Everybody has hardships, whether it be physical or emotional. But everyone does not have the courage or strength to push through troubled times, and many people fall short. In the stories “Up the Slide” by Jack London and “Glow in the Dark” by Gary Paulsen, the main characters go through an ordeal, and manage to persevere. While Clay, the main character of “Up the Slide”, faces a physical hardship, the narrator of “Glow in the Dark” faces an emotional ordeal. The themes of the texts are similar in a way, but the mood of the story helps establish a clear, strong theme. Both authors use mood to show how the main characters go through ordeals and push past them, but while Jack London uses the mood to show Clay’s determination, Gary Paulsen uses
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Throughout the story, there are parts that foreshadow or hint that something is going to happen. For example, it says, “my headlamp went out. I replaced the bulb… but… the internal wiring was bad” (Paulsen 321-322). When the headlamp went out, some readers could probably foresee that something bad was going to happen. But the mood of the story does not directly affect the theme, because the theme of this text is that superstitions and beliefs can cause people to mistake something benign as terrifying. The narrator had mistaken a tree stump that glowed with a ghost, because of some superstitions that he had. The mood does however, help lead to the point in the story where the theme becomes …show more content…
In “Up the Slide”, because Clay faces danger to get a profit, there are many parts of the plot that was full of tension. In the frigid snow, “He was shaking as if with palsy, sick and faint from a frightful nausea” (London 319). This helps the reader imagine what Clay has gone through, in order to just get that bundle of wood. Also in “Glow in the Dark”, the narrator is very superstitious and the night is very gloomy and dreary, in addition to the fact that the headlamp turned off. Therefore, when “the dogs suddenly started to sing [a song that]… I had heard... only once… It was a death song”, the narrator was frightened to his wits end (Paulsen 323). Another concept that helped shape the theme is fear. Clay couldn’t get a firm grip on the tree roots because “His mittens were too thick… so he took them off.. The frost was quick to attack, and his fingers were numbed” ( London 318). Because Clay feared of falling, he made a rash decision and made his fingers useless, making his task an even harder ordeal. Yet, still through his hardships, his determination can be seen by readers. In “Glow in the Dark”, the narrator, after hearing the ‘death song’ is thoroughly spooked, and he “started thinking about all the things in my life that scared me” (Paulsen 323). Thinking about everything scary served to make the story even darker, and the narrator, thinking of all his fears,
Throughout the story, there are parts that foreshadow or hint that something is going to happen. For example, it says, “my headlamp went out. I replaced the bulb… but… the internal wiring was bad” (Paulsen 321-322). When the headlamp went out, some readers could probably foresee that something bad was going to happen. But the mood of the story does not directly affect the theme, because the theme of this text is that superstitions and beliefs can cause people to mistake something benign as terrifying. The narrator had mistaken a tree stump that glowed with a ghost, because of some superstitions that he had. The mood does however, help lead to the point in the story where the theme becomes …show more content…
In “Up the Slide”, because Clay faces danger to get a profit, there are many parts of the plot that was full of tension. In the frigid snow, “He was shaking as if with palsy, sick and faint from a frightful nausea” (London 319). This helps the reader imagine what Clay has gone through, in order to just get that bundle of wood. Also in “Glow in the Dark”, the narrator is very superstitious and the night is very gloomy and dreary, in addition to the fact that the headlamp turned off. Therefore, when “the dogs suddenly started to sing [a song that]… I had heard... only once… It was a death song”, the narrator was frightened to his wits end (Paulsen 323). Another concept that helped shape the theme is fear. Clay couldn’t get a firm grip on the tree roots because “His mittens were too thick… so he took them off.. The frost was quick to attack, and his fingers were numbed” ( London 318). Because Clay feared of falling, he made a rash decision and made his fingers useless, making his task an even harder ordeal. Yet, still through his hardships, his determination can be seen by readers. In “Glow in the Dark”, the narrator, after hearing the ‘death song’ is thoroughly spooked, and he “started thinking about all the things in my life that scared me” (Paulsen 323). Thinking about everything scary served to make the story even darker, and the narrator, thinking of all his fears,