Three Skeleton Key Character Analysis

What is mood? Mood is the overall feeling or atmosphere of a work of literature. The feeling a reader gets while reading a work of literature is called mood. Also, mood helps bring a certain feeling or emotion into a reader's mind. Furthermore, a writer may also produce a unique mood with the usage of literary devices such as irony, similes, and personification, which are inserted throughout the story. For the most part, these literary devices help enhance a reader's experience while reading the story. Also, literary devices help act as guides to find the author's purpose in reading the work of literature such as for entertainment, persuasion, or to inform. This story is called "Three Skeleton Key" by George G. Toulouse. In summary, "Three

Characterization is how a character is described in a story. A character can be described by appearance, physical traits, personality, their words, their motives, and many other descriptions. In this story, the author used physical and personality traits to help describe his characters more clearly in the story. Physical traits are a character's appearance. Personality traits are permanent qualities in a character. While on the island, the three men noticed something strange while on duty. A Dutch ship was just sailing toward them. However, when the crew members looked more closely, the Dutch boat was not abandoned by her crew, but was instead eaten alive by an army of human-eating sea rats! Sea rats are not like your ordinary house rat. House rats scurry into their little mouse hole as soon as they sense danger. Sea rats are strong, brave animals. The rats in the story are described by both very stimulating physical and personality traits. The physical traits of the rats are large, strong, huge, and have sharp claws and teeth. The physical features of the rats make them much stronger and powerful than the average brown rat. The personality traits of the rats are brave, vengeful, have respect to the sea and are fierce. They are also superior, intelligent, and clannish. Worse of all, these are

Throughout the story, the author, George G. Toulouse, had used suspense to add to the mood of the story. When the ship was acting erratically, we readers wanted to continue reading the story. Suspense makes the reader feel uncertain of the outcome of the story. Suspense also acts as motivation for the readers to continue reading a story. Without the addition of having a reader interested in a story, the reader will quickly lose interest and stop reading. When an author uses suspense in a story, the author first starts out with a bang and continues to add onto the "hook" of the story that continues to interest the reader. As the ship crashed on the shore, the readers were very excited to see what was to happen next in the story. While the lighthouse keepers were trapped inside by the hordes of starving sea rats, the readers of the story wanted to know what would be the result. This anxious feeling while reading the story is called suspense. A quotation that would support these previous sentences is, "The ship...impaled herself on a sharp point of rock. There was...a horrible crackling as the three masts went overboard at once, as if cut down with one blow of some giant sickle. A sighing groan came as the water rushed into the ship. Then she split into two and sank like a stone," on page 40. Throughout the