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Columbine High School Shooting Summary

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Why did Eric and Dylan follow through a shooting? Writer, Dave Cullen, writes Columbine as a detailed explanation of a tragic shooting fulfilled by classmates that tragically shook the school forever, underlining the motive of such a traumatic incident. Cullen emulates the shambled room after what was a normal library, when now it is not normal at all. He illustrates the tragic tone with descriptive imagery of the aftermath with the use of the devices such as repetition and parallelism with what used to be a High school but now a crime scene.
At first, the author starts out at the beginning of the passage describing the first SWAT(Special Weapons Attack Team) team entering into the school since the shooting began. The rooms are quiet, completely …show more content…

The SWAT team lead the way to the library and discover bodies most dead but a few alive. The author repeatedly includes “The SWAT team…” following multiple statements like “discovered the truth”, This “truth” is realizing that Eric and Dylan were dead and had been for quit a while. Their guns were present right by their bodies, cold and lifeless. Another phrase “searched the building..”, and “warned laman to be cautious’ as short straight to the point sentences describing the actions taken by the first responders. They “warned” the detective incase Eric and Dylan left a last hope of a device planted in any of the backpacks lying near lifeless bodies. The SWAT team wanted to save as many lives as they could. Cullen repeatedly states phrases straight to the point emphasize the importance and the conclusion drawn that Eric and Dylan were dead. He finds value in explaining the step-by-step finding from entering the building. He builds a parallel structure throughout with different words to show individual importance with each encounter. He uses different words but leading to the same purpose of illustrating the occurrence of that happened the day within the hours. The reader should have a sense of fear with reading the rest of the passage or the rest of the

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The passage opens with an examination of Eric’s thoughts in the months before Columbine happened, which can be viewed from numerous passages Eric left behind in his journals. Eric continuously talks about how he will need to suppress his emotions in order to be able to go through with the attack. Cullen is quick to use pathos in order to get readers involved with Eric’s emotions, or lack of, at that time. He takes readers on a journey into Eric's mind as he displays some of the most apathetic lines Eric ever wrote. Cullen points out that “It was a mark of Eric’s ruthlessness that he comprehended the pain and consciously fought the urge to spare it” (276).

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