.

That Johnsy and Sue share a companionship comes as no shock. They are alike with related welfare. Sue demonstrates her obligation to companionship by wanting to help Johnsy get well. When Behrman first enters the story he seems to be something of a bad-tempered elderly man. It soon becomes clear that he is more than that and has a true liking for both young women, most likely as he shares their interest in art and can comprehend the sacrifices and commitments living an artist’s life entails.

The theme of dedication is emphasized after a doctor visits Johnsy. He shows that there is not much he can do for her but she commits herself to getting better. She has typically given up hope, and the doctor believes that focusing on getting well would serve her better than looking at the leaves and waiting for them to fall.

Johnsy watches the leaves fall from the vine direct her into grief, but Behrman paints one that comes to symbolize trust as it leads to some development in her situation when she finds that the final leaf has not fallen. This might be the most understandable instance of imagery among those that show in the story.

In other examples, Henry compares art and literature and how they persuade their creators to push themselves and thus symbolize the sacrifices that artists and writers make in their lives that people in other dimension of life are not aware of.

Behrman represents, both literally and metaphorically, the final sacrifice and as such is a corroboration of the dedication intrinsic in true companionship. The outstanding, leaf the one that sustains Johnsy and changes her viewpoint on life and death, is not a leaf on the tree but one painted by Behrman on the window. This becomes the elderly artist’s masterpiece. He expires from the pneumonia he improves while painting the leaf outside in a storm—a symbol of his final sacrifice for his friend.

This concluding act of Behrman’s life not only helps Johnsy to get well, it is a life-affirming occasion for Behrman even as it directs to his death. Although money and the creation of a masterwork had proved indefinable, creating the simple, yet masterfully painted, leaf for Johnsy’s deliverance finished his life’s work.

The fight back between hopefulness and distrust is the main theme in “The Last Leaf.” Johnsy appears to have a negative character and the others must pressure her to believe the opportunity of becoming well from her illness. Behrman does not appear to have much about which to feel positive, on the other hand the act of painting the leaf for Johnsy brings an idealist hue to his life.

1.3 from the Jataka Tales: The Alligator and the Jackals

      Introduction:

Jataka Tales like the tales of panchatantra are very older and have an extended custom of being accepted on from generation to generation helping as foundation for ethical manners for humans in common. These stories are stories of knowledge, and principles written around 300 B.C in a language called PALI, which were later translated and spread to people across the world.

The Jātaka tales are a huge body of literature native to India relating to the preceding births of Gautama Buddha in together human and animal form. The future Buddha may appear as a king, an exile, an elephant—but, in whatsoever form, he exhibits some good quality that the tale thus inculcates.

This story is about The Alligator and the Jackal who tries to escape from being eaten by an alligator on the banks of a river. Following this event, the alligator is strong-minded to catch the wiliness jackal. The Jackal is evenly indomitable not to be eaten. A sequence of close escapes escalates the dispute until the dramatic ending.

      Summary:

A hungry Jackal on one occasion went down to the river-side in looking for of little crabs, bits of fish, and whatever else he could come across for his dinner. Now it chanced that in this river there lived a massive big Alligator, who, being also very hungry, would have been tremendously pleased to eat the Jackal.

The Jackal went to catch a prey but for a long time could find not anything to eat. At last, close to where the Alligator was lying, in the middle of some tall bulrushes beneath the clear low water, he saw a small crab sidling along as fast as his legs could take him. The Jackal was so hungry that when he saw this, he poked his paw into the water to attempt and catches the crab, and then the older Alligator trapped him.

“The Jackal considered to himself that this great big Alligator has caught his paw in his mouth, and in an extra minute he will draw him down by it beneath the water and take life himself; his only possibility is to make old Alligator believe that he has made a fault.” So the Jackal called out in a cheerful voice to the Alligator and told that grab hold of a bulrush root instead of his paw might be very tender.

The Alligator was so concealed among the bulrushes that he could barely see, thought, on hearing this, he was disappointed to a great extent because he thought that he had got the little Jackal and it seemed that he had  not caught anything but a bulrush root and so he allow the Jackal go.

