Nowhere to Hide: Bullying Is Everywhere

Behind the Title and Words: Critical Review’s Literature will always be judged on the criteria that is inside the story and hidden inside it. Three criteria that is important in short stories, novels, or even just a magazine are: having expression, individual work, and knowledge gained. Out of the texts we have read this year, it feels as these three are the ones that fit the criteria above the best; “The Monkey’s Paw”, “The Masque of Red Death”, and “The Open Window.” These short stories have very good examples of many criterion but these are the three best. One criterion for judging literature is having expression within the characters and all of the story. “The Monkey’s Paw” contains a lot of emotion from the very beginning till the very end. While reading the story you can always tell whether the character that is speaking is yelling or whispering because of the action that happened before they started speaking. “The Masque of Red Death” also contains more expression in a short story than usual. In the beginning it may not be as noticeable but as we get closer to the death of the occupants, there begins to be more noticeable expression. The people at the party soon realize their fate and scream and yell and run around the home. This proves there is expression inside of this story. One of the best stories that contains emotion out of the three listed above is probably “The Open Window.” The story does not have many settings, but it has a lot of dialogue, which means more emotion. The main character eventually gets scared off because of all the emotion running through him and the other characters talking to him. Emotion can have a big impact on literature and is very important. A second criterion for judging literature is individual work. Individual work is talking meaning what one character does throughout the story. In “The Monkey’s Paw” the character isn’t really a character at all, the character is the paw itself. Throughout the story, the paw is doing