NAME: Pogoy, Jerick Kim M.

Section: BSEd English 3-B

Read the short story “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff and answer the following questions as briefly
as possible.

What type of plot structure was employed in the short story?

-The plot structure is flashback because the events are interjecting and recurring.

Complete Freytag’s Pyramid by supplying the following based on the short story:

Exposition

-Anders, a book critic known for his temper and his scorn, arrives at a bank gets stuck in line behind two
women who are having a “stupid conversation”.

Inciting / Initial Incident

The bank teller closes her window early. The two women in front of Anders don't like what's happening
and so they turn to Anders somehow to ask for his commentary but he feels a “towering hatred” to the
teller of what she did. He did not agree with the women thinking they are “presumptuous”.

Rising Action

-Two men wearing black ski masks and blue business suits were standing to the side of the door. One of
them had a pistol pressed against the guard’s neck. The guard’s eyes were closed, and his lips were
moving. The other man had a sawed-off shotgun.

Climax

The armed man raised his pistol. He pointed it to Anders and shot him in the head.

Falling Action

The bullet enters Anders's brain, triggering a final memory.

Resolution

He remembered the Heat. A baseball field. Yellow grass, the whirr of insects, himself leaning against a
tree as the boys of the neighborhood gather for a pickup game.

Denouement

With the memory he reminisces everytime, the bullet is still lingering in his brain, tangling him into
inevitable death. Nevertheless, even though the situation is tough at least he has his core memory with
him in his childhood. In his vivid memory, he just plays baseball and repeatedly chants, “They is, they is,
they is.