When we analyze a narrative, or story, for structure, we are looking at the basic elements needed to tell a story. Those basic elements are setting, characters, conflict, actions, and resolution. If we look only at Harper Lee's first eight chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird, we see that the first conflictin the story emerges, which is the children's struggle to accept and understand their neighbor Arthur (Boo) Radley. We can call...
When we analyze a narrative, or story, for structure, we are looking at the basic elements needed to tell a story. Those basic elements are setting, characters, conflict, actions, and resolution. If we look only at Harper Lee's first eight chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird, we see that the first conflict in the story emerges, which is the children's struggle to accept and understand their neighbor Arthur (Boo) Radley. We can call this a character vs. character conflict. As Lee develops this conflict, she surrounds Arthur Radley with an air of mystery and suspense by using other characters to relay rumored stories about Arthur and by using actions.
One of the key characters who helps develop the suspense surrounding Arthur Radley is Miss Stephanie Crawford, since it is only through Miss Stephanie that the children learn anything about Arthur such as of his arrest in his youth while hanging out with the "wrong crowd," of the rumor he stabbed his father with scissors later in life, and of his house arrest (Ch. 1). But, it is important to note that the children have not learned about Arthur from a reliable source as Miss Stephanie is recognized to be a major gossip and "neighborhood scold"; information coming from gossips and scolds is rarely reliable. Therefore, neither the children nor the reader truly know the history of Arthur Radley or of the reasons why he stays in his house. Hence, Miss Stephanie's disinformation creates suspense not only because it characterizes Arthur as an insane and dangerous individual but also because the reader can tell it is not reliable information; suspense is created when truth is not fully known.
In the first eight chapters, actions create even more suspense than characters, especially actions the children are involved in. Because the children say things and do things to show they are frightened of Arthur, the reader feels frightened of him too within these early chapters. One of the most important actions that feeds fright is Jem's response at the end of Chapter 6 to finding his pants. In this chapter, Jem and Dill, followed by a reluctant Scout, decide to sneak onto the Radleys' property at night to try and get a glimpse of Arthur through a window. When shots ring out, they must flee for their lives, and Jem gets his pants caught on the barbed wire fence, forcing him to abandon them in order to escape. However, Jem decides he must return for them at 2 o'clock in the morning in order to prevent Atticus from discovering their misdeed. When Jem goes back to the fence, he finds his pants lying neatly folded on the fence and having had been mended by someone without any mending skills. While the gesture of mending and folding Jem's pants is obviously a benevolent gesture, Jem is frightened by the experience, which leaves the reader feeling frightened too. We are first able to tell that Jem is frightened because, after he returns with his pants, Scout describes him as laying down on his cot and "trembling" for a long time (Ch. 6). Later, in Chapter 7, Jem relays to Scout for the first time the story of the condition he found his pants in and of what he felt at the moment:
It's almost like-- ... Like somebody was readin' my mind ... like somebody could tell what I was gonna do. Can't anybody tell what I'm gonna do lest they know me, can they, Scout? (Ch. 7)
Jem's reflection shows that he feels like he has been being spied upon and most likely being spied upon by Arthur Radley. The idea that Arthur is spying on the children, which obviously frightens the children, frightens the reader, thereby creating suspense.
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