The Cat of the Cane-Brake
Blanche Colton Williams’s study of Frederick Stuart Greene’s “The Cat of the Cane-Brake” treats the story as an exercise in tightly engineered plot. It traces Greene’s Southern setting to his experience as an engineer and identifies the remembered incident of a severed rattlesnake head as the story’s germinal idea. Williams maps the action from Sally’s hostility toward the cat through the converging cat-and-woman conflict and Sally’s affair with a young engineer, locating the dramatic climax and denouement. Her discussion prompts readers to assess poetic justice, causation, character types, sympathy, foreshadowing, symbolic detail, and the final sentence. It also considers the story’s visible mechanics as useful material for students studying plot construction.
By Blanche Colton Williams · First published 1919 · Genre: Literary Analysis, Literary Criticism, Literary Essay · 814 words
First lines
STARTING POINT. Frederick Stuart Greene wrote this story out of his experiences and observations as an engineer in certain Southern districts. The pine woods, the wretched cabin, the cane-brake, the rattlesnake, the brogan shoes -- these are concrete instances of his familiarity with the setting. The immediate germinal idea lies in an incident he recalled of seeing a severed rattlesnake head fastened to the leg of a man in camp.
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Genres
- Literary Analysis — The section breaks down plot stages, character function, causal details, and the ending.
- Literary Criticism — Williams evaluates the story’s workmanship and asks readers to judge its effects and credibility.
- Literary Essay — It presents an instructional prose commentary on a specific short story.
- Non-Fiction — The text is a study guide rather than imaginative narrative.
Tags
Blanche Colton Williams · Frederick Stuart Greene · The Cat of the Cane-Brake · short-story criticism · plot construction · interwoven plot lines · dramatic climax · denouement · characterization · poetic justice · foreshadowing · Southern setting
What this Textopian page supports
The Cat of the Cane-Brake is listed on Textopian as an essay by Blanche Colton Williams, dated 1919 CE.
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- Work type: Essay
- Author: Blanche Colton Williams
- Date: 1919 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Literary Analysis, Literary Criticism, Literary Essay, Non-Fiction
- Length: 814 words
- Structure: 1 section, 20 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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