Tom Benecke’s priorities change significantly throughout the short story “Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket”. Use the activity for Character Evolution with your students to help them keep track of how Tom evolves throughout the course of his ordeal.
Plot | Traits |
Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Exposition | Dark-haired young man, tall, lean, pullover sweater. Works hard; wants to make a difference in his grocery industry. | Tom is skipping the movies with his wife to stay home and work on an independent project. He kids that his work will someday earn him the title of “The Boy Wizard of Wholesale Groceries.” |
| Conflict/ Rising Action | Desperate; unable to abandon the sheet of paper | Tom is unable to understand that he should abandon the sheet of paper. It has weeks’ worth of research on it for a new kind of grocery-store display. The time to present the idea is now for use in the spring displays. To replicate the work, it would take him two whole months. |
| Climax | Calm, cool, and collected; methodical, until he stoops down to grab the paper; then he becomes panicked, frozen, and clumsy | Tom initially goes out to retrieve the paper carefully, but without much concern. As Tom bends down to retrieve the paper, the true danger of his situation becomes clear as he views the street 11 stories below him. |
| Falling Action | Frightened; delirious; realistic | Tom reaches the window and it slams shut on him as he grasps it to keep from falling. He thinks that it would be funny if he were to wait out on the ledge and Clare came home to find him there, and he almost laughs out loud. He looks at his watch, however, and realizes she’s only been gone eight minutes and will probably be gone four hours. He knows he needs to get inside. He screams “Clare!” and punches in the window. |
| Resolution | Elated; energized; prioritized | As soon as Tom is back in the apartment, he goes straight to the closet to get his coat and join Clare. He gives no more thought to working that night; he is grateful to be alive. As he watches the paper fly back out the window, he laughs and closes the door; he finally realizes that work is not more important than his life. |
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Student Instructions
Create a storyboard that shows the evolution of Tom Benecke throughout the course of "Contents of the Dead Man's Pocket".
Encourage students to maintain a Character Evolution Journal as they read. After each reading session, have them jot down how Tom Benecke's traits, motivations, or decisions shift in response to story events. This routine builds close reading habits and helps students track character growth in real time.
Demonstrate your thought process by reading passages aloud and pausing to wonder aloud how Tom’s actions or feelings have changed. This models metacognition and invites students to mirror analytical thinking when studying character evolution on their own.
Organize small group or partner discussions where students debate Tom’s decisions at key points in the story. This collaborative talk allows students to consider multiple perspectives and strengthens their ability to justify character analysis with evidence.
Guide students to construct a visual timeline that highlights each major event and how Tom’s character is affected. Use drawings, symbols, or brief notes to illustrate changes. This technique supports visual learners and makes abstract character development concrete.
Prompt students to write short reflections connecting Tom’s choices to decisions they or people they know have faced. This personalizes the lesson and helps students see how literary analysis applies to everyday life.
Tom Benecke starts as an ambitious, work-focused young man but evolves through fear and self-realization during his ordeal. By the end, he values his life and relationships over career ambitions, showing a shift from obsession with work to prioritizing what truly matters.
Students can use a Character Evolution Template to break the story into Exposition, Conflict/Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution, identifying Tom’s traits and key events at each stage to see how he changes.
In the exposition, Tom is hardworking and ambitious. During the conflict, he is desperate and determined. At the climax, he becomes panicked and fearful. In the falling action, he’s realistic and frightened. By the resolution, he is grateful and reprioritized.
Tom learns that personal relationships and life are more important than professional success. Surviving his ordeal, he realizes work should not come before the people and moments that matter.
Teachers can assign storyboards or templates for students to map out character changes, encouraging analysis of traits, motivations, and key events. This helps students deepen their understanding of character arcs and story structure.