We find out that Hooper thinks that he will be the owner of the house when his father dies. It seems as though Hooper expects his father to die sooner rather than later. It seems that during the beginning of the book, Hooper has a dynastic sense. He feels totally powerful but he is only a ten-year-old boy who has next to nothing.
Hooper intimidates the mother’s son (Kingshaw) and tries to drive him out with the information that he finds out while the family is there. For instance, Hooper finds out that Kingshaw has a fear of moths and uses this information to bully him. Hooper leads Kingshaw into a room in the house they live in which is called the Red Room. The Red Room consists of thousands of dead and preserved moths lined up and labelled in wooden presentation cases all around the room. When Hooper lead’s Kingshaw into this, he runs out locking the door behind him, leaving Kingshaw there all night. This is one of the first parts in the book where Hooper bullies Kingshaw.
From the scene in the Red Room, Susan Hill gives the sense of further conflicts about to happen because she writes, ”he would not do anything to make Hooper feel that he had won” and ”it was very important to stand up to Hooper, even if only he himself knew that he had done so” and “ all that Kingshaw thought was that it can’t go on forever”. Susan Hill shows tension by showing Kingshaw having to talk to himself to try and calm himself down.
The scene in Hang Wood is a critical point in the story. Kingshaw decides that he has had enough of Hooper and decided to run away closely followed by Hooper, which Kingshaw does not know about. As night falls, a storm comes over which brings thunder and lightning.
During this scene, Kingshaw finds out that Hooper is afraid of thunder and lightning and momentarily, Hooper relies on Kingshaw to look after him. Susan Hill writes, “He (Hooper) wanted him to know, in fact, he wanted to be protected”. For a matter of minutes, Kingshaw has a lot of power over Hooper as Susan Hill writes, “Kingshaw began to wonder what would happen afterwards, and whether Hooper would be ashamed. He thought, now he won’t be able to frighten me, he won’t be leader any more”.
During the storm Kingshaw knew that his power would soon go. We know this as Susan Hill writes, “Kingshaw knew that any power of his over Hooper would disappear when the storm went”.
After the accident at Leydell Castle we see the irony of Mrs Kingshaw as she thinks Kingshaw pushed Hooper off the wall. The actual scene of Hooper falling off the wall of the castle shows how vulnerable Hooper actually is even though he does not show it.
When confronted by the accident, we find out how much hatred there is for Hooper by Kingshaw. We are told of the ideas that Kingshaw derives in his mind. We also find out how shocked Kingshaw is of what he has thought.
In the whole story, Susan Hill uses some very simple but yet sophisticated techniques when Hooper and Kingshaw talk to each other. Firstly, she makes the boys’ speech simple and usually short and also writes the dialogue using slang and colloquial expressions. This way of writing dialogue works well as it shows the way in which they dislike talking to each other and being in each other’s presence. Another point is that the boys’ rivalry, and need to impress one another, is reflected in aspects of their speech, which is a cleverly done by Susan Hill. The way she does this is by using words such as thick and stupid when trying to insult each other. Also Susan Hill ends their speeches with the words such as “so” and “then” to express challenge or defiance and sometimes mockery. Also the speech that is used by Susan Hill is mainly used to try and show that both boys seem that it is all a big game to try and get “one up on each other”.
By Andrew Riddell 5P
873 Words