Literature Analysis #1

Literature Analysis #1: Velocity by Dean Koontz

Exposition: The book opens up with a typical guy named Billy Wiles working as a bartender during the day. Billy is in his thirties, living in Napa Valley. His wife is in a coma where he often visits her. As he was done with his shift, he goes out to the car and sees a note on the windshield of his car and it reads, “If you take his note to the police I kill the elderly lady, if you don’t then I will kill a blonde school teacher.” Billy thought this was a prank, but within two days there’s news about a female teacher getting beaten to death. Billy’s best friend Lanny who is a police officer investigated this note, but before he could another note was left behind. The second note led to Lanny’s death. Now Billy has to decide what the psychopath will do. Climax: Billy suspects Steve Zillis as the murder but after following him for a while, he had an alibi. Later on, he finds out Valis is the psychopath trying to play a murder game and along with Steve who was part of it. Resolution: Billy confronts him but Valis tries to run away and Billy shoots him and Steve. At the end of the book, Billy sits next to Barbara who is still in a coma, suddenly opens her eyes but falls back to sleep. Billy, who is the narrator, fulfilled Koontz purpose because his vivid thoughts and actions make the book suspenseful and intriguing. Koontz purpose is to make a murder and horror novel to attract readers by living through Billy’s mind.

2.       The theme of the book would be betrayal because Billy Wiles is an innocent ordinary guy who was put into a position of choosing the fate of other’s lives. The massive murder happen to be men who Billy knew personally, Zillis and Valis. Billy felt no betrayal because he ended up killing the two murders without knowing the truth behind the murders, but symbolically speaking. The murderers were so close to Billy that he never suspected. Another theme of Velocity is loneliness. While Billy’s wife was in a coma, he never did anything for himself. The murder games were haunting yet gave him something to do, but ones he finds his best friend, Lanny dead. He was once again alone. Later finding out that people he knew Valis and Zillis were the murderers who he shot cold, Billy was once again alone. At the end of the book, Billy’s wife, Barbara wakes up and closes her eyes into another coma; this represents Billy’s isolation and loneliness.

3.     

           One of the tones Koontz included in the book was despairing. The relationship between Billy and Barbara is complicated because the doctor tries to tell Billy that his fiancé is never going to wake up. “After holding his breath for a while, he said, “Barbara?” She did not answer.”  He knew miracles didn’t exist so he just waited for her to wake up one day because he believes there is no end to time. Another tone was haunting/horror, Koontz writes about incidents happening to Billy such as, “At 3:30 in the morning blustered at the broken out window, and became as alien to his heart as any foreign barrens.” The suspicion and mysteries makes the book horror like and haunting in a way. Quotes like, “Are you prepared for your second wound,” gets readers like me chills, which I believe Koontz was trying to capture. Finally, the last tone Koontz used was an apologetic tone, when Billy unintentionally killed his best friend Lanny, he wished for a mother with children to die instead. “If he had known, perhaps he would have made a different choice, even if the stranger was a mother of two.” The death of Lanny makes him lonely and apologetic towards Lanny because it was Billy’s ultimate choice to kill either a mother or Lanny.

4.       

  A.)Imagery:  the book uses many descriptive languages to describe the killer’s motive and events that happen to Billy. For example, “Picturesque chalk-white stucco walls with decorative buttresses rose to burnt- orange tile roofs.”  Koontz uses imagery to describe the situations or simple to detail out the setting or characters.

B.) Characterization: an important part of any book, but Koontz characterizes Billy in a way no author has described a character. “Billy himself had never been much of a talker, never one of those barkeeps who considered the bar a strange. He was a listener.”  In that quote, Billy is a man who was reserved and his qualities make up the decisions he makes throughout the book. For example, choosing between a man who won’t be missed and the mother of two children, Billy chose the mother of two because he was quiet and puts himself in every situation.

C.) Foreshadow: Koontz foreshadows most of the events by having a killer send Billy letters. One of the mails was, “Are you ready for your first wound?” Later on in the book, Billy was injured and woke up with three fish hooks on his forehead. The letters foreshadows the events in the book.

D.) Irony: The most ironic part of the book was Barbara’s coma, as Billy’s life is getting haunted by this massive killer and Billy has to make a life decision of every other person’s life except for Barbara, instead he avoids the doctors telling him that Barbara might never wake up. Also, the fact that Barbara is in peace with her coma while Billy is searching for a murder is ironic because they live in contrasting situations, “He looked at her and saw that her eyes were open and that she seemed to be watching the swallows.”

E.) Symbolism: the main symbolism in the book was the birds Barbara described near the end. The birds symbolized the freedom that Barbara was granted and that Billy was stuck in the real world. As this life changing event happens, the swallows escape symbolizing Barbara and all of the people Billy knew escaping/ leaving Billy behind. “The bird swallows flew elsewhere. Billy returned to the book that he had been reading.”  As the bird flew somewhere, Billy was still in Napa all by himself and waits for Barbara to open her eyes.

F.) Mood: the mood of the book was often calm yet suspenseful. The events of the murders and when Billy hunts down the murder is when the mood of the book changes drastically into a suspense. “My last killing: midnight Thursday, your suicide: soon thereafter,” this quote gives people chills and the mood of this quote is definitely haunting and suspenseful.

G.) Narrative:  The narrator is an unknown who narrates Billy’s life. It’s in a third point of view. The narrator refers to Billy has “he?”  “He tried to relax and breathe through his mouth. He rolled his head from side to side.” The narrative is important in the book because Billy’s thoughts do not influence the reader or see from only his perspective.

H.) Syllogism: The use of deductive reasoning to solve Koontz murder mystery. The letters throughout the book led up to the mystery murder. Billy later finds out that the hidden meaning of the letters lead up to Valis and Zillis. “The second, third, and fourth were chillingly similar to the “spiritual guidance” that Valis provided to assist his admirers,” this led to the person behind the murderer which was Valis and Zillis.

I.) Foil: Koontz characterizes Zillis differently from the other characters, as if he had some importance to the mysteries. He left an emphasis on Zillis’ spiritual guidance which later one reveals to Billy that he is the murder. Koontz characterizes him in a suspicious way, “When you are chopping the mannequins in the backyard, do you dream that they’re real women?” 

J.) Tragic Flaw: Although Billy was able to capture the murder, Valis and Zillis, the tragic flaw was that he loses people who he loved before he could stop him. They both killed Lanny and Barbara wasn’t going to wake up from her coma anytime soon. Billy is a hero in a way where he kills the murders to stop them yet he is still lonely because he has no one left with him. Therefore, the tragic flaw of Velocity was that Billy’s success has led him nowhere from where he started. “Then it was over. Sobbing but not for Zillis, he climbed once more behind the steering wheel.”  This quote shows that even though the murder is over, Billy has to continue living his life with Barbara in a coma and everything back to normal.