“The Hitchhiker,” by Lucille Fletcher, narrates the unusual happenings Ronald Adams, the protagonist, experiences, while driving along the deserted and densely populated roads of the United States. Adams continually observes a hitchhiker, whom he first saw, having almost hit him, on the Brooklyn Bridge, and apprehends traveling on the highways, for fear this phantasmal man shall reappear. Struggling to grasp reality once receiving news of his mother’s breakdown after the death of her son, Ronald Adams, he reverts his attention to the hitchhiker, the realization of never having been who he thought he was, and being alone without protection from the traveler, both wrench his mind in two. Lucille Fletcher uses suspense to build the plot of, “The …show more content…
“I didn’t see—anybody. There wasn’t nothing, but a bunch of steers—and the barbed wire fence.” (94) His desperation and loneliness overpowering all, Adams takes up his initial idea of running down the hitchhiker, but his momentary traveling companion does not see the victim, claiming he was never there. Now in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the hitchhiker doesn’t wait for Adams to make a stop before appearing; his form and face flit by every other mile. (96) Learning of his mother’s prostration and the death of Ronald Adams, the protagonist leaves the audience with his last thought: Somewhere among them, he is waiting for me. Somewhere I shall know who he is, and who . . . I . . . am . . .” (97) Alone, without the willpower to fight for survival, the main character fades into a mist of doubt and helplessness. The use of suspense in “The Hitchhiker,” keeps the audience in a state of panic, wondering what the outcome will be. The protagonist looks back upon the torturous six days, remembering his protective mother, and the commonplace traveler. Fear mixed with suspicion, he identifies the hitchhiker on the most inappropriate hitchhiking roads, set on terminating the foreboding individual. Leaving the audience at the climax, Adams believes the hitchhiker must be mortal, and therefore able to hinder, yet the fact of Adams’ unknown identity and his total isolation, prevent his ability to take
It has been three years since humanity was still alive. The year is 2020; very few people are left in America. A great series of large volcanic eruptions covered the region. No one could have prepared for them, and not one person predicted these tragedies. The author, Cormac McCarthy, shows the enticing travel of a father and his son. They must travel south for warmth, fight the starvation they are facing, and never let their guard down. They will never know what insane people might be lurking around the corner.
Everyone at one point has been captivated and intrigued by the plot of a movie or a book. This captivation is generated by the one tool that authors and directors love the most, suspense. Authors want their audience and readers of their writing to be enthralled by creating tension and thrill in their plot. The usage of style, characterization, point of view, and foreshadowing allows authors and directors to create suspense in their work. Suspense is a very difficult approach to master but with the correct tools it can be as simple as a walk through the park.
Robbins reflects that everything is interrelated, and how our societies denial of that fact is damaging. Julian displays the Western mentality of a free rider, when defining hitch hiking: "Hitchhiking is parasitic, no more than a reckless panhandling, as far as I can see. "(Cowgirls 45). Similarly, Sissy lives her life constantly focused on finding the next driver who will pick her up. She is consistently engaged with the rhythm of people on the move, but all Julian recognizes is that she is not a contributing part of the whole.
Paul Revere's Ride also does an outstanding job of giving the reader a more in-depth perspective about these events by providing a number of first hand accounts from various sources. This technique personalizes the events to the reader and allows him or her to feel more connected to the people in the novel. One such account takes place when Hackett Fischer describes the "Ipswich Fright". "All the horses and vehicles in the town were put in requisition: men, women, and children hurried as for life toward the north. Large numbers crossed the Merrimack, and spent the night in deserted houses of Salisbury, whose inhabitants, stricken by the strange terror, had fled into New Hampshire “(171). Instead of merely saying that people were in a panic, this accounts adds strength to his assertions. With this detail, the reader can actually make a visual picture the type of panic that took place.
Updike, John. “A&P”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Eds. R.V. Cassill and Richard Bausch. Shorter Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. 864 - 869.
Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.
Ronald begins to get irritated by seeing the man everywhere he goes. “Wherever I stopped, even for a moment - for gas, for oil, for a drink of pop, a cup o' coffee, sandwich - he was there!” (Fletcher). Ronald is insane, because he is trying to run over Death, when Death cannot be killed. He begins to only think about the “hitchhiker” following him approximately every hour. Even though he is trying to kill Death, he is also dead, but does not realize that he is cheating
Kurt Vonnegut: The novelist inserts himself in the sections of Chapters One and Ten that frame Billy Pilgrim's story.
Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite subject was the superficial placidity of American life, whose clean, bright surfaces disguised the most shockingly moral, political, psychological and sexual aberrations. For Hitchcock, the most striking, funny, and terrifying quality of American life was its confidence in its sheer ordinariness. Beneath the surface, ordinary people and normal life were always ‘bent’ for Hitchcock.
Irving, Washington. “The Devil and Tom Walker”. Elements of Literature: Fifth Course. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2008. 175-185. Print.
In their Freakonomics podcast titled, “Where Have All the Hitchhikers Gone?” Stephen J. Dubner and Stephen D. Levitt discuss the most probable reasons for why hitchhiking has dramatically declined almost to the point of extinction in recent years and how it has affected modern society through an economic viewpoint. The two main motives discussed for why the demand of hitchhiking has plummeted since the early-80’s are that Americans began to fear hitchhiking because they saw it as dangerous and because transportation became cheaper and more readily available.
The beginning of our plot introduces both Adams and the hitchhiker, but not all is right with the free traveling man. He seems to constantly follow Adams, “Crossing the Brooklyn bridge in the rain that morning, I saw a man leaning agains the cable poles.” (page 1002 The Hitchhiker) being as the first time he sees the man, Ronald Adams doesn't think much of it. Until he sees the man again, the mood getting a tad eerie. “I would have forgotten about him, except a hour later I saw him again.” (page 1002 The Hitchhiker)
Wilson, M. & Clark, R. (n.d.). Analyzing the Short Story. [online] Retrieved from: https://www.limcollege.edu/Analyzing_the_Short_Story.pdf [Accessed: 12 Apr 2014].
They are relaxed to see a car stop for them to give them a ride to their destination, until they soon realize the person driving was an escaped convict named "The Misfit. " The convicts partners began taking the family into the woods one by one to assonate them, the grandmother starts to beg for her life even though s... ... middle of paper ... ... als these events within their novels. Sometimes leaving the reader scared, frightened or mysterious.
...readers on their toes from what was going to happen next. When Colin was depressed that he had lost yet another girl he loved, Katherine nineteen, Hassan showed up to commiserate with him. However, Hassan was not there simply to sympathize with Colin, he was there on a mission. “You have a very complicated problem with a very simple solution” Hassan said (Green 11). The reader had to keep reading to see what Hassan meant about the solution to Colin’s problem. The solution ended up being a road trip.