In the horrific short story “August Heat”, the author, William Fryer Harvey creates suspense by the repeated uses of foreshadowing, the detailed explanation of the setting and the use of first person point of view. The first technique is foreshadowing. Examples of foreshadowing in the story include the missing date in the entry, indicating that the narrator probably dies. However, if the narrator did lived, he would write the next day’s entry. Since there wasn’t a second entry, we could assume that the narrator would have died. The second example of foreshadowing was when after the narrator draws a rough sketch of Atkinson undergoing trial, he meets him later in the day. The fact that the narrator drew a Atkinson of the criminal undergoing trial and that Atkinson is carving the narrator’s gravestone, it is certain that the drawing of Atkinson in court…show more content… It takes place in England on August 20th, and it was an extremely hot day. The setting was extremely important in this short story because that the characters were affected by it. The narrator also says “The room, though the doors and windows were open, was oppressively hot.” Throughout the whole story, the narrator talks about the hot temperature in Clapham. When the narrator says ”the heat is stifling. It is enough to send a man mad”, the description of the heat is not just explained, but how other people think about it. The description also affect the way the story is going to go because if the narrator didn’t bother about the oppressively hot temperature, he wouldn’t walk out and meet with the grave maker. The setting didn’t just give us a good idea of what it looks and feels like, it also influences the narrator’s actions as well.
As a result, “August Heat” is a horrifying tale with a descriptive heated setting, uses of dark foreshadowing and first person point of view to enhance the suspenseful
