Structure

...

Beginning

The exposition of the short story "A Gap of Sky" by Anna Hope introduces the setting and the main character, Ellie. The text creates an atmosphere of confusion, which is symbolic of how Ellie feels after a night of drinking alcohol and taking drugs:

It is dark, but the wrong dark. Something is wrong with the dark. Ellie reaches a hand out from under the duvet and flails for water; there is only an empty pint glass. Fuck. She retreats, r…

...

Middle

In the rising action, Ellie reaches the student shop after its closing time. A flashback to the past year at the university suggests her confusion and uncertainty when it comes to being a student at UCL (University College London): “She thinks of this past year, of university, and it feels like sludge, like thick dark sludge in her brain. Brontës and Dickens and Gaskell and the social-problem novel and blah blah blah.” (ll. 48-50)

As Ellie walks through London, she seems to postpone going to buy ink for her pr…

...

Ending

In the falling action, Ellie begins to feel more optimistic. However, she is distracted by a shop, where she finds a red jasper stone that reminds her of her mother. A flashback shows that Ellie’s mother offered her a similar stone the previous summer. Ellie recalls not seeing it as a symbol of her mother’s love and regrets not keeping it safe. A foreshadowing element suggests that Ellie might choose to scale down her nightlife and focus more on her studies: “Ellie conjures her mother bef…