Then the little Jackal rushed his paw out and ran away as fast as he could and cried that the Alligator helped him to flee and the Alligator could yet catch the Jackal. Next the Alligator was very annoyed; however the Jackal had run away too far away to be trapped.

Next day the Jackal returned to the river-side to get his dinner, as previous to, but because he was very much frightened of the Alligator, he called out that at whatever time he goes to look for his dinner, he sees the nice small crabs chirping up through the mud, and after that he catches them and eat them. He wishes he could see one then.'

The Alligator, who was hidden in the mud at the base of the river, heard every word. So he tipped the little point of his nose on top of the water, thinking, 'If he does but just shows the tip of his nose, the Jackal will take him for a crab and put in his paw to grasp him, and as soon as ever the Jackal does he'll guzzle the Jackal up.'

But earlier the Jackal saw the small tip of the Alligator's nose then he shouted that there was no dinner for him in that place and ran further on and fished for his dinner a long way from that place. The Alligator was very irritated at misplaced his prey a second time and strong minded not to permit him flee again.

The next day, when his small Jackal came to the water-side, the Alligator hid himself nearer to the bank so as to grasp him if he could. Now the Jackal was rather frightened of going near the river for he planned that maybe this Alligator would hold him that day. But yet, being starving, he did not desire to go with no dinner; hence to make all as safe as he could, he cried that where were all the little crabs gone, there was not one there.

On seeing this, the Alligator, who was hidden in the mud beneath the river-bank, thought that he would make up to be a little crab. And he started to gust and all the great big bubbles swift to the surface of the river and come apart there, and the waters eddied round and round like a whirlpool, and there was such a commotion when the huge monster began to blow bubbles in this way that the Jackal saw very well who must be there, and he ran away as fast as he could.

This made the Alligator extremely furious; it made him fairly cross to think of being so often cheated by a little Jackal, and he said to himself that he would be taken in no more. Next time he would be very cunning.

For a long period, he expected for the Jackal to come back to the river-side, but the Jackal did not come for he had thought to himself if matters went on in that way, he would someday be caught, and eaten by the wicked old Alligator, he had better content himself with living on wild figs,' and he went no more close to the river but remain there in the jungle and had natural figs and roots which he dug up with his paws.

When the Alligator came to know about this, he took a firm decision to catch the Jackal on land; so, disappearing beneath the largest of the wild fig-trees where the ground was enclosed with the fallen fruit, he gathered a amount of it jointly and, burying himself beneath the huge mound, anticipated for the Jackal to come into view.

But the Jackal see this huge mound of wild figs all composed mutually, he came into a consideration that it might be the Alligator and called out that the juicy little wild figs, he liked to eat always stumble down from the tree and turn over here and there as the wind drives them, but this huge mound of figs is quite still; these cannot be good figs, he would not eat any of them.'

The Alligator thought to himself that how suspicious this Jackal was! He would make the figs roll about a little then, and when he saw that, he would doubtless come and eat them. So the great beast shook himself, and all the heap of little figs went roll, roll, roll; some a mile this way, some a mile that way, further than they had ever rolled before or than the most blustering wind could have driven them.

Seeing this, Jackal scampered away, thanking the Alligator for letting him know he was there. The Alligator became very angry by hearing this that he chased the Jackal, but the Jackal ran very, very fast away too quickly to be caught.

Then the Alligator said to himself that he would not allow that little wretch to make fun of him another time and then run away out of reach; he would show him that he would be more cunning than he fancies. 'In the early next morning, he moved as fast as he could to the Jackal's den and went into it and hid himself, anticipating for the Jackal, who was outside, to come back home.

But when the Jackal got near the place, he looked about him and thought that the ground looked as if some heavy creature had been walking over it, and there were huge clods of earth knocked down from each side of the door of his den as though a very large animal had been attempting to press himself through it, he surely will not go inside until he knows that all was secure there. So he called out that little house, pretty house, anything was wrong there.

