I Wasn T Prepared To Meet A Condemned Man By Robert Louis Stevenson

On the first page of his book, Stevenson uses an honest tone to convey his inexperience and insecurities, while employing imagery to highlight his anxiety. The honest and blunt tone used by Stevenson show how insecure he truly is. He opens the paragraph with “I wasn't prepared to meet a condemned man”. This initial statement gives readers an idea of what Stevenson's character is like: honest and truthful. He takes a very direct approach to convey the insecurities he has. For instance, he goes to describe himself as an “inexperienced” student who was in over his head. Stevenson also mentioned how he “had never seen the inside of a maximum security prison” and that he had “certainly never been to death row”. He also uses parallelism to further support his honest tone and drill this idea of inexperience into the heads of readers. We can see this in the structure of the “I didn’t” sentences, saying he didn’t know anything about capital punishment, didn’t have a basic grasp of the complex appeals, and how he
He describes his initial anxiety when he learned he was going to be visiting the prisoner alone, telling readers that he “tried not to let [his] panic show”. This example shows his human feelings, making him relatable and understandable. The audience can relate to the feeling of anxiety, as it is a rather common emotion. He also describes the ride to the prison, saying that his “heart pounded harder” the closer he got. Stevenson obviously felt overwhelmed by the situation he was in. He had no prior experience and did not know what to expect. He mentions how he is a student at Harvard law, so he definitely had high standards and was afraid to fail at his task, that’s why he ends with “this man was going to be very disappointed to see me”. The pressure and inexperience caused him the anxiety that he showed readers with his