Ethel Wilsons Mood in Hurry Hurry

Ethel Wilsons Mood in "Hurry Hurry"

Ethel Wilson's "Hurry Hurry" is about a man who murdered a woman on a what used to be peaceful, quiet and innocent island. The mood she starts with in "Hurry Hurry" is peaceful at first, to help the reader picture the island as Miriam sees it, then it gradually turns into a tense and scary mood. Ethel shows this through the structure of her sentances such as the the point of veiw and the repitition of words or descriptions , the imagery of her writing, and the setting of the peaceful island.

The setting of "Hurry Hurry" sets the mood because of its original descriptions compared to its descriptions later on in the short story. Ethel starts off the story describing the mountains. She describes them from a distance as "innocently folded in furry white" and describing the sky as "clear spring sky". This sets the mood that the setting is calm and peaceful. Later in the story Ethel begins to alter the way she is describing the setting of the island. The noises she was once describing as peaceful and calm and the birds were happily skittering along the sandbars and playing. Before Ethel intoduces Miriam to potential danger, when she introduces the hawk, the birds begin to chirp "sweet and very ugly" this starts to quicken the mood and become more tense to the reader. After Miriam is frightened by the strange man, the sky is no longer " clear" but is now described as cold. She drives past the mountains and does not even acknowledge them, this makes the reader too, frightened of what is happening.

The imagery used in "hurry Hurry" seems to give the reader pictures in their minds and adding to the mood of the story. Ethel begins using words to paint pictures in the readers minds about the peaceful island like: innocent, beauty, the wind blew softly, the safer sand bank, and rising and falling without haste or fear to the sea. These words paint pictures of what Ethel wants the reader to veiw the island when the reader is first introduced to the story. As the story progresses, Ethel begins using the more threatening words such as: stabbing and jabbing, growled, thorn bush, uneasy, sharp beak and tearing claws. The imagery the most adds to the mood is when she is introduced to the hawk, or "an unlikely heap of something", this