Structure
The story “Prospect House” by Frances Childs is structured around the opposition and friendship between the narrator and two other girls at Prospect House…
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Beginning
The short story begins directly as the character-narrator introduces herself and other girls’ opinion of her: “When I first arrived at Prospect House the other girls stared at me with a mixture of wary contempt and vague interest. I’d …
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Middle
The rising action conveys the narrator’s perspective on Prospect House and the girls who live there, who usually get pregnant: “…they got pregnant pretty quickly and were shipped out to Sussex House, the mother and baby unit up the road.” (ll. 17-19) Kim visits Sussex House to see one of her friends, and finds she doesn’t enjoy it.
Conflict is introduced when we find out that Kim enjoys scaring the other girls with her yellowish skin colour (caused by Hepatitis B), which leads to two girls there beat her up and then become friends with her: “Di, who was about eleven stone, sat on me whilst fifteen-stone Andrea punched me mechanically around the head. After that (…) we were all able to get along quite well.” (ll. 29-33)
The opposition between Kim an…
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Ending
In the falling action, Kim finds out Di is pregnant and as the girls talk, Di reproaches Kim, saying that she knows Kim will not visit her after she has the baby: “ ‘Come on, Kim, you don’t want to stay. It’ll be a fucking miracle if I see y…
