Fear

By accessing each of the character's internal experiences through his third person narrator, the author is able to expound the all-consuming nature of fear, whether emotional or religious. At the start of "A Meeting in the Dark," the author defines fear by John's fear of his father. Stanley's domineering religiosity has terrified his son since childhood. In the narrative present, this fear has become increasingly consuming. John is convinced his father sees him as a sinner, and will thus condemn him if he learns that John has broken his strict moral code. The author evidences John's terror through descriptive attention to John's body language. In the course of Stanley and John's brief conversation at the start of the story, the narrator says that John "lingered" and "stood doubtfully," that he "shrank within himself" as he listened to "the loud beats of his heart" (60-61). As the...