preview

August Heat Suspense Essay

Decent Essays

Suspense can either “make or break” a story. While it usually makes the piece much more interesting and attractive to the reader, it can also make it seem needy for attention. However, in the short story, “August Heat,” by W. F. Harvey suspense is used so cautiously and professionally that it attracts any reader want to read it. As mentioned in the “Informative Essay” by Percy D’Aco and used in “August Heat,” foreshadowing is a huge factor that develops the suspense throughout the story. Foreshadowing allows us to make predictions and and jump to conclusions, when they aren’t valid, so that when the plot twist comes, the reader is shocked and is pulled into the story and has to finish reading to find out the rest of the story. This is one of my favorite methods of creating suspense, because we think we know how the story is going to end, but in reality it is something way out of the picture and never imagined. It states, “I rolled up the sketch, and without quite knowing why, placed it in my pocket. Then with the rare sense of happiness which the knowledge of a good thing well done gives, I left the house.” (Harvey 35-37). Harvey’s best foreshadowing in the short story is when James Clarence Withencroft …show more content…

a sudden change in a character’s situation from good to bad or vice versa.” (D’Aco 29-30). The reversal technique is found in Harvey’s short story in the way that Withencroft was very delighted with his sketch and had a feeling that his new piece was going to be successful, but then he went on his walk. James Clarence said, “It was the man i had been drawing, whose portrait i had in my pocket.” (Harvey 63). On his walk he has him mystical encounter, and loses hope about his success in returning as a strong artist, now he had to concentrate on figuring out the truth behind the encounter, which would give him no kind of

Get Access