Analyse af novellen 'The Death of Tommy Grimes'

In the short story “The death of Tommy Grimes” we meet the young boy Tommy Grimes, only 12 years old (line 8, page 1), and his strong-minded father. We get an introduction in a flashback, where we are introduced to Tommy's father, who is trying to learn Tommy about shooting and help him improve his skill, but Tommy has a hard time pulling the trigger. Tommy starts practicing and get better at shooting, just like his father taught him. His father also teaches him about hunting, and says that it is okay to hunt, because that’s how the nature cycle works, and Tommy finely seems to understand. In the end of the story, Tommy and his father go hunting out in the woods, and at one point Tommy thinks he shot his father and he starts yelling. When his father finely shows up, he asks him what happened. It ends up being a black man that Tommy shot instead. His father gets very proud, and in the very end he brags about it in the local bar saying the words, “my boy became a man today” (line 1, page 9), and everyone agrees.

Characterisation of Tommy

Tommy is the main character in the short story, whose perspective the 3. Person narrator shows the events from. His character develops from the beginning to the end, and he starts of being an innocent boy and end up as a young adult, this is shown as his name changes from tommy to tom (last line, page 7)