Then the Alligator thought that if it was the condition, he had better call out that the Jackal might imagine all was correct in his house. And in as mild a voice as he could, he said, 'Sweet little Jackal!'At listening these words the Jackal felt scared and planned to him; “So the awful old Alligator is there! He must try to kill me if he can for, if he does not, the Alligator will surely catch and kill me some day”. He consequently answered that he would like to hear the attractive voice, he would go inside in a minute, but first he would gather firewood to prepare his dinner.

And he went away as fast as he could and brought all the dry branches and bits of stick he could find nearer to the den. Intervening time the Alligator stayed inside as calm as a mouse, but he could not help laughing a little to himself as he thought that he had deceived this tiresome little Jackal at last. In a few minutes the Jackal will run in here, and then won't he snap him up.

When the Jackal had collected all the sticks together, he put them round the mouth of his den, pushed them as far into it as possible. There was a huge mount of them that they fast blazed up into a vast fire and the smoke and flames overflowing the den and killed the wicked old Alligator and burnt him to death, and then the little Jackal ran up and down outside, dancing for joy and singing with great happiness. Always after that the little Jackal could go, wherever he pleased in safety and he ate so many ripe figs and crabs that he grew as fat as he could be.

      Conclusion:

As the Jackal faced so many challenges to survive in its place, even we too have lot of challenges in our life. Though the Jackal was having continuous struggles until end it had strong mind and positive thought to win the Alligator. In the same way if we have stable mind and optimistic heart, we can face any kind of struggles and win the battles in our life. How the Jackal has become stronger and stronger by all the problems it faced, similarly we too become better and better through the difficulties we face in our life. So let us get grateful for the struggles and works on us to ensure that our future have much more pleasure than pain.

1.4 Thomas Hardy: The Three Strangers

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in Southwestern England. Hardy wrote novels and poetry from 1867 though the first part of his profession was dedicated mostly to novels. At primary, he published namelessly, but after people became involved in his work, he began to use his own name. Hardy's novels were published successively in magazines like the work of his modern Charles Dickens, and they became admired in both England and America. His first well-liked novel was Under the Greenwood Tree, published in 1872.

Thomas Hardy's novella The Three Strangers tells a tale of intrigue. The story is a rustic history told by an omniscient narrator more than 50 years after the occasion.  Throughout a tempestuous night in an isolated cottage, there is a party to rejoice the birth and baptism of a infant. Throughout the party, three strangers knock on the door. The tension of the plot increases when the guests understand they have a illegal in their midst. Providentially for the sheep-stealing thief, the guests consider the incorrect person is the illegal. The thief gets away.

The main clash in 'The Three Strangers' pits man against society. The runaway illegal tries to avoid capture while the guests work against him.

When the first stranger arrives the conflict arises. Strangers have arrived during the night and so the doubt of the cottage owners and guests grows more. The third stranger has a terrified look on his face when the door opens, then he has left, everybody is on high vigilant. The information of a gunshot which lets people discern there is a runaway criminal encourages those in the cottage to consider the third stranger is the criminal.

The third stranger ends up being the one to bring decision to the clash. He tells everybody he is the criminal's brother. He also brings to the notice that the first stranger is Timothy Summers, the thief. In this story, the conflict's resolution has the criminal escaping justice.

The first theme we will explore is the idea of justice. Justice is meant to balance an inequality. However, in this story, Timothy Summers stole a sheep due to his family starving and his punishment is to die. This does not return equality and it is not fair. So the true justice is for him not to die. The villagers agree that the punishment is too harsh so they refuse to aid in his capture. They sympathize with Summers' reason for stealing because they are all struggling with the food shortage at this time.

The villagers also respect Timothy Summers for having outwitted the constable and the executioner. He becomes a sort of folk hero for this clever ruse. In their eyes, he may have earned his freedom with this act.

The other theme we will explore is that looks can be deceiving. The strangers reluctantly reveal information about themselves which leaves the group guessing who the criminal is. The first stranger has a ready answer for every question including his profession being a wheelwright. He seems so relaxed sitting next to the fire that he does not appear suspicious. He is so undisturbed by the hangman sitting next to him that he joins in the hangman's song about what the hangman plans on doing to him.

