The story "Killings" was not told in chronological order, with the burying of Matt Fowler's son, Frank, to begin the story with. After we are told that Frank is buried, we begin to learn of his past and how his death occurred. Richard Strout killed Frank out of jealousy for the woman that he still loved and was legally married to, but Frank was dating. We don't find out until the end that Matt actually kills Richard Strout by shooting him. This changes my reaction so much because we don't find out until the end of how much emotion is going through Matt after the fact that he kills Richard. The end is very depressing to me, knowing that he holds a burden of his son's death and the burden of murder.
If Matt's story would've been told with the funereal at the end of the story we as the audience would have kept guessing as to which Matt's reaction was to the funereal. We know now that he reacted violently and took the law into his own hands as he tried to serve justice to a man that deserved more than a twenty five year sentence in prison. For Matt this wasn't enough to know that he could be out of prison by the time Richard was Matt's age now.
The biggest significance in telling the story the way it was told is the foreshadowing it does to inflict that mood of always guessing what will happen next. The audience isn't told that Richard actually is killed until almost the very end of the story. When we see Frank's past it tells us something is coming that is bad for his future. Richard beating him and fighting him more than once tells us that Richard will not stand to see Frank alive for much longer.
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