Killings

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1979

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Literary Devices

Limited Omniscient Third-Person Narration

The limited omniscient third-person narrator (who, in “Killings,” alternates between rendering the temporal narrative of the story and Matt’s interior life) is a literary device Dubus utilizes to plumb the depths of repression and secrecy within ordinary human relationships, and, more specifically, within Matt’s psyche.The third person narration allows Dubus to penetrate Matt’s psyche from the outside, and thereby depict machinations of which Matt himself may not be aware. This perspectival choice is therefore a formal decision that directly serves Dubus’s conceptual and thematic framings.

Character Foiling

Frank and Matt are clear foils within the story. Frank—young, virile, athletic, and spirited—is the picture of ideal masculinity. Matt—aged, docile, dutiful, and physically shorter than Frank—is a man well past his prime. By foiling these characters, Dubus depicts the depth and intricacy of Matt’s grief. It is possible that Matt is not only grieving the loss of his son, but the loss of his own youth and masculinity. It is possible that his murder of Richard is an attempt at catharsis—not only in its aspect of vengeance for his son, but in its offering of a dim hope of accessing a masculine vitality which is now completely lost to him.