Hardy’s use of foreshadowing in “The Three Strangers” is very interesting. There is a lot of foreshadowing in the story, although the reader might not recognize it immediately. For instance, the first stranger is explained by Hardy as having a gaunt look; as this might seem like a slight aspect, it makes perfect sense after it is revealed that the first stranger is actually the poor and starving sheep-stealer.

 The first stranger is also remarkably elusive about revealing individual details when talking with the shepherd’s wife, and his justification for not having a pipe and tobacco box is suitable, to say the least. It is comprehensible that the reader would believe at first that the third stranger is indeed the runaway prisoner, but upon looking back at the story, it is fairly convincing that the prisoner is in fact the first stranger.

Hardy’s employment of these illustrations of foreshadowing is planned to exploit the shock that comes at the climax. In addition to the amusement worth, the story gives the remainder the readers of the significance of paying concentration to detail and not jumping to conclusions. Hardy scatters many clues to the prisoner’s true personality all the way through the story, but the majority of readers fail to spot those clues on the first read-through.

One more attractive feature of the story is Hardy’s well-crafted characterizations. For instance, Hardy manages to build up the personality of the constable throughout the concluding part of the story. The constable is described as being conceited and somewhat clumsy man, more worried with influence and status than really helping justice.

At the point of the story where the hangman tells him to follow the runaway prisoner and then begins giving instructions to the rest of the party, the constable selects to replicate some of the hangman’s sentences and complete others. This reveals that he is trying to set up himself as being evenly a member of influence as the hangman; this idea is furthered when the constable uses the phrase “we in authority.” Later on, after the party has caught the third stranger, the constable starts to blame him by using the phrase “in the name of the Father,” but stops himself in the center of the last word and alters it to “crown.”

He likely does this since he considers that royals is a more terrifying and appreciated thing than religious conviction, and he desires to be apparent in this way by the third stranger. Hardy also does a methodical job of characterizing the shepherd’s wife. He explains her as being “frugal” and then goes on to rationalize that explanation by detailing her pains to connect the party guests in “mingling short dances with short periods of talk and singing” so that they would not become too thirsty and consume huge quantities of mead. 

Actually, she tells the musicians not to play for more than fifteen minutes at a time so that the guests would be compulsory to take breaks from dancing. On the other hand, the shepherd’s wife’s proclivity towards good welcome seems to superior her frugal nature. After the musicians continue to play following her effort to get them to stop playing, she abandons her attempt and sits down rather than appear impolite to her guests.

Afterwards, when the first stranger offers his mug of mead to the second stranger, the shepherd’s wife is overcome by a “curious blueness” that seems to propose her anger towards the first stranger for contribution “what did not belong to him to dispense.” Yet, per her reluctance to seem like a bad hostess, she does not try to stop this swap but rather completely comments on the mead. In this sense she is not happy with the circumstances and desires to express that, but cannot seem to do so in an unambiguous manner.

The pressure and satire of “The Three Strangers” comes from Hardy’s clever exploitation of our outlook. It’s simple to jump to the end about the characters’ identities based on their events and look, but in the concluding part of the story will likely prove these assumptions wrong. The story becomes a game of who’s who as we face trouble to pin down which stranger is good and which is bad. On the other hand, even after the identities are expressed the story’s end that question is still open to clarification.

The situations of the first stranger’s entrance are threatening and odd, but no reason for alarm for the guests. His cautious, reserved manner and unwillingness to explain why he was out on such an unfriendly night, however, makes it seem like he is hiding something. If the first stranger comes off as undamaging but doubtful, the second seems outright menacing. We right away disbelieve him for his taste for free alcohol and the vagueness about his job.

We might even be tempted to guess that his “trade” is something illegal. Hardy further persuades us to doubting the second stranger’s intentions when Fennel’s wife says, “And a stranger unbeknown to any of us! For my part, I don’t like the look o’ the man at all.” Hardy is playing on the lack of information he provides and lets our imaginations run wild about who he might be.

When the carpenter reports that you can tell a man’s trades by his hands, our doubts will flare up even more when the second stranger confesses, “the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it sets a mark upon my customers,” which so soundly supports our doubts that we barely notice that the first stranger’s hands “impulsively sought after the shade.”

