“The Little Lady of the Big House” by Jack London

The story written by Jack London focuses on a triangle love tragedy in which participants are
Dick Forrest, Paula Forrest, and Evan Graham. The story narrates how the visit of Graham
strikes the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Forrest. Who has been living for twelve years a
utopic relationship, where each other's company has become a habit, and when Graham appears
in the scene, both Dick and Paula wake up of their fantasy.

The story's conflict relies on Paula's difficulty on a decision to make between her husband and
lover when Dick finds out that she has had a romance with his friend Graham. Paula goes into a
small romance with Graham because, as London describes it, she feels that her husband has been
taking her for granted, and she goes after the attention of men that admired her. Graham gets in
the Big House, and the novel describes him as really similar to Dick Forrest, with just a few
differences, like he is not in love with a business and is a better lover than Dick. This similarity
might be why Paula falls so quickly for him; Graham is like her husband and a better lover. Once
Dick Forrest understands that her wife is falling for another man, he finally decides to pay more
attention to Paula.

The book struggles to hook the reader initially; it spends fifteen chapters describing the Big
House where the story takes place and the characters, especially Mr. Forrest, whom Jackson
unfairly gives more importance than the others. It is when Graham appears that the story
becomes interesting. With Graham's presence in the story, we learn a little more about Paula, her
background, and her personality. However, the character so poorly develops that when the actual
conflict in the story is introduced, it seems to be a weak conflict because of its lack of
development. Paula's character is presented to the reader as "Wonderwoman," a superficial
description without flaws, and even the smallest of her flaws, singing, is fixed while the conflict
develops. For most of the novel, Paula is busy with either narcissism or her (mostly very
successful) attempts at being admired by everyone, primarily men.

Nevertheless, it is at the end of the story when the reader sees Paula's actual problem, her
selfishness. She is perfect because her father and husband build her that way, and in her life, she
never struggles with anything. When a real problem comes to her life, and she needs to decide
whether to pick either Graham or Dick, she decides to take a more effortless and selfish solution
and let others suffer for her actions instead of taking responsibility for them.

To conclude, if the book needs to be rated on a scale between one to ten, it will get a six. Why?
Because its dramatic structure is week, the detonation of the conflict, Paulas and Graham's
romance, is introduced in the middle of the book, and the conflict explodes in the last quarter of
the story. The author fails to characterize fast and efficiently at the beginning of the book; in fact,
it spends more than half the book with an introduction and characterization, and not even a
complete characterization of the main characters. London only does a complete characterization
of one of them, Mr. Forrest. Moreover, that might be why the conflict fails to reach a high climax
and why it is so hard to keep the reader interesting in the story.