An Encounter

Theme:

When people are trapped in a daily routine, they seek change and adventure

Beginning -

"The adventures related in the literature of the Wild West were remote from my nature but, at least, they opened doors of escape."

Middle -

"I began to hunger again for wild sensations, for the escape which those chronicles of disorder alone seemed to offer me."

End -

"My heart was beating quickly with fear."

Literary Features:

1. The motif of cycles

2. The man continiues to come back, walk away and come back, He also tlas in circles, covering the swame information over again.

- "His mind, as if magnetized again by his speech, seemed to circle slowly round and round its new center."

3. Symbolism

- "The bid white sailing vessel which was being discharged on the opposite quay."

- "Mahoney said it would be right skit to run away to sea on one of those big ships and even I, looking at the high masts."

- The ships represent the exploration and adventure that the boys seek.

The epiphany moment of the narrator in this story is after his interaction with the priest, this is seen when the "stood up abruptly." This may have been an epiphany of the possible nature of the church and how it may have negative views of normal human nature such as "a boy talking to girls or having a girl for a sweetheart." These interactions resulted in the priest "would give him a whipping as no boy ever got in this world."