Nothing happens without reason, not even in fiction. A story needs round characters with motives for their actions. Alternatively the actions of the main character affect the whole plot of the story. Therefore without a good motive the story won’t progress, but with a good motive the story can go surprising places. This makes motive the part of the story that inspires characters to take the story surprising places that the readers and sometimes even other characters don’t expect, as seen in “Lamb to the Slaughter”, “The Scarlet Ibis”, and “The Cask of Amontillado”.
The short story “Lamb to the Slaughter” creates an unexpected outcome for the reader using the main character’s love for her child. This is seen after the reader meets the main
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In this story the narrator teaches his disabled brother to walk, but after his family praises him for it, he reveals to the readers “ They did not know that I did it for myself, that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a cripple brother.” (p.355) The narrator admits that pride was his motivation to teach his brother to walk. However, unknown to the narrator, when his pride makes him go farther and farther Doodle’s health gets worse and worse. Until finally Doodle can no longer keep up with the narrator’s goals, the narrator runs from him and when he comes back he sees “He had been bleeding from the mouth, and his neck and the front of his shirt were stained in brilliant red. “Doodle! Doodle!” I cried “ (p.361) The narrator always wants Doodle to be healthy like other kids his age, but when Doodle is on his way to achieving that dream the narrator is shocked to see him succumb to his illness. His pride is what pushed him to run from Doodle and also what pushed Doodle to his untimely death. The narrator’s pursuit of pride is what lead to his brother’s death, which comes to a shock to the narrator as Doodle was the closest he had ever been to healthy in the narrator’s