After The Ball- Short Story Outline

• Title
• After the Ball
• Author
• Leo Tolstoy
•  Character List
• Ivan
• Varenka
• Colonel B
• Tartar
• Theme
• Appearance vs. Reality
• The appearance of the colonel is that he is a kind, caring person; but in reality he is a cruel person

• Point of View
• 1st person
• protagonist is not narrator
• Protagonist
• Ivan
• Physical description
• good dancer
• handsome
• Emotional
• Feels so passionately about love in the beginning, but that quickly goes away
• Philosophy on life
• He believes that you can see evil in a man because he has seen it in the Colonel.
• Character Change
• After seeing the bad things that Varenka's father did, every time he see her, he feels awkward and he can no longer love her.
• Antagonist
• Ivan
• Conflict
• person vs. self
• conflict with what Ivan sees and what it may or may not mean to him
• After Ivan sees Colonel B telling the soldiers to whip the Tartar harder, Ivan is faced with the terror that he has just witnessed and has to relive every time he sees Varenka. 
•  Dynamic
• Ivan
• Round
• Ivan
• Varenka B?
• Colonel B
• Static / Flat
• Tartar
• Varenka B?
•  Setting
• 1840
• Russia
• Exposition
• Ivan & his students have a discussion about the idea of changing the conditions of society in order for people to actually change themselves.
• Ivan says he can speak from experience and starts to describe his greatest love, Varenka.
• 
  
• Inciting Event
• Ivan realizing he is in love with Varenka B
• Rising Action
• They are at a ball and Ivan started dancing with a German girl that he had previously courted, while Varenka was dancing with Engineer Anisimov.
• Ivan and Varenka danced the waltz
• Varenka gave him a feather from her fan promising him a dance after supper.
• The hostess tells Varenka that her father would like to dance with her.
• The Colonel and Varenka dance 
• Climax
• Tartar being fiercely whipped by soldiers
• Falling Action
• Ivan went home and couldn't wrap his mind around what had just happened.
• Resolution
• Ivan doesn't end up with Varenka because every time he is around her his mind flashes back to the night he saw the Colonel, her father, yelling orders to whip the Tartar harder
• Symbol
• Boots
• Foreshadow
• Ivan hopes nothing happens spoils his happiness
• In the beginning it says that Varenka has married daughters now so you know that something happens to her relationship with Ivan 
•  Summary
• Ivan is having a discussion with his students about the idea of changing the conditions of society in order for people to actually change themselves. Ivan starts to tell them the story of his greatest love. *Flashback to 1840s* Ivan is dancing with a German girl while Varenka is dancing with Engineer Anisimov. Ivan and Varenka begin dancing together. Varenka gave Ivan a feather from her fan. Varenka then dances with her father. They eat supper and Varenka and Ivan dance again. Ivan leaves the party and goes home. He can't sleep and decides to go on a walk. He is walking the streets when he comes to soldiers marshing. He asks a blacksmith what was going on and the blacksmith said that the soldiers were whipping a Tartar that tried to escape. The Tartar pleaded the soldiers to stop but they wouldn't. The Colonel was in charge and he saw Ivan but went on like he didn't. The Colonel stopped the soldiers and told them that if they didn't start beating the Tartar harder he was going to beat them. They went on and Ivan went home tramatized. He thought that if he had known what the Colonel knew then he wouldn't be so tramatized. After that everytime he saw Varenka it was awkward and his mind flashed back to that night. He could no longer stand to be with her and they grew apart.
•  What the plot reveals about main character
• He is in love with this girl but after he sees the terrible things that her father is capable of it becomes awkward and he can never be with her.