my mothers monkey
...ngshaw a note saying 'I didn't want you to come here'. This sets up the story line from the beginning, leading us to expect events to come. Then at the very end of the novel before Kingshaw commits suicide, Hopper sends him a final note saying ' Something will happen to you Kingshaw'. She shows the ability to be able to think like a child, which adds to the overall affect of the book because the main character is Kingshaw who is a child. This process of her thoughts gives us a wider understanding of Kingshaw's character and his thoughts. Examples of her thinking like a child appear in many forms in the novel. One of them is her use of childish language and grammar. "Now, he thought, I know what Hooper is really like. He's a baby. And stupid. And a bully." Notice in this particular phrase that she uses childish words like baby, stupid and bully. The use of short abrupt sentences emphasise the words and adds to the childish theme (it is grammatically incorrect to start a sentence with a conjunction, which is what a child may do). Another form of her childish thinking is how she shows an understanding of children's fears and their reactions. An example of this is Kingshaw's fear of moths. " 'There are a lot of moths,' Hooper said softly, ' there always are, in woods. Pretty big ones, as well.' Kingshaw's stomach clenched. In his nostrils, he could smell the mustiness of the Red Room." This passage shows how Hooper taunts Kingshaw with his fear (childishly). She shows Kingshaw's reaction to his fear by saying his stomach clenched. She then continues with his memory of the Red Room, where he had been scared by the death moths, using her evocative style to describe how he associates moths with the musty smell of the Red Room. She uses the example of moths through out the book, along with Kingshaw's other fears such as birds. To keep the reader alert Susan Hill tended to change from one scene to another very abruptly. A Classic example is in chapter sixteen, when every one was in the Breakfast room on the day of Mrs. Helena Kingshaw and Mr. Hooper's wedding announcement. Suddenly the scene changes to them being in a muddy field. This can be quite confusing for the reader but it does keep them alert. It was also in this scene where Susan Hill showed her ability to build up tension. This was done by Kingshaw expressing his fears about something that we do not know about, and Mrs. Helena Kingshaw talking about how he was scared by this thing when he was little. As the passage continues the writer gives us a clue that the unknown fear is of a certain place and ...