Vimalraj Arumugam 9P Reading and Understanding Fiction 10/05/2007
The Darkness Under The Stair
Author: Lance Salway
What Do You Notice About The Writer’s Technique?
Here are bullet points on what techniques the writer employs into the passage. The passage is called ‘The Darkness Under The Stair.’ It is about a boy called Andrew. His parents forced him to met his neighbours ‘the Sharmans.’ Even though he still hadn’t finished his homework. Once he arrived at their home, he felt uncomfortable. The place was dull and Andrew did not want to speak. The question at the end of the passage remains. How soon could he get up and leave? Andrew despised the Sharmans, detested their house and he still had homework to finish. Here are the author’s techniques:
- The author employs a third person view of the story, by using terms like ‘he.’
- Additionally the writer has made the passage more appealing by putting in to play a small number of direct speeches. These arte usually said by Andrew’s mother.
- Usually in films the usage of suspense is very common. In this particular passage the author tries to linger on without letting you know what will happen next. The writer situates into your mind a few unanswered questions. These make your imagination and ideas run wild. Soon you will think up an ending yourself. ‘How soon could he get up and leave?’
- The author does not indicate all the questions, but if you read beneath the lines you come across another question ‘Who are the Shamans?’ Are they a bad premonition? Why did they invite Andrew’s family?
- The writer cannot not designate clearly if they are a bad omen, but the author uses a technique and leaves a clue. Sharman is a bad sign or in another term could be witches, but the suspense in catching on. He lets you decide what you want to. Furthermore the author always uses the term darkness and then puts the light into the sentence. ‘Past the light and into the darkness.’
- The author occasionally invokes adjective terms. He describes the situation in detail. Additionally he puts the audience into the place where Andrew is. In laymen’s terms you can feel the story. ‘Aware of a dark wave of dread, that arose.’
- Andrew is character drawn up the author. He is described to be arrogant and judges people with out confidence. The other characters seem dull and boring.
- Lance the author does not put a great deal of description into the characters. He instead keeps it short and from the short description you could draw a picture of the particular character in your mind. ‘Pleasant face of the dark middle-aged man in glasses.’
- Moreover the main technique I picked out in the first round of reading in the tenses occupied by the author. The story leads of in present tense as Andrew describes what happens and in the middle there is a bit of past and at the end the author makes you think what will happen next, which is the future.