Things That Go Boom in the Night

Bam! Bang! Boom!

Onomatopoeia is one of my favorite words.  It rolls off the tongue and is delightfully impossible to spell, and once one knows what it means, chances are he or she will not forget it.  In elementary school, when we were first introduced to the concept of onomatopoeia, our teachers used examples from comics (“Kaboom!”) and nature (“Moo!”).  I always thought that it was a legitimate but slightly silly grammar point.  From what I’ve been able to find, many others associate onomatopoetic words with frivolity as well, such as in an online music quiz from mental_floss or a list of words that should be eliminated from the English language from Cracked.com.  To me, onomatopoeia is something that is used in lighthearted or frivolous pieces.


In “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster,” however, Jon Franklin uses onomatopoeia to grimly remind his audience of the steadiness yet frailty of life, as well as to add suspense.  Published in The Baltimore Sun in 1978, this piece follows in detail a complex and intense brain surgery that ultimately kills the patient.  The descriptive details guide readers through the surgery visually, putting a precise and almost tactile picture of a common yet foreign topic—neurosurgery—in our minds.  With sentences such as “The aneurysm finally appears at the end of the tunnel, throbbing, visibly thin, a lumpy, overstretched bag, the color of rich cream, swelling out from the once-strong arterial wall, a tire about to blow out, a balloon ready to burst, a time-bomb the size of a pea,” Franklin paints a perfectly intricate picture.

This imagery, though, is not the thread that keeps the readers going through the story.  Every so often, Franklin will mention this small detail: “The heartbeat goes pop, pop, pop, 70 beats a minute.”  Although it does not at first seem to be very important, this heartbeat is what later indicates an increase in danger, thus facilitating suspense.  It also, at times, stands in stark contrast to the frustration of the surgeons and the perilous situation at hand.  By juxtaposing the terror of the monstrous growth and the helplessness of the surgeons with the steady “pop, pop, pop” of the heartbeat, Franklin reminds us of the senselessness of Mrs. Kelly’s illness and death.  The suspense and helplessness are conveyed by one tiny word that perfectly describes the sound of a heartbeat—“pop.”  Upon reaching the end of the piece, my own heart popped a bit, perhaps out of disappointment, or maybe it was the release of suspense.

The numerous emotions depicted by one tiny onomatopoetic word in Jon Franklin’s “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster” have me convinced: onomatopoeia is not just for silliness.  Such words, from an excited roar to a hushed whisper, truly can create a whoosh of feelings that reach far beyond frivolity.