Summary and structure

Here, you can find the summary and structure of “The Sampler” by Ira Victor Morris.

Summary

The narrator enters a store where they sell plum puddings around Christmas time. He notices that the store offers buyers the possibility of sampling several types of pudding, and he wonders whether some people take advantage of this service and never buy anything. When he asks the shop girl about his suspicion, she tells him about an old man who comes into the shop every week and samples the puddings but never buys them. She also tells him that the man is probably poor and that he deserves to enjoy free pudding.

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Structure

The short story “The Sampler” is structured around a single event in the life of the narrator: he tries to do a good deed for an elderly man, but he only makes matters worse by offending the man’s dignity. The story follows a traditional plot structure, with an exposition, a rising action, a climax, a falling action, and a resolution.

Title

The title of the short story refers to the old man who usually enters the pudding shop to sample the products, but who never makes a purchase.

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Beginning

In the exposition, readers are introduced to the setting, which gives the story the general mood: it is Christmas time, which means that many stores...

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Middle

In the rising action, readers get to see the old man coming to the shop and being offered a spoon to sample the varieties of pudding. Although it is quite obvious that the old man will not make a purchase, he still tries to look honorable and to comment upon the qualities of the various samples:

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Ending

In the falling action, we see the old man deciding to buy one of the most expensive puddings: “To save his 'honor' he had been forced into ...

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