Responses to the Ending
The resolution asks every character a question
- A character's responses to the resolution of the narrative — in their words or in their actions — reveal something about that character's own values.
- So the final pages are a test the book administers to everyone in it.
- What each person does when it is over is often the clearest evidence in the whole novel.
The CED locates this evidence in a character's response to...
The final pages are a test the book administers to everyone in it.
And the answer may not match
- These responses may be inconsistent with the previously established behaviours or perspectives of that character.
- So the CED expects the ending to surprise you about somebody.
- That inconsistency is not a flaw to explain away — it is the material this subtopic is about.
A response inconsistent with a character's established behaviour is a flaw to explain away.
The CED expects it — the inconsistency is the material.
An inconsistency reaches six things
- Inconsistencies and unexpected developments in a character affect readers' interpretation of that character; other characters; events in the plot; conflicts; the perspective of the narrator, character or speaker; and/or setting.
- Six targets — and the CED writes and/or, so one inconsistency may touch several.
- Tracing it past the character to a second target is what makes an answer look complete.
What does this inconsistency reach?
Sort each consequence by the CED's targets.
Select all the things an inconsistency can affect the interpretation of.
Perspective and setting complete the CED's list of six.
An inconsistency at the ending is material, not a flaw. The CED expects a character's response to the resolution to be inconsistent with their previously established behaviours — and explaining it away removes the evidence. Trace it instead: it changes how the earlier scenes read.
An unexpected final action works ____, changing how earlier scenes read.
So quote the final act, then one earlier scene it has just changed.
It works backwards
- An unexpected final action changes how you read every earlier scene that character was in.
- So the essay's evidence is not only the ending — it is the ending plus what it re-explains.
- Quote the final act, then quote one earlier scene it has just changed.
Put the resolution pass in order.
The last step is what takes the answer past the character.
A resolution pass
- For each significant character, quote what they say or do once the conflict resolves.
- Ask whether that matches their established behaviour; if not, name the value it reveals.
- Then choose one of the six targets and say what the inconsistency changes there.
He fought for the farm for four hundred pages, and on the last page he signs it away in one line, without argument. The value revealed is not indifference — it is that the fight was never about the land. And chapter nine, where he refused a fair price, now reads as the same fight, not a different one.
Responses to the resolution — in words or actions — reveal a character's own values, and may be inconsistent with their previously established behaviour. Such inconsistencies affect interpretation of the character, other characters, plot events, conflicts, perspective and/or setting — trace it to a second target, and note that it works backwards.