Suffer the Little Children - Stephen King

A detailed Summary of Suffer the Little Children - Stephen King


In this paper, Im going to take a formalist approach to look at language, tone and structure of Suffer the Little Children by Stephen King. This story is not just about a particular teacher or a particular student; it is more about a disturbed ladys state of mind, and my work will give emphasis to the characterization the author uses through the text.

The first thing I would like to talk about is Kings use of language in this story. He begins by describing Miss Sidley as a small, constantly suffering, gimlet-eyed woman. He also mentioned that she knows she is getting old, and the word Miss before her name allowed us to know that she is not married. She is an unhappy woman. We can gather what kind of person she is from her reference to the children as monsters, bitches, evils, who have nasty little games. The diction of the story emphasizes wickedness. King uses metaphors, and almost every one of them suggests a likeness with something evil, taking for exam


The structure of the story itself builds up, but the mirror image is building down. At first, Miss Sidley is in control of the situation: Behind her, none of the children giggled or whispered..., Like God, she seemed to know everything at once. The author compares her to God, which put her in a superior position, as if no one could possibly be above her. But she slowly loses control of herself. It starts when Robert shows he is not afraid of her: instead of looking frightened, he has a tiny side-of-the-mouth smile in his face, that bothers her extremely and leads her to her demise and ulimately her death.

King gave this story a dark tone about which theres nothing cheerful. No colors. Anyone who reads the story will be able to see an obscure atmosphere. I would like to mention that the author uses expressions such as unrestful night and solitary dinner througout the text, and the word darkness appears many times. Theres nothing pleasing in the playground.

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Approximate Word count = 650
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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