An Analysis Of Dathan Auerbach's 'Footsteps'

Why is it that most people feel uneasy for fake characters in mysterious situation? We always seem to look at the negative in a mysterious situation rather than saying everything is fine. Dathan Auerbach does this in “Footsteps”, a chapter from Penpal, where he makes the reader feel uneasy for this kid character he made for this story. In this first and only chapter we learn that a kid randomly appears in the woods and what happens before the kid being in the woods and during tells the reader that something isn 't right. Since when something seems odd and wrong to the readers they most likely assume that, even though there isn 't that much evidence they still know something is wrong somehow. Most readers are like this since the author uses

The chapter begins with the reader being introduced to a kid that hears footsteps in a room, we find out the kid lives with his mother in an apartment, and how this kid thinks. Later in the chapter the kid gets lost in the woods and then gets home to where their is a note where it said the kid was running away, but the kid denies writing it. The author can make the readers feel uneasy when personification is used since when nonliving things start having human characteristics can make someone feel uneasy deepening when it is used. A scenario where this is used is when the kid thinks , “...my mind with imaginary monsters and inescapable scenarios which would consume my thoughts when I was awoken by the footsteps” (Auerbach). We have learned a little bit about the kid before this sentence so these “footsteps” the kid keeps hearing has a mysterious feel to it. Though it 's how this kids mind ”consumes” his own thoughts shows the

The author uses imagery to show when and where the next part of the chapter is taking place to make the reader feel uneasy. The kid that has now awoken by the coldness and not the “footsteps”, which they heared get far away prior to awakening in the woods, then assess the situation. The kid then thinks “By the light of the moon I could see that they were everywhere. I looked at my other foot but was fine, and as a matter of fact so was the rest of me. I didn’t have another scratch on me and I wasn 't even that dirty” (Auerbach). The author makes the reader feel uneasy by making this take place at night which can be told by the moon. Another thing that makes the reader feel uneasy is when the author makes the kid be in the woods and besides them stepping on the thorn they are uninjured or even dirty. The way these sentence are made the reader can see this and feel the uneasiness even more than it already has. Also the fact that the reader knows that this is a kid makes it more uneasy. The imagery used by the author then makes the reader feel uneasy since where and when this is. By “seeing” what the kid sees, and knowing what has been going on in the beginning of this chapter makes this mysterious to where the reader feels