How the Short Story "Ruthless" Builds Suspense

 

In the short story “Ruthless,” we are introduced to our main character Judson. He is a very arrogant and ruthless person. He doesn't let anyone else touch his belongings in his closet because they are very special to him and if someone does touch them, then he will get really mad at them. He poisons his whiskey bottle to make the thieves learn their lesson and does not call it murder. After a while, he falls and someone gives him the poisoned whiskey to refresh his mind, which kills him. 

The way that the author builds suspense early in the story is to put us in the perspective of his wife. This helps the author because it lets him be more vague when he is telling the readers what is going on. If the author puts the perspective of Judson, then we will already know what he is going to do with the bottle so it will not be as suspenseful. But, when you write from the wife’s, perspective she will not know what is going on so it will be more suspenseful.

Another suspense-building technique was the tone Judson used when he was planning to “put something over” in a business deal. Judson has the same tone when he poisons the whiskey as when his doing sketchy business at work. It is suspenseful because it makes us think about what's going on in his business and what he is doing with the whiskey.

Judson’s wife finds out that he is going to poison the whiskey and she says, “Don’t do it, Judson,” she gasped. “It’s horrible — it’s murder.” This is suspenseful because his wife is panicking and this makes the reader intrigued because they want to know why she is scared.

The resolution is also dramatic because the main character gets poisoned with his own drink. He was going to poison the person who was stealing his things, but when he slipped on a rock and hit his head his friend brought the whiskey with the poison in it and the man drank it and died.

The details in the story reveal Judson is a ruthless man because he breaks the deals he does with his business partners and possibly kills them.

I 100% agree that “Ruthless” is a good title for this story because everything about Judson is ruthless. Another reason why this title is good is because in the end, the main character dies because of himself. 

Overall, the only word that pops up to mind when you read this story is “ruthless.”