How Does Dickens Create Tension In Joyce Et Decorum Est

Aware that Oliver is innocent, the audience become wrapped up in the dramatic sequence that follows due to the fast-paced advancement of the passage. The use of long and fractured sentences generates tension that contribute to Oliver’s need to escape capture. The longest sentence from the passage is sixty words in length, making it impossible to read comfortably. Instead the complex sentence creates confusion which echoes the confusion of the mob that is racing after Oliver. They have joined this hunt under the impression of the ‘magic’ that has compelled them to drop everything that they were doing to chase after this one boy. The 'magic' of the mob makes it seem like they are compelled by a spell which they cannot control. The mob is moving

This desire to hunt is captured by Dickens. Described as ‘a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast’, the need to hunt Oliver is presented as innately primal by the narrator, a need which seemingly cannot be controlled. Where class distinction tries to raise one being above another, claiming that the middle class are morally and ethically more advanced than the impoverished. Dickens contradicts this by collectively stating that as a ‘human’, we are controlled by the primal need to hunt and thus, neither is more advanced than the other. The inhumane pursuit of Oliver is emphasised by the narrator by using italics to emphasise the desire to ‘hunt something’. We aren’t told what this ‘something’ is, but rather the lack of defining ‘something’ opens the statement up to suggest that it is an uncontrollable desire. There is no coherency to the reasoning behind why they hunt, instead they hunt Oliver for the sake of hunting. This links back to the ‘magic’ of the statement of ‘Stop thief!’ aforementioned. At the hint of ‘something’ being hunted, incites everybody to literally drop what they were doing in pursuit of their