How To Create Suspense

In the book Trash, Andy Mulligan uses many techniques to create suspense.

One technique he uses is to make the reader follow a trail of clues.  An example of this is…       Raphael, Gardo on page 8 found a key in a bag and slowly Rat tells us what the key is for on page 25-26(the key is for a locker in the Central Station) but we don’t know what’s in the locker and want to make the reader kept on reading to find out what’s in the locker. An another example to make the reader follow a trail of clue is a ID of Jose Angelico,

Another way that suspense is created is by creating conflict between characters.  Examples of characters in conflict include there is a conflict between police and Raphael, when Raphael was getting tortured by the police. Corrupted police against Jose Angelico, Gabriel Olondriz, those characters were in conflict by Corrupted police, Senator trying to arrest Jose Angelico and Gabriel Olondriz for something that didn’t happen and Jose Angelico and Gabriel Olondriz tried to let the world know that the police here are corrupted and Senator steals money from the poor.

Furthermore, in Trash, we don’t always know if a character is good or bad.  Examples of this include Jose Angelico because in the early book the police told that Jose Angelico stole 6 million dollars but later the dumpsite boys finds out that the police/government were hiding the truth blaming the stolen money to Jose Angelico. Also we didn’t knew if Marco is good or bad because when the three main characters met him he was nice and trustful but later after they hand over the bible he tries to arrest Raphael, Gardo and Rat/Jun-Jun

In addition, Mulligan also creates suspense by having the characters work against a deadline.  If the boys don’t discover the mystery fast then Raphael and his mates will get caught by the police, get killed and the Senator will continue to steal money from the poor people

Moreover Mulligan also has different characters telling the story.  He does this so, to tell the readers what things are happening in each character’s view and what that character is going to do. Also doing this make the story interesting because it’s unique. And to know how each characters are feeling

1. Blog post title: Characters: Discuss the character traits that allow Raphael, Gardo, and Rat to ultimately persevere. How are these characters similar to each other? In what ways are they different? Which character are you most like?

All these three characters are were grown in the same environment, but each characters are different but also similar to each other. Rat is a smart boy, who knows many things about the city, for example when he knew what the key in the bag was for at (page 26 “You don’t know what that is! said Rat slowly. He was teasing us. “I do. I’ll raise you to a hundred”) he was very confident about what the key was for. Raphael is one of the most brave characters in the book Trash because when the corrupted police were torturing him and asking him for information, he told the police nothing other than (“I didn’t find a bag, sir, please believe me.” – page 65). Gardo is a very honorable friend, because he prays (“praying to God that both my friends were safe, and shaking all over” – page 152) which means he cares about his friends a lot. Gardo is also a character with good leadership, even though Raphael is the same age as Raphael because (“He’s taken more beatings than me so maybe he’s grown up faster.” – page 8).

1. Blog post title: Empowerment: By the end of the novel, Rat states, “Jun – no longer Rat. My name is Jun-Jun” (p.217). What can be inferred about Rat’s new sense of self? How have Raphael and Gardo enabled this transformation?

By the end of the novel, Rat states, “Jun-no longer Rat. My name is Jun-Jun (pg.217). In my opinion Jun-Jun says this to himself because before Jun-Jun met Raphael and Gardo he was always alone and had nobody to take care of him, he had no respect and no friends so he was even called Rat but after all these troubles with Jun-Jun’s new mates Raphael and Gardo he got some strong confidence. Raphael and Gardo made this happen by caring Jun-Jun, helping each other and being friends with him. After this transformation Jun-Jun must have felt proud, happy and gained confidence because, he now has real friends and someone to take care of each other.

1. Blog post title: Climax: In the last section of the book, the boys tell the story together, why does the author make this happen? What does this do to the story? (pace, excitement etc.)

In the last section of the book, the trash boys tell the story together. Andy Mulligan makes this happen because all the other each chapters of this book are told by a character but in the last section more than one character tells us the story, when the reader reads this they will probably think that the story is near the end. Also by doing this it makes the reader get interested into the book more, because it is different to all the other chapters and the unanswered question gets answered.

1. Blog post title: Style: At the end of part 4, Andy Mulligan uses newspaper stories to reveal further information about senator Zapanta and the mystery. What information is revealed? Do all of the papers share the same view? How is this effective way to reveal the story?

Andy Mulligan uses newspaper articles to reveal further information about senator Zapanta and the mystery. All the newspaper articles have different information. The first newspaper story tells us that Zapanta did not steal any money and it was a member of the senator’s domestic staff. But the second article is different because it tells us bad things he did like

 “He also made famous by a dramatic poster campaign aimed at the illiterate, featuring laughing orphans holding placards that spelled out his name – the children received no fee for their services.”

The third article tells us that why was ten million dollars doing in the Senator’s house? This article tells us that Senator was hiding something and he got all that money unofficial. I think this article is the article that is the most less bias, because it doesn’t really say that he didn’t do anything wrong or correct it just asks what were all the money doing in his house?

The fourth article is very bias because it only says that Vice-president Senator is a bad man that keeps millions of dollars of cash in his home, suggests that he is part of a corrupt other world – and should not be re-elected, but a new, better person named Charuvi Adarme should be elected.

1. Blog post title: This story is about…”: Using the phrase, “This is a story about…” Supply five words or phrases to describe Trash. Explain your choices

This story is about friendship because without friendship in between Gardo, Raphael and Rat they wouldn’t have gone all these troubles and mysteries. Friendship in this story is important because without friendship Rat wouldn’t had any friends and Gardo, Raphael wouldn’t get any help from Rat, so friendship connects people together, and able to work as a team. This story is about poverty, it means that you are extremely poor and very hard to live and this story begins at few boys living in a dumpsite and in poverty, working in the dumpsite picking up “stupp”. This story is about police corruption, police in Trash are all corrupted, they do not care who’s right and wrong they only care about the money and bribery. This story is about hope, there are many hopes in Trash two of many characters that give hope to these kids in poverty are Sister Olivia or Ms Olivia, she volunteered to help a small school in Behala for the kids in poverty. Also Jose Angelico gave hope to the poor people because he tried to stop the Senator stealing money from the poor people.

1. Blog post title: Multiple Perspectives: Throughout the novel, Raphael, Gardo, and Rat take turns recounting their story. How does hearing the multiple perspectives of this story benefit you?

Not like other books Trash has multiple perspectives like every chapter a different character tells the story,  doing this benefits the reader because, when just one person tells the story, the story becomes bias, but if the story is told by other characters the reader can find out what is the truth and what is going on easier. It also makes the book different and many people like to try different things. Also few is always better than one, it makes the story interesting so it doesn’t get boring. Lastly using multiple perspectives for this book Trash was a good idea because there are many actions and mysteries in this book and multiple perspectives keep this going fast.