Characterization and foreshadowing in Gina Berriault's "Stone Boy"
...ation also gave a lot of detail to the story. Taking care of a farm, they were a family that often put work before their emotions. When Arnold announced to his parents that Eugie was dead their first reaction was to blame Arnold. Although they knew that it was not his intention or fault, the parents used him as their scapegoat. There was no one else that they could place the blame so Arnold was used to vent their pain and frustration. The parents went to the extent of calling the sheriff to investigate the matter and question Arnold about why he shot his brother. Arnold’s parents often put their work before their emotions. Keeping with this characterization, Arnold’s mother went back that afternoon and canned all of the peas that Arnold had picked before allowing herself to mourn her son’s death. Plus the father goes back and finishes his chores. The neighbors of the family also fit this characterization of work before sorrow. When they heard the news of Eugie being shot, before running to console their friends, they also finished doing their chores at home. Gina Berriault also utilizes foreshadowing to create depth in her short story. Scattered throughout the work are several "red lights" intended to capture the reader’s attention. Although most of these bits of foreshadowing are subtle, an attentive reader will pick up on them and be able to create a better picture of what the author is trying to portray. Two major events that the author develops in her foreshadowing are Eugie’s death and Arnold’s emotional withdrawal. The first instance in which the author foreshadows Eugie’s death, is when Arnold is trying to wake him up in the morning to go and pick the peas. Arnold had a difficult time trying to wake him and his Eugie was positioned on his back with the gray covers over him with every part of his body under it except for his face. Through this piece of imagery the author is trying to portray to the reader that Eugie is actually under the ground and the difficulty waking him represents Eugie’s death later in the story. One way that the author could have emphasized this point might be by describing more of what the blanket looked like. Adding a detail that it was a gray blanket, representing a tombstone or that the blanket seemed to swallow him up would create a better sense of what the author was trying to foreshadow. Arnold also when trying to wake his brother felt uneasy that it was so hard to get him to wake up. This detail shows itself later in the story after his brother has been shot that Arnold could not get his brother to answer him and the uneasiness that Arnold felt then also. Arnold’s emotional withdrawal is also foreshadowed through out this work. From the beginning, the author portrayed Arnold as an emotional and sensitive child. He often tried to put himself in the situation of people in his family to try to experience what they were feeling. The author describes a time when "Arnold would deliberately come out from the shade where he was playing and make himself as uncomfortable as his mother was in the kitchen by standing in the sun until the sweat ran down his body" (Berriault 190). As the story progressed the author shows a change in the emotional state of Arnold. On the way to pick the peas Arnold is behind his brother, following in his footsteps, which shows that he greatly loves his brother wanting to experience whatever he does. When the shock comes after he has shot his brother, there seems to be an immediate metamorphosis in the way Arnold acts. Instead of acting out his emotions, Arnold seems to withdraw into himself and conform to the way his parents would deal with the situation of putting the work of picking the peas before going to tell his parents what has happened. When Arnold returns home after telling the news he retreats to hide in the barn, which represents his retreat into himself and the change in emotional state. Arnold does not respond to the comments of the neighbors blaming him for the death of Eugie, he becomes almost invisible among them. When Arnold s...