Fear of Crime

The central theme of the short story is the ways that fear of crime limits the lives of people who fear crime and damages society for everyone. The fear of crime is the theme which unites the introductory paragraphs with the main body of the story: both the narrator and the adults in the main story suffer from a fear of having their homes broken into and a fear of being physically harmed by criminals. In the introduction, the narrator sets themselves apart from the characters in the main part of the story, by revealing that they do not take any extra security precautions, despite their fear of crime: “I have no burglar bars, no gun under the pillow, but I have the same fears as people who do take these precautions” (1). This admission is significant because it reveals the narrator’s sympathy for...