Nothing Special by Brett Woodland

Nothing Special

In the short story, Nothing Special, by Brett Woodland the reader is encouraged to feel sympathy towards the boy that has died because he was a drug addict. The story is in the genre of crime as the main element of the plot is the murder. This essay will state and explain the different devices that the author uses to create this feeling towards the character. The author has used the devices of Plot Structure, Stereotypes, Values and Themes.

The first device that the author uses to create the feeling of sympathy is how the plot starts off immediately with the climax, the death of the boy. This is shown in the story when it says "the cold steel slashed through warm flesh, and a body lay in the dirt of a dark back street". This shows that the person took no mercy in killing him and just left the boy lying there, not even bothering to hide it. This makes you feel sympathy for the fact that the murderer just killed him and left.

The second device used by the author to create the feeling of sympathy towards the boy is how the public reacts to the murder. An example of this is when the journalist writes down in his note pad "just another junkie written-off. Nothing new." This makes you feel sympathy towards the boy who was murdered because he was just a little boy, and someone had murdered him in cold blood and no one cares that this has happened.

A third device that the author has used to create the feeling of sympathy in the story is when the murderer reveals himself. The narrator talks about how the boy was going to go straight and when he couldn't make any money he had killed him and it didn't have any effect on him, "and for a while I felt sorry, but that went like everything else after I scored a hit." This makes you feel sympathy for the boy because he was murdered by another druggie for money so he could score a hit.

A fourth device that the author, Brett Woodland has used to make the reader feel sympathy for the boy is the use of themes. There are many themes in the story such as friendship, betrayal, death, indifference, drug and drug abuse and stereotypes. The theme if betrayal is especially important because the boy who is murdered was going to go straight and he told his friend. "Only a few hours before he died he told me he was going to go straight. Yeah go to his uncle's farm and start a new life." This makes you feel sympathy because the boy was trying to start over, to leave the drugs behind him and try and rebuild the shattered remains of his life, when his friend took all that away from him, by stabbing him to death.

In conclusion, the author has used many devices such as Plot Structure, Stereotypes, Values and Themes to encourage the reader to feel sympathy towards the boy who was stabbed to death in the dark of night by his own friend.