Summary Of Examination Day By Henry Seslar

In the short story “Examination Day” by Henry Seslar. A 12 year old boy named Dickie is going in for an exam. This exam will tell of his intelligence, what he doesn’t know is that he might not make it out alive. Selser, uses Dialogue, Multiple points of view, and setting a tone to show Dickie’s strength of hiding how he is nervous.

In the beginning of the story, the author is using a lot of intelligent craft moves. Seslar, uses craft moves such as dialogue throughout the story, the author use short sentences coming from Dickie. Like “yes, sir” “why, dad?”. This shows, that there is not a lot of description in the text, to explain what he is thinking. This could set the tone of him being timid, or nervous and not letting his parents see that. If there was not any dialogue . . . you could not really see what is going on unless there is description. The author did not use a lot of description in the story to paint a picture. He kept you thinking the way through . . . making you wait.
Dialogue and stirring empathy go very well in this short story because during the exam Dickie was getting very nervous. “Dickie’s face showed puzzlement, and a touch of fright.” This evidence points to that Dickie was very nervous during the wait of the exam . . . this shows how the author is stirring empathy by telling the readers Dickie’s facial expression for us to feel bad for him. Also, the father states “you're a good boy Dickie; you’ll make out fine.” Although this is showing how his father is showing strength he is also giving Dickie that inner strength that he needs to go through with the