Literary Techniques Used In Jackson's The Tooth

Writing stories with dark twist and unlucky characters is how Jackson set the mood and tone of the story, however she does this with a couple of literary tools such as repeating phrases over and over again. In the story “The Tooth” an example of this is when Clara keeps telling her husband “I feel so funny” [Jackson 207]. By having Clara repeat this throughout the story it is foreshadowing that something bad is going to happen to her. Along with foreshadowing her inevitable bad luck coming her way, Clara saying she feels funny, Jackson could be referring to her having an illness of some sort. Her husband keeps telling her it is all the codeine and whiskey she has had during the day, and keeps ignoring her pleas. Some people simply do not believe in mental illnesses, and think that people that are suffering from them are making them up in their heads, and
Montague’s signature phrase “Pretty, pretty!” [Jackson 619]. Mrs. Montague basically only said this phrase throughout most of the story which once again would be an example of a definite omen that something is wrong with this women, who has everything except her mind. An ironic twist on this phrase is that everything that Mrs. Montague is surrounded by is extravagant and “pretty” yet she is unable to enjoy any of these luxuries. In the story “Cauliflower in her hair” Mrs. Garland repeats the same phrase to her husband, “She does not seem like an awfully nice girl, does she?” [Jackson 569]. Mrs. Garland’s intuition was telling her not to trust Millie and it was right. The foreshadowing taking place automatically points hatred towards Millie, however once it is known that the Millie is not corrupting Virginia, but rather sleeping with Mr. Garland, they hatred is spread out evenly between the both of them. Interesting enough a student of Jackson’s husband published an article which could give insight to why Jackson wrote the story “Cauliflower in her