The Last Rung on the Ladder
E192809
"The Last Rung on the Ladder" is a poignant, emotionally driven short story by Stephen King about childhood, guilt, and tragic loss.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Last Rung on the Ladder canonical | 2 |
| The Last Rung on the Ladder (film) | 2 |
| "The Last Rung on the Ladder" by Stephen King | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1714737 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Last Rung on the Ladder Context triple: [Night Shift, hasShortStory, The Last Rung on the Ladder]
-
A.
The Horseman on the Roof
The Horseman on the Roof is a 1995 French historical adventure-romance film set during a 19th-century cholera epidemic in Provence, based on Jean Giono’s novel and starring Juliette Binoche and Olivier Martinez.
-
B.
The Ditch
The Ditch is a colloquial nickname for the Tasman Sea, the body of water separating Australia and New Zealand.
-
C.
The Cradle
The Cradle is an 1872 Impressionist painting by Berthe Morisot depicting a tender scene of a mother watching over her sleeping child, and is considered one of her most celebrated works.
-
D.
As He Saw It
"As He Saw It" is a memoir by Elliott Roosevelt that offers an insider’s account of his father Franklin D. Roosevelt’s views and experiences during World War II.
-
E.
Jacob's ladder
Jacob's ladder is the biblical vision of a stairway or ladder reaching between earth and heaven, seen by the patriarch Jacob and symbolizing the connection between God and humanity.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Last Rung on the Ladder Target entity description: "The Last Rung on the Ladder" is a poignant, emotionally driven short story by Stephen King about childhood, guilt, and tragic loss.
-
A.
The Horseman on the Roof
The Horseman on the Roof is a 1995 French historical adventure-romance film set during a 19th-century cholera epidemic in Provence, based on Jean Giono’s novel and starring Juliette Binoche and Olivier Martinez.
-
B.
The Ditch
The Ditch is a colloquial nickname for the Tasman Sea, the body of water separating Australia and New Zealand.
-
C.
The Cradle
The Cradle is an 1872 Impressionist painting by Berthe Morisot depicting a tender scene of a mother watching over her sleeping child, and is considered one of her most celebrated works.
-
D.
As He Saw It
"As He Saw It" is a memoir by Elliott Roosevelt that offers an insider’s account of his father Franklin D. Roosevelt’s views and experiences during World War II.
-
E.
Jacob's ladder
Jacob's ladder is the biblical vision of a stairway or ladder reaching between earth and heaven, seen by the patriarch Jacob and symbolizing the connection between God and humanity.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (41)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
literary work
ⓘ
short story ⓘ |
| adaptation | The Last Rung on the Ladder (1987 short film) ⓘ |
| adaptationDirector | James Cole ⓘ |
| adaptationType | short film ⓘ |
| author | Stephen King ⓘ |
| basedOnCharactersRelationship | brother and sister ⓘ |
| centralConflict | protagonist’s guilt over failing his sister ⓘ |
| climaxEvent | Katrina’s suicide ⓘ |
| collectionPublicationYear | 1978 ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| firstPublicationYear | 1978 ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn | Cavalier magazine ⓘ |
| genre |
drama
ⓘ
horror-adjacent fiction ⓘ psychological fiction ⓘ |
| hasMoral | importance of being present for loved ones ⓘ |
| includedInCollection | Night Shift ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryStyle | realist ⓘ |
| mainCharacters |
Katrina
ⓘ
Larry ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | first-person ⓘ |
| narrator | Larry ⓘ |
| notableFor | emotional impact rather than supernatural horror ⓘ |
| partOf | Stephen King short fiction bibliography ⓘ |
| publisherOfCollection | Doubleday ⓘ |
| setting | rural Nebraska farm ⓘ |
| settingPeriod | mid-20th century ⓘ |
| symbol | ladder in the barn ⓘ |
| symbolism | fragility of safety and trust ⓘ |
| targetAudience | adult readers ⓘ |
| theme |
childhood
ⓘ
guilt ⓘ regret ⓘ sibling relationships ⓘ suicide ⓘ tragic loss ⓘ |
| tone |
melancholic
ⓘ
poignant ⓘ |
| workChronologyWithinCollection | one of the non-supernatural stories in Night Shift ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Last Rung on the Ladder Description of subject: "The Last Rung on the Ladder" is a poignant, emotionally driven short story by Stephen King about childhood, guilt, and tragic loss.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
The Last Rung on the Ladder (1987 short film)
→
adaptationOf
→
"The Last Rung on the Ladder" by Stephen King
ⓘ
linked to: The Last Rung on the Ladder
linked to: The Last Rung on the Ladder
linked to: The Last Rung on the Ladder