Read the passage from Hans Christian Andersen’s "The Princess and the Pea.” Then [the Queen] took twenty mattresses and laid the
m on the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses. On this the princess had to lie all night. In the morning she was asked how she had slept. "Oh, very badly!” said she. "I have scarcely closed my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue all over my body. It’s horrible!” Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds. Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that. So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a real princess; and the pea was put in the museum, where it may still be seen, if no one has stolen it. There, that is a true story. Which quotation from the passage encompasses the climax of the story? “Then [the Queen] took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea.” “In the morning she was asked how she had slept.” “‘Oh, very badly!’ said she. ‘I have scarcely closed my eyes all night.’” “So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a real princess.”
Answer: “‘Oh, very badly!’ said she. ‘I have scarcely closed my eyes all night.’”
The climax of a story is the turning point of a narrative. This also means that the climax is the highest point of tension and drama. Immediately after the climax, the action starts during which the solution of the story is given (this is the falling action). In this case, the climax is the moment the princess reveals she slept badly. This reveals that she is in fact a real princess, and leads to the resolution of the story, in which the prince decides to marry her.
This is the scene where Lady Macbeth reads the letter and determines that Macbeth needs her help becoming king. She creates the plan to kill the king, not him, which is Shakespear's way of showing she is strong and intelligent.
