Billy Weaver's Reactions

The young man accused of the terrible crime was a bug-eyed boy with a bowl haircut who came from a broken home and attended at least seven schools in nine years. Many afternoons, he would sit silently on the curb in front of his roomy yard and, when he tired of it, move to a different curb. He helped neighbors with their yard work, but they still found him strange.

On April 22, 1921, Mrs. William A. Servin and her daughter-in-law, both members of the Nyack Women’s Club, went for a hike along Pearl River; a hamlet located roughly twenty miles from Manhattan and just north of the New Jersey border. After traveling along a grown-over path the two women happened upon four children they later described as, “so wretchedly clad and so encrusted with dirt as to seem scarcely human.” Disturbed by the children’s unkempt appearance and fearful for their overall well-being, Mrs. Servin contacted the county truant officer and local law enforcement to investigate.

The story takes place during the early mid-20th century. Two young boys narrate frightening stories about unidentified creatures living in a grain elevator. While the boys have never seen this creature, both their imaginings propel them the story to frightening places. The short story starts with the anonymous storyteller pleading guilty to a murder. The end of the story, though, reveals the crime was not an act of murder; it was instead an act of apathy from remaining quiet over a top-secret prowling in the obscurities of the

Wes walked into his aunt's house and saw a strange looking men on the couch. Wes’s mother says,

Imagine a South Central fourteen-year-old who is a multiple offender that faked a kidnapping then shot at the police officers trying to stop him. Now imagine a young boy growing up in a violent area always fearful of his life and going through traumatic experiences such as getting shot, seeing his brother killed, and being abused. This same young man, unknowingly, shot at undercover cops. In this instance, a general audience would be more likely to sympathize with the young boy that went through the many hardships. Bryan Stevenson tells this story of Antonio Nuñez with descriptive language in order to justify his argument of Nuñez by appealing strongly to the audience's emotions. Because of sympathy that humans naturally feel, the young boy

At a prep school in Connecticut, a boy named Jamie Watson gets a rugby scholarship to Sherringford. But also home to the great-great-great-granddaughter of the famous detective, Charlotte Holmes. One day after after Watson got settled in he went walking around campus and bumped into Charlotte Holmes, they talked in the middle of the walkway about how Charlotte Holmes’s parents and family had been dying to meet Jamie Watson. Just about a week after he started school Watson bumped into Lee Dobson and got in a fight with Lee Dobson because Dobson was making jokes about Watson and ended up punching him in the face and knocked him out. About 3 days after that incident, there was a murder a few dorm rooms down the hall from his own, Lee Dobson was

Three teens from Arkansas were brought in as suspects on a recent murder of three local children named, Chris Byers, Stevie Branch and Michael Moore. The teenagers who had been suspect were also locals, and one in particular had been profiled a number of times by the police for being odd. The teen, Damien Echols a high school dropout, had a record is psychiatric problems, with major depression. Echols was different than his fellow cohorts, he dressed primarily in black, had long dark hair, and to the police looked like a troublemaker. The troubled teen also was in a Wiccest, or male witches, group. He was said to partake in Wiccest ceremonies and other troubling events. The two other accused boys were Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, who like Echols were simply different. Misskelley was seventeen years old with mild mental retardation, who reportedly had an IQ of just sixty eight. Misskelley was interrogated by the police for several hours straight and eventually being forced to admit to a crime that he nor his companions committed. Misskelley would have a separate trial than the other two teens and would be found guilty and sentenced to eighteen years of jail time. Echols and Baldwin would also be found guilty, Baldwin sentenced to the same amount of time as Misskelley, but Echols, unfortunately, was condemned to

Most people think the world is just technology and some people are always doing something bad. Jack Gantos was a prisoner in 1972 at the federal correctional institution in Ashland, Kentucky. Jack was 21 years old and weighed 125 pounds at the time. The prison served food like salted chicken, gizzards with gravy, chicken wings with oily cheese sauce and deep fried chicken necks. Jack position was a person who checked people's wounds to see if the bones had been cracked or broken in the cafeteria a skinny black kid stabbed some other blood with a fork. The author Jack was born and raised in Pennsylvania and him and the family moved places around during his childhood when he was in his teen years close to being an adult. The author Jack had spent

