An Analysis Of Robert Cormier's Tunes For Bears To Dance To

The American B-29 bomber circled over the Japanese mainland, reaching 31,000 feet. Then, the crew dropped the first atomic bomb used in wartime, nicknamed "Little Boy," on the city of Hiroshima. It was detonated at 1,900 feet, and sent a mushroom cloud rising ominously into the sky; 70,000 people died in a matter of seconds. Imagine the people that either survived or that were soon to be born, and the fear that the atomic bomb had on them. Robert Cormier used the motif of the atom bomb in his book, Tunes for Bears to Dance To. He used this motif to develop characters and to set the mood. In the story, Henry is a 12-year-old boy, living on the outskirts of Boston. He recently got a job at the Corner Market. His boss was a mean man named Mr. Hairston. On page 6, Mr.

In this way of using the motif of the atomic bomb, Cormier helps the reader to understand Henry more. It tells the reader more about his past, about his friends and his brother. Also, it shows that Henry is a fearful person. He is so scared about the atomic bomb exploding and killing everyone, that he has nightmares about it. Henry keeps many problems to himself, afraid that it would overwhelm his mother or father too much, in addition to them still coping with the death of their son. “Gathering his strength, he slammed the hammer down on the village, smashing two houses and a barn, sending splinters of wood through the air. the sound was enormous, like a bomb falling and exploding” (75). When this happened, Henry was destroying a carved wooden village that Mr. Levine made. Mr. Levine was an old man who was in the “Crazy House” next to Henry. He suffered from PTSD because he was in a concentration camp when he was a child, and his village was destroyed by the