dfgdfgdfg
...her comes back for him, he is cheerful and confident. "She quickly turned her frank, friendly glance on Pottern 2 the lake, down which, as through to greet her, a swan came swimming...Frederick gave a great skip, opened his mouth wide, shouted:'Oo, I say, mother, I nearly caught a duck'"(88). The swan that returns symbolizes the new Frederick that his mother finds when she returns, bold and beautiful. It seems apparent that both authors use symbolism to help portray the personality of their main characters. Although the settings of both stories are completely different, they are both very important because they lay the groundwork for the events of the story to unfold. Since "Tears, Idle Tears" takes place in a public park, Bowen is given many new options and characters to work with. Because Frederick and his mother are in the park they have access to meeting a great variety of different people. This is how Frederick coincidentally meets a girl who also knows a man who cries all the time but doesn't understand why. In "Child By Tiger" the events that occur to Dick Prosser happen because of the type of environment he is placed in. He is surrounded by a town that does not have high regard for African Americans: "What happened, what passed between them, was never known. And, besides, no one was greatly interested. It was a crazy nigger with 'another nigger's woman'"(33). Just as the park allows for certain events to happen to Frederick, the bigotry in Prosser's town slowly eats away at him until he snaps. Both Wolfe and Bowen use their settings to their advantage in creating the theme because, in both cases, the story could not have happened if the setting had been different. In both of the stories a large portion of the narrative relies on the strong presence of character to help clarify the point that the author is trying to make. The type of character that is used in both stories is children because of their innocence. In the story, "Child by Tiger", Wolfe creates the characters of Randy Shepperton and his friends to help in the description of Dick Prosser, the main character. An example of this can be Pottern 3 found when the children find Prosser's gun in his room. This incident foreshadows the future events of the story: "I was just fixin' to hide this gun away twill Christmas Day"(29). Eventually the reader finds out what Prosser really intends to do with the gun on Christmas; he runs around town shooting everyone. Because the author used children and their natural innocence, he was able to share a piece of information about Prosser without the children realizing the significance of it. If Wolfe had used an adult, the adult character would have evaluated what was going on, unlike the children who just accept it because Prosser is their friend. In "Tear, Idle Tears" Bowen also brings into play the innocence of children. Frederick can't understand why he cries so much. After reading the story, however, one realizes that the reason for Frederick's inability to understand his emotional problem is his innocence. Because he hasn't had to deal with many of the troubles and problems that life doles out, he isn't sophisticated enough to figure out the impact that these experiences have and why he consequently ends up in tears. The two authors also use innocent children because they offer a unbiased view of the main character. Wolfe, by having his story told through o...