Free Sample Essays > Literature
“The Black Joke” by Farley Mowat
spray billowing up on either side of Black Joke, and so close to her that wind-driven foam fell all across her decks… she was sailing so fast that an inexperienced observer would have been certain she was going to smash headlong into one of the unseen sunkers whose presence was revealed only by the swirling waters over them,” (40-41). Now in accordance to this portrayal of the scourging sea, the suspense created by the uncertainty generates a restless anxiety surrounding the reader, which often results from the survival suspense.
Moreover, the Two Fishermen also provided a pretty close approach to this atmosphere of uncertainty and restless anxiety. Although, the climax was not much of an adventuresome journey or shipwreck; however, the suspenseful mood was created by means of two strangers meeting, then befriending, and finally betraying. The author creates an anxiety over which the reader strives to find out what happens to the friendship, and especially the hangman- Smitty. For example, the passage that paranoia’s the reader with such uncertainty is as follows: “Farther and farther Michael backed into the crowd and all the time he felt dreadfully ashamed as though he were betraying Smitty, who last night had had such a good neighbourly time with him. ‘It’s different now, it’s different,’ Michael stated… (96). The fact that the author describes the emotion of Michael as ‘dreadfully ashamed’, is truly a phrase of uncertainty to ponder upon; this emotional burst puts the reader in an acrobatic motion trying to justify whether the character will recall back his friendship or step farther back into the crowd.
Finally it can be stated that Margaret Atwood’s statement over the fact that Canadian literatures have a single unifying and informing symbol has been proved. The Maritime novel, “The Black Joke” when compared to the Ontario based short story, “Two Fishermen”, it has been determined how these two stories relate each other. The setting, the character, and the sense of uncertain suspense provide the information to Atwood’s key theme.
Bibliography
Mowat, Farley. The Black Joke. Toronto, McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1962.
Callaghan, Morley. Two Fishermen. Toronto, Dial Press, 1942.