In my opinion the main idea of this story is to tell the reader that sometimes when we think something is scary, it really isn"t that bad at all. We learned this from little Jackie as he was horrified to confess to the priest but after he got talking the nervousness seemed to disappear. As a reader when I read over Jackie confessing to the priest I realize that however awful the truth is you must always tell it. Jackie wasn't afraid to tell the priest the whole truth, when other children his age may have lied about it.

This short story has many literary devices. Frank O' Connor uses a lot of irony and humour when Jackie is talking to the priest. We see this when Jackie tells the priest of his plot and the he just goes right along with him. “And what would you do with the body Jackie?” Another element of a short story here is setting and atmosphere. As Jackie enters into the confession booth the author creates a mysterious setting. Only to be interrupted by Jackie trying to climb up to see the hole. “Of course it was on the high side and not very deep, but I was good at climbing and managed to get up alright.” The last element of a short story that I found stood out was conflict. Jackie and Nora were constantly fighting which added to the confession of Jackie in the end, saying that he almost killed his sister once too. “ There you are! She said with a yelp of triumph, hurling me through the church door. And I hope he'll give you the penitential psalms you dirty little caffler.”

In my opinion I really enjoyed reading about Jackie and his amusing first confession. I think that this story really taught me some things. I learned that if little Jackie can stand up to his fears, then so can I. No matter how awful the truth is you must always honour it and tell it. I really liked the way Frank O' Connor developed his characters and his use of literary devices like conflict and atmosphere really helped to make this story amusing.