How Does Lee Create Suspense In To Kill A Mockingbird

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In many genres of novels or films the author creates suspense to make the reader or viewer curious and interested and to want to find out what is going to happen next. Suspense is successfully created in pages 42 and 43 in To Kill A Mocking-Bird when Jem, Dill and Scout are playing with the tyre and Scout lands and falls out in front of the Radley’s house. Suspense is also present when they are playing the ‘Boo Radley’ game and Atticus catches them playing. In this extract I will be analysing Scout’s character, the themes and the relevance of the extract to the rest of the novel. In this extract themes such as compassion and tolerance are displayed. Scout shows compassion when Jem suggests playing the “Boo Radley” game, Scout was reluctant…show more content…
This is shown when Jem, Scout and Dill were playing with the tyre and when they start playing the Boo Radley game, as generally only children play games like that. Scout plays the ‘Boo Radley’ game even though it was the wrong thing to do, and she knew it was mean to the Radley family, but further into the novel she grows up to be a good person. Jem, Dill and Scout are all still kids in this part of the novel so they are more gullible and naïve to believe the rumours of the Radley family so therefore their game is based on the rumours they have heard. At this stage of the story Scout is still scared of Arthur Radley, an example of this is when scout said “I raised my head and stared at the Radley place steps in front of my. I froze”. Jem and Scout constantly challenge each other throughout the novel, this is shown on page 42 when Scout has fallen out of the tyre and they are bickering back and forth on who should retrieve the tyre. Scout challenges Jem when she says ”why, you even touched the house once remember?”. These position the reader to see Scout as childish but yet slightly mature at the same time. Bickering and arguing like Scout and Jem did is seen as childish but by Scout sticking up for herself and disagreeing with Jem, her older brother, makes Scout seem more

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