Question

USE THE STORY TO ANSWER THE QUESTION.

"THE CROW CHILD" BY MARY MAPES DODGE.

IN 3-5 sentences, DESCRIBE CHANGES YOU COULD MAKE TO the DREAM SUBPLOT THAT WOULD INCREASE TENSION, MYSTERY, OR SURPRISE IN THE STORY.

Answer 1

Make the dream sequence recur and escalate: start as a vague, symbolic nightmare and let each recurrence add concrete, sinister details so the reader feels the threat growing. Tie small elements from the dreams to real-world clues that the protagonist misreads, so revelations feel earned but also raise questions about what is hallucination and what is evidence. Shift the dream perspective unpredictably (sometimes through the child’s eyes, sometimes the crow’s), undermining the narrator’s reliability and deepening mystery. Finally, let one dream produce an unexpected, physical consequence in waking life (a wound, a missing object, or a new memory), creating a surprising payoff that forces the characters — and reader — to confront the dream’s reality.