Indledning
When do you stop feeling guilty for a crime you didn’t commit, and how do you comfort that feeling of guilt?
It is quite special how we as humans can feel so many emotions – and how some of them, such as guilt, can consume our conscience long after the initial incident that triggered that emotion.
How we humans act in certain ways to cope with our emotions and comfort ourselves, is extremely different for each individual.
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Uddrag
The short story starts in medias res: “I’m in the police station. Again. But this time it’s different because of the shoe. And because Mumma’s not here. (p. 1 ll. 1-2).
The setting throughout the short story changes several times, and it feels like there are two storylines in the short story.
This kind of structure leaves the reader intrigued and captures their attention, as it uses one storyline about Hannah Bird, the girl who disappeared while the main character Michael was in her presents, to answer the questions the reader is left with from storyline about Michaels “Mumma’s” absence, and him in the police station.
The style of writing in line 1-12 is similar to the rest of the short story. The language is neutral, and there is a mixture of long short sentence structures:
“The storm that did it is called Angus so it’s like a person did it. On purpose.” (p. 1 ll. 10) This is an example where there are both long and short sentence structures, it also shows Hilary Taylor’s use of incomplete sentences.
She uses descriptive wording: “There was blood and mud on her face, and her eyes were shut.
Her skirt was up round the top of her legs and they put a blanket on her and took her to hospital” (p. 1 ll. 4-6. Her use of this and the adjectives she uses gives the reader a vivid image of what is happening at all times during the story.
There are a couple of themes that surface in Hilary Taylors short story, the main theme being, the feeling of guilt.
This is portrayed through the main character, and the guilt that consumes him. It is noticeable throughout the whole story, although it is not quite clear at first what the guilt comes from.: “Parents turn their heads.
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