Oath When and Where Does This Story

¶ … Oath

when and where does this story take place? The story takes place in a fictional town called Hyde River, a mining town in Clark County, which is in the Pacific Northwest. The time in which it takes place is not specifically mentioned but it would appear to be recently, perhaps in the 1980s.

list two characters that are important in the novel and describe each one.

Harold Bly is basically the local power broker in the town; he is the authority and he knows the secret. Bly is owner of the mining company in Hyde River and he is the one who has the ability to control the fearful and mysterious dragon. He is a strong man who can be brutally vicious when he is angry; at the beginning of the novel is very angry at his wife Maggie for having an affair and he literally threw her into the street "…with as much respect as he would have given a plastic bag filled with garbage"(p. 4). Her affair with Cliff Benson was the reason Harold was so insistent that she go away.

Steve Benson is the protagonist in this story. Benson's brother, Cliff was found dead (due to perhaps a bear attack?), decides to investigate further into the death of his brother and the death of others. Steve has a Ph.D. from Colorado State University in biology and environmental science. He is a professor and studies black bears and grizzlies, and he knows what a bear attack looks like. Steve continues to be the investigative person in the book and becomes a nuisance to Harold Bly who knows the curse on the town and doesn't want people asking questions; especially he doesn't want a biologist snooping around discovering what the real danger is in Hyde River. Steve hunts down the dragon (which has the ability to simply blend into the immediate environment and become invisible to the human eye). Eventually Steve too has the weird red scar on his heart because (again, this is a "Christian" book) he and the sheriff's deputy Tracy, became romantically involved; Tracy too, has the red mark. This is in a way thematically similar to the "Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne; the letter "A" is on the blouse of a woman who has had adultery; in "The Oath" the red scar is there when adultery has taken place or another sin.

THREE: What is the main conflict in the book? First of all this is a book written by a "Christian" author, so one could say the main conflict revolves around those who are being punished by some bizarre force because they committed sin. So on a philosophical level, the author has created conflict in a Christian sense, with those who sin (have intimate relations outside their marriage, for example) die or are seriously injured. Good vs. evil. A dragon has been wreaking havoc in the town, killing people and terrorizing the town. The townspeople have a secret that they have been holding and hiding for years. They have all taken the "oath" to not reveal what they know. The dragon can not only rip bodies apart and leave corpses without heads; it has the power to turn human hearts into black weirdness. It seems that those who have committed sin get a rash on the chest. It had "…a lacy, vein-like pattern to it" directly over the heart. It was a little longer than the width of a hand.