Fear is a common element in Charles G.D. Roberts' short stories. Fear is expressed through symbolism and through spatial patterning in "The Stone Dog," "In the Accident Ward," "The Barn on the Marsh," and "The Hill of Chastisement." The stories were generated largely from Roberts' dreams, which is apparently the genesis of the strongly suggested symbolic pattern. The symbolism is related to the spatial patterning, in which a balance is achieved, a synthesis of parts that is akin to poetry.
