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Schule > Englisch > Susan Hill - I'm the King of the castle > The technique of flashback in ch. 3

Hausaufgabe Englisch: 11.02.2001

The technique of flashback
Function?The function of a flashback is, to give the person who reads the book some peaces of information of things that have happended before, which are so far unknown to the reader. But sometimes it is also used to show links. Two moments or incidents are presented to the reader to make it easier for him to figure out the links, because he might already have forgotten about the first incident the actual incident is linked with. If the moment shown in the flashback has been unknown to the reader so far, the function of course is to give him the background information needed to understand a current happening or reaktion or something like that. And finally there is another function a flashback can have. It might be used to show for example contrasts. First a setting is described and then a scene is described to the reader which shows the main figure in a different situation, to show that something has changed, which of course helps to understand a reaction or action, too.

How is it done?
It is fairly common that flashbacks are told by the narrator or that they are presented as the thoughts of a person. Usually something is said or done the reader at first glance cannot understand. Then with the technique of flashback the reason for this reaction or action is explained. So you have to change the tense to show that the flashback presents something that happended a long time ago. And usually it starts with a phrase like for example “Once he was” or “He remembered the time when”.
Topics / Themes in chapter III
On the one hand the topics and themes presented in chapter three basically concentrate on Warings and its surrounding. The house itself is described and the corpses, woods and fiels around are charakterised. On the other hand the hostility between Kingshaw and Hooper is especially emphasised.

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