Conflict And Tension In Ray Bradbury's Jack-In-The-Box

Horror, the genre that gives many nightmares while giving others pleasure. Horror is the genre of literature which focuses on targeting the fears of the audience. However, horror without any conflict and without any tension would simply be words. Conflict is the device which many writers use to depict the two opposing forces in the story. On the other hand, there is tension which is the device in charge of building the conflict until the climax and resolutions of the story are not reached. An example of a horror story that utilizes conflict and tension to generate fear amongst the audience is Ray Bradbury’s, “Jack-In-The-Box”. In this story, Bradbury portrays a young boy, Edwin to have been confined to his home for most of his life. All due …show more content…
To illustrate, while Edwin was in front of his teacher, she asks him “Why are you late, Edwin?” multiple times, this then causes Edwin to become panic and tells her the truth of his whereabouts all while he stutters. Once he has told the teacher, she immediately falls back into her chair, as she was shocked to hear that Edwin had the audacity to go into “The door by the Dali-Picasso people,” it is not a normal thing to call your neighbors Dali-Picasso people at all, unless they look like they’re really paintings. Just as the tension between Edwin and his mother increases, the fire in the “classroom” shines onto his teachers face. And here Edwin starts to suspect that his mother and his teacher are the same person, for he numbly says, “You look like Mother!” Even after this the teacher has the tells him that all women look alike and immediately tries to cover up her mistake by giving him a book to read. This exposure, has only caused Edwin to become even more suspicious of his mother and what she says to him about the outside lands and that suspicion is what leads to the further increase of tension between the mother and