In "A Wolf and Little Daughter," which element is repeated so that tension builds in the story? Papa says to stay inside the gate. Papa goes away for something. Little Daughter looks through the gate. Little Daughter picks flowers.

Simply, the element repeated is the redundancy of the characters' name.

Papa says to stay inside the gate. Papa goes away for something. Little Daughter looks through the gate. Little Daughter picks flowers.

The redundancy of their names here creates an escalating rhythm. It builds up tension in the sentences. If you notice, the writer didn't use pronouns to refer the characters. He used proper nouns each sentence and successfully created a strong tension.

If he wrote: Papa says to stay inside the gate. He goes away for something. Little Daughter looks through the gate. She picks flowers.

It loses the tension, rhythm, and power of the sentences as a whole.