5.Importance

**5. How does the writer show you how important his/her subject is in the piece?**
 



By sharing his personal experiences with fear and reflecting on them, **Verlaan shows that fear is important because of its ability to shape an individual**. Furthermore, the author implies that **fear reveals the nature of an individual's personality.** The memoir recreates the experiences and relationships in such that it puts the readers in the shoes of the author. The writer, through his description of the stories, creates a sense of confusion which changes into the profound realization that fear represents the core of human thought.

__Thoughts:__"I wanted to hit them, to beat them and mash them with my broom as they struggled, to step on them and hear their bones break..." (Page 4 Paragraph 2) __Feelings:__"... but i hesitated.Looking up at the rats i saw their shiny black eyes...It was to much" (Page 4 Paragraph 2) __Details:__"I tend to think of my memories as shoeboxes(that) will uncover the diagram of my true self, a clear-cut explanation for all that I think, say and do." By sharing the stories and experiences with fear, Verlaan essentially makes a metaphor by establishing that fear is like the items inside a shoebox for it reveals certain truths about each person.(Page 3 Paragraph 19)