Many stories use suspense in order to keep readers entertained, but the story, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor, uses it especially well. In this story, a grandma and her son are arguing whether to visit Florida or Tennessee. The grandmother does not want to visit Florida because there is a misfit on the loose. The son keeps with his decision of going to Florida, and the grandmother brings along a cat without his consent. Soon, they make a stop, and the grandmother convinces her to so visit her old house, so her grandchildren can see. However, the cat pounces on the protagonist and the car flips over. Three men stop to help, and one of them is the misfit. The climax of the story happens when the grandmother realize that the misfit is actually her son. When she tries to touch him, he shoots her. Throughout the story, the author uses many techniques to build suspense which leads to the climax.
…show more content…
The author progresses through the story extremely slowly, and he reveals a lot of details along the way. This is seen in the excerpt, “Bailey and the children’s mother and the baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890.” Another example of this is seen when the author states, “They turned onto the dirt road and the car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust...The dirt road was hilly and there were sudden washes in it and sharp curves on dangerous embankments.” Both of these quotes demonstrate the author using pace within the story since these sentences are very long, with short phrases intertwined with punctuation. These reveal the main plot of the story very slowly, and show many details readers find irrelevant to the story. This leaves readers craving for more information thus creating
The author progresses through the story extremely slowly, and he reveals a lot of details along the way. This is seen in the excerpt, “Bailey and the children’s mother and the baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890.” Another example of this is seen when the author states, “They turned onto the dirt road and the car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust...The dirt road was hilly and there were sudden washes in it and sharp curves on dangerous embankments.” Both of these quotes demonstrate the author using pace within the story since these sentences are very long, with short phrases intertwined with punctuation. These reveal the main plot of the story very slowly, and show many details readers find irrelevant to the story. This leaves readers craving for more information thus creating