Short Story Christmas Snow

1. Victória Oliveira
Leonardo Andrade
Maurício Coelho
20th century short stories

2. SUMMARY
 Author
 Elements
 Main characters
 Theme
 Symbols
 Tone of the story
 Literary devices

3. AUTHOR
 Donald Hall was born in 1928, .....

4. PLOT
The day before
Christmas Eve
(23/12/1938)
Christmas Eve
(24/12)
 Donnie and his
parents go to his
grandfather’s
farm in New
Hampshire by
car.
 Donnie woke up
and realised it
was snowing.
 His grandfather
did his chores
and grandmother
made breakfast.
 Their relatives
came in for
Christmas.
Christmas (25/12)
 Uncles Wash
comes in after
his four-hour
walk to his
sister’s house
(grandmother).
 They had
Christmas
supper and
gather in the
living room to
had presents and

5. CLIMAX
 Washington Woodward remembers his father's
cruelty.

6. CLIMAX
 “[...]my brothers and I walked to town on the tops of
stone walls. You couldn’t see the stones, but you
could tell from how the snow lay”.
 “I remember that snow”, Wash said. “I remember
because it was the worst day of my life.”
 “It was my father. He hated me.”

7. CLIMAX
 Washington Woodward remembers his father's
cruelty.
“He took them out to the pond
where I skated and he made me
watch. He cut a hole in the ice with
his hatchet. It was snowing already.
I begged him not to, but he dropped
those Peck & Snider skates into the
water, right down of the sight into
Eagle Pond”

8. SETTING
 The main story occurs in New Hampshire, in the
grandparent’s farm.

9. The 1938 Hurricane

10. CHARACTERS
 Donnie: “the middle-aged narrator”; the boy, grandson and only child of his family
by the time the short story happened.
 Donnie’s grandfather: A funny man, who loved talking and to make imitations
and jokes.
 Donnie’s grandmother – Katie Keneston: She had a “gray hair down to her
waist”
 Donnie’s parents:
 Cousin Washington Woodward – Wash:
 Uncle Luther: “He was my grandmother’s older brother, a clergyman who has
retired from his city parish”
 Auntie Caroline and Nan: they are the daughters of grandmother and
grandfather
 Donnie’s great-grand-father: A strong blacksmith, who had fought in Vicksburg,

11. SYMBOLS
 Hurricane
 Destruction
 “Maples and oaks and elms were down everywhere.
Huge roots stood up like dirt cliffs next to the road[...]”
 “When he spoke it, the hurricane took on a sort of
malevolente personality, like someone cruel without
reason.”

12. SYMBOLS
 Snow
 Positive emotions
 “I was happy in my own
world of snow[...]”
 “It was my first snow of
the year, and it set my
heart pouding with
pleasure[...]”
 Negative emotions
 “I was hated the snow.”

13. TONE OF THE STORY
 The tone of the story varies through the story.
 Donnie’s reminiscences started exciting as he noticed it
was snowing, then it turned sad as he mention the
Hurricane damage, and varies from flat and exciting until
the climax, when Wash talks about his tragic snow story.

14. LITERARY DEVICES
 Imagery: the text is full of descriptions.
 Flashback: “I remember making a big one with my brother Fred
when I was nine – no, eight [...]”
 Metonymy:
 Onomatopoeia: “The alternate streams of milk went swush-swush
from his fists into the nail”
 Metaphor:
“In a moment I heard another sound I had been listening for - a
massive animal roar from the same stove. He had poured a tin can of
kerosene on the old embers and the new log”
“Here the snow turned the farm into a planet of its own, an
undiscovered moon.”
"...whole stands of trees lay pointing in the same direction, like combed
hair."

15. REFERENCES
 http://bekindrewrite.com/2011/09/09/the-7-narrator-
types-and-you-thought-there-were-only-two/
 http://english.tutorvista.com/literary-
response/narrator.html