August Heat Foreshadowing

Shashwat Patel
Mr. Fitch Period. 4
16 December 2015
August Heat Many people say that life is full of remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection, some of them are more risky than others. More danger sides of coincidences are shown by William Fryer Harvey, the story August Heat shows that how irrational fears are created by one’s mind when they face a horrific coincidence. This story took place in England during summer. The heat at that time is enough to make a person mad. In “August Heat” the use of setting, foreshadowing, and the first person view creates an impact of horror and suspense that leaves the reader wondering what will happen next. There are some elements in the August Heat and all of them contribute to the suspense at the end. The first major
element is setting, it is very important, this event takes place in England during a hot day. The person seems mad because of the heat. “The room though the doors and windows were open, was oppressively hot” (Harvey). This quote shows tells readers about the hot day in summer time. The narrator talks about heat in the whole story because it is very important. The heat makes the readers feel the story instead of just reading. Heat directed the main character towards fate. The setting of the story influenced the characters actions and also added a plot to the story. In the August Heat the second major element is foreshadowing, we can see that the narrator is using this since beginning of the story.
We can see that when narrator mentioned the date (20 August) we can see that the year is missing, this give us a important clue at the end of the story. We can assume right now that at the end of the story, the narrator is going to write about himself. In the story we can see that the character dies but it didn’t happen actually, it happened because of foreshadowing. The not mentioning of the date proves that the character finally died because there was no plot written after that. This fills the missing pieces that the narrator wants the readers to figure out. A sketch of criminal is drawn by the main character , which he meets later that day. The next foreshadowing comes when the criminal is carving Withencroft’s grave stone. The sketch of Atkinson being tried in a court was drawn by the narrator, and making the narrator’s grave stone. Because of all this foreshadowing, it actually happened that Atkinson was tried in court for the murder of the narrator. Foreshadowing creates suspense which is very important part in any horror
story. The third and the final element in this story is first person narration. Use of this limits readers to the the perspective of Withencroft, so the readers only know about his actions.“A sudden impulse made me enter”(Harvey) this quote describes Withencroft’s feelings. This broads the knowledge of the story. The feelings of Withencroft were limited which created a shady view in the story. Using of first person view in the story made it more enjoyable and comprehensive. The story August Heat is a very suspenseful story with a foreshadowing setting, this story does not have blood and gore of horror but suspense and foreshadowing of a horror story which is based on real life. The elements in this story had a great role in getting through the suspense, it made the readers think more about what is going to happen at the end of the story. The end of the story makes the readers think that how long it will be until the two men reach their destiny.