In spite of that the second stranger expresses his trade shortly afterwards in song. The guests and reader are doubtful that some wicked plot is happening:

“Oh, my trade it is the rarest one,
Simple shepherds all,
My trade is a sight to see;
For my customers I tie, and take them up on high,
And waft ’em to a far countree.”

It seems that rather than being candid, he is using the song to shock the guests for his own enjoyment. We know that Mrs. Fennel suspects whether this stranger was just singing an old song from memory, or producing one there and then for the time.” The plot becomes even more perplexing when the first stranger starts singing all along; it seems all though they’re performing in conspiracy.

Certainly, the guests do ultimately understand “that the stranger was answering his question metrically,” but are nevertheless surprised by a man with such a macabre career in their existence. Their astonished rumor also suggests that they have more understanding for the sheep-thief, “our own country [man]” “whose family were a-starving . . . And took a sheep in open daylight” than the “stranger of the dreadful trade” who “is come from up the country to do it because there’s not sufficient to do in his own county town.”

Timothy Sommers, the thief, is highlighted as a loving father, one of their own, who graciously stole food to save his family from hunger, while the aggressive hangman is just looking for more people to carry out. When the final stranger makes his look, first time readers may be just as persuaded that he is the real sheep-thief as the guests from his response: “he stood before them the picture of abject terror-his knees shaky, his hand shaking so ferociously that the door-latch, by which he supported himself, upset audibly; his white lips were parted, and his eyes fixed on the merry officer of justice in the middle of the room. A moment more and he had turned, closed the door, and fled.”

For the party guests, his uniqueness is clear, and, giving into mob state of mind, they hurry after the fleeing man at the slightest prod from the hangman. This, of course, permits the last meeting between Sommers and the hangman in the vacated cottage to take place

The nameless argument between the hangman and his planned sufferer is ambassador of a chief theme in Hardy’s works: chance. In the beginning of the story, Hardy intentionally sets the cottage at the “crossing of two foot-paths at right angles,” a physical crossroads that anticipates the crossing paths of these two men. When they meet in the cottage after everybody has run off, the hangman addresses Sommers as an equivalent, calling the rest of the guests “simpleminded souls.”

While he believes he has taken advantage of simpletons to capture his fugitive, in reality this is a victory for the country folk. When it is exposed that the third stranger was Sommers’s brother, we understand that the hangman hasn’t gotten his way: he’s been fooled, just as he attempted to fool the Fennels and their company into apprehending his fatality for him. While the last line tells us, the story of Timothy Sommers escaping the hangman will live on in Higher Crowstairs when the time a lucky clock-maker cheated death and a minor town official.

      Main References: Chapter –1

1."Gardiner, Alfred George, 1865 - 1946, Author and Journalist". British Library of Political and Economic Science, Archived from the original on 23 December 2012, Retrieved 22 February 2009.

2. Ed.Prasad, Masih& Singh, Motilal Banarsidass: The Literary Heritage: A New Anthology of Indian English Prose.

 Main References: Chapter – 2

1. Hischak, Thomas S. (2012). American Literature on Stage and Screen: 525 Works and Their Adaptations. McFarland. Pp. 113–114.
2. "The Last Leaf". Stories of the Films. Moving Picture World. 34 (11): 1675. December15, 07 , Retrieved 2015-10-01 – via Internet Archive.
3. "O. Henry's Full House". Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Retrieved 2015-10-01.

      Main References: Chapter -3

1.   The Alligator and the Jackal from Old Deccan Days by Mary Frere, with illustrations by        F. Frere (1868). Story page. (Full title: Old Deccan Days, or Hindu Fairy Legends Current in Southern India, collected from oral tradition by Mary Frere

2. The New Icons: A New Anthology of Prose and short story, Oxford University   press.

1.        Baxter, Walter. “Inside Cormilligan Cottage.” Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Jan. 2010. Web. 24 July 2011.
2. Yomangani. The Execution of William Corder. Drawing. Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Nov. 2006. Web. 24 July 2011.

3.        The New Icons: A New Anthology of Prose and short story, Oxford University   press