SPECTRUM 2007-2008

Christine Craig’s “In the Hills”? is a story meant to evoke emotion. A woman living alone in the hills meets a young man, who appears to be part of some sort of outlaw gang that meets there, a gang that is fighting the injustices of the city and government with injustices of their own. This story incites anger in a reader toward the oppression of the city, but not directly. First, the reader is made to pity the poor boy and then to understand his pitiful state is a result of a corrupt world around him. The author allows these sympathetic emotions for the boy to emanate from his dialogue, appearance, and actions.

The boy is part of a violent gang, though the author is careful to never say that outright. Instead, she alludes to it through the boy’s words when he states, speaking about the pressures of his group, “‘I am afraid to kill another man. It is a sin to kill’”? (348). Here Craig has let the reader know that he is a part of violence, but does not bias the reader into believing that he himself is bad, leaving the reader still impressionable to empathetic emotions. Pity begins to well up when he ponders aloud, “‘Perhaps there is another way. This way, [the big shots] will get what they want’”? (349), as the reader now knows that it is not his intention to do harm to anyone. Finally, the author makes sure to point out the boy did not enter his pitiful state on his own, that there was some oppressive outside influence, when the boy says, after being offered a line of hope from the narrator, “‘I used to think that way once’”? (349).

In the story, the narrator makes a point never to refer to this boy as anything else, never referring to him as even a young man. Craig writes, “The young boy looked at his hands and then folded them round his body, he suddenly seemed very young indeed”? (349). This is important for evoking empathy for the boy, as it is important the reader understand that this is no grown man in a war, but a mere child in a struggle far larger than himself. The reader begins to understand that corruption and oppression have put this child in such a painful position, and it moves that reader to anger toward the troubles he (and the world) must face. The boy’s appearance as an innocent child is vital, as this provides a stark contrast to the evils he is trying to stand against.

Finally, the boy’s actions also help in portraying him as young, broken, and defeated. When this small, frail child is moved to emotions so that the narrator can see “the shine of tears in his eyes”? (349), it allows the reader to see that although he is part of a possibly murderous gang, he is still a human, with emotions as well. The author also is careful to paint him as a good boy, one who is respectful and helpful of his elders, by writing, “I suggested we make some hot tea and he cam inside and helped me light the lamp. . .He fetched some water from the big oil drum out back and washed our few things while I waited for the kettle to boil”? (349). It is important to Craig that the reader knows he is a true opposite to the evils he faces, so that the reader is willing to stand alongside him against these things. However, though the boy is distinctly broken, the author also shows that inside he still retains some childhood joys, alive and well, when he “smiled and threw back his head to catch the gleam of the light under his half-closed eyelids”? (349).

Christine Craig wrote “In the Hills”? not as a lecture against the pains of oppression and corruption in the world, but as a picture of what it causes the victims to feel. By presenting this boy as good and moral, she has allowed the reader to forgive him for involving himself in something possibly just as awful and actually unite themselves with him against these things which he strives free himself of. Craig has successfully evoked anger and outrage in readers against that which would cause so much turmoil for an innocent boy.

Works Cited

Craig, Christine. “In the Hills.”? Literature Without Borders. Eds. George R. Bozzini and

Cynthia R. Leenerts. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001. 347-350.