None of the boys said they have, but the protagonist thought to himself that their friend was dead and lying in the river. He was terrified of this, and he did not have the courage to tell them about the dead body. Young people do not show fear when they think that they can handle a situation. This can be caused by the fact that when they are together they think that they can do a lot with no harm coming their way. This is made worse when they take alcohol and other substances that distort their thinking and reasoning and increase their confidence. The narrator perceives that they were dangerous characters meaning that they were to be feared and they were not afraid of anything. The thought of him having killed a person and the possibility of facing the law scares him. The little epiphany he has in the story is when he feels something soft and he is not sure what it is. This makes him more scared and his fear is heightened when he realizes that it is another dead body. At that time, he realizes the consequences if his actions. This story shows how a person can grow and become mature overnight after realizing the consequences of his actions. The next morning gives the three young men another chance to

Everybody’s felt it. That tingling sensation making all the hairs stand on the back of your neck. The sweat slowly rolling down the spine. The consciousness that everyone is staring at you, and knows the horrible deed you’ve committed. The guilty conscience of a six-year-old is a terrifying experience, and Gary Soto portrays it perfectly in his short autobiography reminiscing on when he plundered an apple pie many years ago. As we follow young Soto through the pressures of being a young criminal, he enhances the readers understanding of what it was like by using many different rhetorical devices and strategies. Soto uses a combination of imagery, symbols, and intriguing diction that allows the reader to peer into the life of his younger self.

Poison throughout the ages has been a subject of fascination. This is particularly true in Victorian era Britain where the population became fascinated with poison as a means for murder. Although poisoning had not been new, the Victorian era produced an apex in poisoning cases. This essay hopes to explore the progression of murder through poison in Victorian society from its humble beginnings in the home as a common household product to a tool of deliberate murder and the subsequent fear it instilled that inspired legal reform that exists today. Firstly, this will be explored through the place poison had in the common home and Victorian society. Secondly, I will explore the professionalization of poisoning and growing fear of murder that became prevalent in the 1840s. Thirdly, I will explore the legal framework that changed in hopes to limit access and reduce the chance of poisoning. Fourthly, given this as context I will explore how the poisoning trial of Christiana Edmunds in 1872 became sensationalized because it reinvigorated fears of poisoning throughout Brighton.

The narrator butchered the man. That is an indisputable fact. The question is, is he sane? The narrator stalked an innocent man for 8 nights, then brutally murdered and grotesquely dismembered him. He then proceeds to put the body parts under the floor boards. The narrator talks about his surprisingly logical thought process, the careful and perfect execution of his plan, and his terrible guilt as he could hear the dead man’s heart beat. The defense will tell you that this man is an innocent, sedentary man, and that everything he did was the fault of his mental illness, but do not listen to them. This man is deleterious, and it is imperative that he is locked away. The narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” was sane because he could distinguish fantasy from reality, he could feel guilt, and he was thinking logically. This evidence will prove that the narrator is sane.

After the murder, the narrator hears a knock at the door. He proceeds to open the door to find that it is three policemen, who were there because of a disturbance call. The police tells the narrator for why they are there, which a neighbor heard a scream in the night. When the narrator hears this, he tells the police that it was his scream. Once the narrator welcomes the police to search the home, the narrator goes as far as leading police into the room where he had committed a murder and hid the body. The narrator cleverly comes up with an idea to hide the murder, “The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search-search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber” (Poe, 887). The narrator shows the police that there was nothing abnormal in the house, he proceeds to talk to them while feeling at ease.

Roald Dahl uses various writing techniques in the horror short story, “The Landlady,” to build suspense, or the uncertainty or anxiety that a reader will feel about what may happen next in a story, novel, or drama. In this short story, the protagonist, Billy Weaver, a young, handsome seventeen-year-old, traveled from London to Bath, due to work, and looks for accommodation. Eventually, he came across a quaint bed and breakfast owned by a landlady who appeared to be generous. The landlady portrayed herself as a kind, innocent soul, but her intentions spoke otherwise. As the tale continued, Billy realizes that things are not what they initially appeared to be at the bed and breakfast. Through the use of foreshadowing and characterization, the author, Roald Dahl, of the horror short story, “The Landlady,” effectively builds suspense for the reader in the thread of the plot.

Even though the gruesome, ghastly and demonic story known as “The Landlady” ends in a disturbing way, it portrays many characteristics about the protagonist, Billy. There are numerous ways to characterize Billy, a 17-year-old kid on his first business trip in the strange city of Bath, England. Billy begins his journey to a hotel known as the Bell and Dragon but stumbles to a halt when he sees a seemingly cozy bed and breakfast that catches his eye. For a few pages everything seems great; unfortunately for Billy, he has some flaws which ultimately lead to his shocking death at the hands of a demented landlady. These are curiosity, a tendency to miss important clues, and gullibility.