During this unit, we looked at a couple of short stories where authors developed particular literary features. One of the stories that we read was “The Tell-Tale Heart” where Edgar Allan Poe used flashback in the introduction in order to give more background information about the character. “Reunion” by John Cheever, consisted of a lot of dialogue with little description, but yet still created a visual image of the character in the readers’ head. Lastly, another story that we read in class was “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, where the author used specific details throughout the story to foreshadow the violent conclusion. While writing my story titled “Aiden”, I replicated the significance of literary features in those three stories such as flashback, dialogue, and foreshadowing.
Like in “The Tell-Tale Heart”, one of the literary devices that I used as my introduction in my short story was a flashback. A flashback is a scene in a story or film that is set in a time earlier than the main story. Edgar Allan Poe started his story with a flashback to hook the reader’s attention, “TRUE! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story.” (Poe 1)