The story « A canary for one » has two directions.

The first is American lady

and her daughter’s, the second is direction of married couple.
As to the plot of the story is concerned . It has all the elements: exposition,
complication, climax and resolution.
Exposition from flashback. A young couple on the train recalls their
honeymoon in Vevey, as the American tells the story of how two years earlier,
when the family was vacationing in Vevey, her daughter fell madly in love with a
Swiss gentleman from a good family and prospects, and both of them wanted to
get married. However, the mother, who did not allow her daughter to marry a
foreigner, forced her family to leave for the United States.
We see a conflict between mom and daughter. American had overruled her
daughter’s wishes and had taken her away from the man she fell in love with,
notwithstanding he came from a “good family”.
We see a mother's complete disdain and disbelief for her daughter's feelings. For
her, rumors and her own opinion come first. Her buying a canary which “sings”
well, underscores the mother’s partiality and bias , making her “deaf” to her own
motherly duties and feelings towards her daughter.
The climax can be in describing realistic details. The reader sees the images
on which the mind of the narrator is focused. Through the train window, he notices
a burning farmhouse, which many spectators are simply watching. He sees the
fortifications around Paris, still barren from the recently ended war. He focuses on
the remains of a train wreck – splintered, sagging carriages torn from the main
line. Every image  that attracts his attention is actually a metaphor for the state of
his marriage.
The resolution is depicted by the author as a long splintered platform with a
gate at the end. One phrase at the end of the story puts everything in its place. We
understand all the irony of the author and the delusions of the elderly American
woman.
The way of characterisation is mixed. The American lady and her daughter
are round characters because they have development through the story. The
narrator and his wife are minor characters because their story are told briefly and
staticaly.