Tension in To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Explore how Harper Lee creates tension In the book - To Kill A

Mocking Bird -.

Explore how Harper Lee creates tension

In the book "To Kill A Mocking Bird", Harper Lee creates tension in

many different ways. You can especially recognise this build up of

tension in Chapter twenty-eight onwards (pages 280-282 and 285-290).

Harper Lee has also created tension in Chapter six (page 55), when Jem

gets his trousers caught in the fence of the Radley place and in

Chapter fifteen (page 166) where the incident by the jail with

Atticus, Tom Robinson and the gentlemen takes place.

The first example of when Harper Lee creates tension would be in

Chapter six (page 55). In this chapter we see how the build up of

tension keeps the reader 'on edge' and wondering if Jem will get

caught. Of course this will keep the reader reading on to find out

what really happens. Therefore, Harper Lee uses short sentences to

create the feeling of pace and uses description i.e. of the weather:

"a gigantic moon was rising", the Radley house: "the back of the

Radley house was less inviting than the front" and the shadow: "it was

the shadow of a man with a hat on" to make the book more real to the

reader so therefore they will feel more immersed into it.

To achieve this, she uses words such as "darkness", "gigantic moon" to

describe the weather, which gives you the feeling that it would be

very dark (and bad things always happen when it is dark). When Harper

Lee goes on to describe the Radley place, the reader gets the

impression that the house is very old, mysterious and eerie. The

adjectives "ramshackle", "dark windows", "rough two-by-four", "old

Franklin stove" and "hat rack mirror caught the moon and shone eerily"

gives that impr...

... middle of paper ...

...sense of

vulnerability), "windy" and also a very prominent sentence: "this was

the stillness before the thunderstorm"- this especially gives the

reader the aura of tension and fear for the word "stillness" gives the

feeling of solemness and also the word "thunderstorm" always refers

ones mind to horror books, for thunderstorms are associated with

scary, bad things.

Harper Lee continues to build up tension, throughout these past three

examples and also right to the very incident of the last example.

However, she occasionally tends to break up this tension by humour so

as to 'play with your mind'. This is probably because she wants to

relax the tension a little, so when the real 'scary' event occurs, the

reader will not be 'prepared' for it and so therefore this will make

the reader even more fearful and excited when he/she comes to read

about the event.