Characterization in "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" Conrad Aiken's short story "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" is an extraordinary example of how a writer can use various literary techniques to lead the reader to a better understanding of the story's young protagonist Paul Hasleman's character. Instead of just merely telling a story about the twelve year old boy's descent into madness, Aiken allows the reader to follow the stages of Paul's downward spiral from sanity, to occasional …showed first 75 words of 800 total…

…showed last 75 words of 800 total…provisional truths (Long, "Modernism" 1). These new radical themes are clearly apparent in Aiken's short stories. Aiken's portrayal of Paul is written using the typically modernistic technique of stream of consciousness writing that traced the non-linear thought processes and focused on the unconscious mind as a major source of motivation (Long, "Modernism" 1). Modernists felt that the "alienation" aspect of the movement accurately reflected the world and that human consciousness was becoming progressively detached from its origins.