Assignment Active
Identifying Elements of Plot
After that the woman said, "Pick up my pocketbook,
boy, and give it here." She still held him. But she bent
down enough to permit him to stoop and pick up her
purse. Then she said, "Now ain't you ashamed of
yourself?"
Firmly gripped by his shirt front, the boy said,
"Yes'm."
The woman said, "What did you want to do it for?"
The boy said, "I didn't aim to."
She said, "You a lie!"
-"Thank you, Ma'am," Langston Hughes
Identify plot elements in the passage by completing the
sentence.
The woman's instructions to the boy are part of the
which builds up tension and leads to
the story's