Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
Plot Type : Tragedy
Anticipation Stage
Our protagonist Per Hansa is pumped about building a new settlement in the Dakota Territory. He can't believe that there are so many miles of land for the taking… because he doesn't count the Native American people who live in the area as owners. In any case, Hansa has an ambition that can never be satisfied, and a giant ego to go with it.
And if you know your classical tragedy plot, then you know that there's no way a dude can ever have Hansa's level of pride without getting his comeuppance at some point. His wife Beret hates the prairies, and is convinced that her family is doomed if they don't go back where they came from. Pssst: she's totally right on the money.
Dream Stage
At first, Per Hansa cleans up. Through a combination of hard work and dumb luck, Per Hansa has a ton of success in building his house and preparing his farm. But his neighbors quickly start grumbling about how Hansa keeps all of his success to himself and tries endlessly to outdo his neighbors.
Hansa's pride becomes especially noticeable when he names his new baby son (wait for it) Peter Victorious. His neighbors think that Hansa might be tempting fate here, since Peter barely survived his birth.
Frustration Stage
If Giants in the Earth told the story about how Per Hansa conquered the prairies without anything ever going wrong, it's unlikely anyone would want to read it. But have no fear, because conflict is on its way.
For starters, Hansa has to deal with a group of Irish settlers who lay claim to his friends' farms, saying that they owned the land first. And this is actually true—Per Hansa has done a dishonest thing by ripping out the men's wooden landmarks and tossing them in a fire. Beret sees him do this and knows that the thirst for land is making Hansa into an immoral person.
If that wasn't enough, a giant plague of locusts visits the Norwegian settlement, think its pretty cool, and come back every summer for seven years. This plague convinces Beret that she and her friends are making God angry by refusing to take the hint and move away.
Nightmare Stage
Per Hansa and company figure that after years of long winters and locust plagues, they've seen everything that Dakota has to throw at them. But they're dead wrong, because in their seventh year, they run face-first into the worst winter ever. For five months, it hardly ever stops snowing. The weather is so bad that someone is bound to get sick, and sure enough, Hansa's best friend Hans Olsa comes down with a brutal case of pneumonia.
The settlers do everything they can for him, but it looks like Olsa is a goner. Hansa's wife Beret insists that Per Hansa go get the minister so that Olsa can give his last confession and avoid going to hell. Hansa doesn't want to go out into such a dangerous snowstorm, but Beret stays on his case until he gives in and leaves.
Destruction or Death Wish Stage
Per Hansa's journey into the blizzard is doomed from the start. We never actually witness his death, but we get a first row seat when a group of children discover his frozen body after the next spring thaw. As we find out, Per Hansa's eyes were turned toward the west when he died, symbolizing that even at the end of his life he could only think about pushing farther west and settling more land. That's the kind of obsession that can (and apparently will) get a dude killed.