The Gold Frame - Analysis

Plot

-The story is about Datta, who is the owner of The Modern Framework Shop. The old man lives by framing pictures.

-Exposition
One day a customer gives him an elderly person’s photograph to frame. For long he talks about the old man’s excellent qualities. After scrutinizing for a long time, he selects the supposedly best gold frame in the shop and places his order for the picture to be set in an oval cut mount.

-Conflict
Looking for his misplaced pencil in his cluttered and chaotic shop, Datta upsets and topples a tin of white enamel paint on the much valued photograph. Trying to wipe it away, he makes the mess worse, and is left with a ruined photograph that is beyond redemption.

-Resolution
His desperate mind thinks of a way to solve the problem. He manages to find an acceptable substitute from his pile of old photographs and puts it in the dazzling gold frame. The possibilities of his fraud being discovered makes him think of arguments to cover himself.

-Anticlimax
Finally the customer comes in seems to be impressed by the beauty of the gold framed photograph. Suddenly he is very upset that the old man did not use the cut mount oval shape when framing the picture! The irony of his not realizing the truth makes the reader smile

Setting

- The Modern Framework - Datta's shop

Symbol

The decay of old age.
clutter – surrounded by a confusion of cardboard pieces…and other odds and ends-clumsiness, forgetfulness

Character
-Protagonist: Datta - The main character in the story whose thoughts and actions play a leading part.
-Minor character: the customer, though a minor character who appears for a short duration, he brings out the deviousness in Datta’s nature.
- Static/dynamic: Datta is leading a quiet, monotonous life. Later, a desperate moment leads him to do a fraudulent deed.

Point of View
-Limited omniscient ( third person )
-The author is not part of the story. It is revealed through external observation.

Tone
-Deviousness - saw the possibility of finding an acceptable substitute
-Desperation - ‘That’s the picture you brought here for framing. Take it or throw it away.’
-Suspense and anxiety - The customer would surprise him at an unguarded moment making him bungle the entire carefully thought-out plot
-Indignance and ignorance - ‘What have you done?’; ‘I clearly remember asking for a cut mount with an oval shape. This is square. Look!’

Theme
-Desperate situations call for desperate measures