Language
Stephen King uses common English with simple words in “Suffer the Little Children”. The story is often very descriptive, particularly in connection to the way the characters look and act. This creates imagery because the language help readers form mental images of what is being narrated: “His face suddenly ran together like melting wax, the eyes flattening and spreading like knife-struck egg yolks, nose widening and yawning, mouth disappearing. The head elongated, and the hair was suddenly not hair but straggling, twitching growths.” (p. 5, ll. 12-16)
The main mode of conveying the text is the narrative mode, but dialogue is also used occasionally to add to the characterization and to convey some of the characters’ interactions.
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Similes
A wide number of similes can be identified in the text. They help convey details about the characters and the action. Miss Sidley is “Like God” (p. 1, l. 13) because the writer wants to convey her power over her students and her ability to know what they are doing behind her back.
Robert’s look is “like the mud at the bottom of a slow-running stream.” (p. 2, ll. 22-23), a simile that conveys his evil nature (at least in Miss Sidley’s eyes).
Miss Sidley’s obsessive thoughts about Robert are described as “like a tiny string of roast beef between two molars” (p. 2, l. 38). This simile is followed by another one which continues the comparison: “small thing, actually, but feeling as big as a cinderblock.” (p. 2, ll. 39-40). These similes help the author convey the way that Miss Sidley’s discomfort grows from a small irritation into an all-consuming obsession.
To convey the irritating nature of the monstrous creatures, they are compared with ants: “feel the weight of their eyes on her like blind, crawling ants” (p. 2, ll. 67-68).
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Metaphorical language
The language also includes a few metaphors and metonymies. Examples of metonymy (substitution of one thing to refer to another) are: “…the only thing that kept young heads from drowsing over their spellers…” (p. 1, ll. 58-60); “…the city sat back on its haunches in numb shock, but in the end, cooler heads prevailed and there was no trial.” (p. 7, ll. 16-18)
In these cases, the heads are used as a substitute for the children, and the city becomes a substitute for local society.
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Symbols
A number of elements in the short story also fulfill a symbolic function, hiding deeper meanings.
The glasses that Miss Sidley wears are symbolic of her ability to perceive more than meets the eye. She can tell what the children are doing behind her without looking at them because she can see the class reflected in her glasses. Similarly, she is also the only one who finds out that some of the children have been taken over by monsters and sees them for what they truly are.
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