How Do Pre 1914 Writers Create Mystery And Suspense Essay

One feature that created suspense in the story was time. In the “Tell-Tale Heart”, time often seemed to speed up or slow down. One example of time movely slowly in the passage is: “I moved slowly-- very, very slowly, so I might not disturb the old man’s sleep”. You almost sense the deliberate movements of narrator. In contrast, the phrase: “The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence”, shows that time is advancing quickly; you could almost see the moon vanishing and the narrator’s quick movements. These “time warps” adds suspense, anticipation, and a growing sense of horror to the story and encourages the reader to continue reading.

Suspense is a detail that many horror writer use to catch the attention of many readers and keep them holding on till the end. Just as W.F. Harvey does when creating suspense in his story August Heat. Mr. Harvey used three methods to create his suspense for his story, foreshadowing, withholding information, and reversal. With these three methods he is able to make the reader feel like, “ We may even hold our breath without realizing it as we read on eagerly to find out how the story ends”(Source 1).

Writers can use many tricks to make a story seem more interesting to the reader. From the words they pick to the setting to the time of the day... the possibilities are endless. In the story "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe, the use of light and darkness, the description of the mans eye and the time frame make the story more scary than anything else. Poe also uses suspense at the end to make the readers heart beat faster.

Now Edgar Allan Poe was great at building suspense throughout the stories by having you to make assumptions and guess what he he talking about. For instance, in the beginning of “The Cask of

What makes a good feeling of suspense in a story? In many stories, it is the use of dialogue or description, and stories like The Hitchhiker by Lucille Fletcher and The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury are no exception. In The Hitchhiker a man is traveling cross country when a strange man keeps appearing, asking for a ride, while in The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury is about a man who walks every night in the world of 2053, but The Hitchhiker by Lucille Fletcher is overall more suspenseful than The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury because of Fletcher´s use of description, dialogue and imagery. The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury uses dialogue as a technique to create the feeling of suspense.

The Red Room is shown to be set in an old castle. The ‘Red Room’ is at a far end of the castle: “…along the passage for a bit… until you come to a door… through that is a spiral staircase… half way up… is a landing and another door covered with baize. Go through… and down the long corridor to the end… the red room is on your left up the steps." This shows the depth of which one has to venture into the castle to find the ‘Red Room’ likewise this sensation of isolation appears.

Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock both use suspense and fear in their pieces of work. The audience can see the way Edgar Allan Poe uses suspense in his pieces, “The Raven” and in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and how Alfred Hitchcock uses similar techniques in his piece, Rear Window. These three pieces of work show how Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock are able to use and set up different aspects to create suspense and fear throughout their stories. In both Hitchcock’s and Poe’s pieces one can see the aspects that they use to create suspense are very similar. Both Hitchcock and Poe use a single character’s point of view, detailed settings, and isolation to create this sense of suspense throughout the story.

There was something unnatural, uncanny, in meeting this man” (Source B). The author Ms Harrell: ? foreshadows the main character and the reader is given an idea of what's going to happen to the main character. A third way that is used to create suspense is A frightening effect.

Suspense is a literary device that creates a feeling of growing tension and excitement in a reader; an author creates suspense to entice the reader into their story. For instance, in A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens creates suspense by using foreshadowing into the main character’s, Ebenezer Scrooge, future and imagery of the ghosts who guided Scrooge. Similarly, in “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, W. W. Jacobs and Edgar Allan Poe, respectively, create suspense in their gothic fiction short stories. Jacobs and Poe develop suspense by adding unstable characters to their stories.

In “The Landlady”, Dahl uses foreshadowing when he introduces the two characters, Christopher Mulholland and Gregory Temple, when he writes, “Gregory Temple…Christopher Mulholland. It rings a bell.” This example illustrates there will be more information on the two characters and that they are more important than they are thought to be. When the Landlady says “‘I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away.’” it foreshadows and lets the reader infer what she might have done to Mr. Mulholland and Mr. Temple, and what she might do to Billy, creating suspense. In “A Tell-Tale Heart”, Poe similarly uses foreshadowing to build suspense for the reader. The quote “Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded, with what caution.” as stated in the beginning of the story, foreshadows the idea that the reader will later on have a reason to believe the narrator is crazy, so he denies it towards the beginning. As the narrator is about to kill the old man, he hears a noise, “But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst,” which is what finally motivates him to kill the old man, not the “Evil Eye” he complained about. This event foreshadows that the sound the narrator heard is of more importance that it was perceived to be, as it irritates the narrator more than the eye

Three elements which work together to create a good gothic story are suspense, terror, and effectiveness. However, it is questionable whether or not all three factors would have to be present in order to create a decent story. In the story “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll come to you, My Lad,” all of these factors contribute to the making and quality of the story. However, not all of these factors contribute in the same ways. In the story “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll come to you, My Lad,” suspense did not play a huge role, it was slightly terrifying, still yet it was very effective.

Suspense is one of the most important elements in a scary story or movie, and without it, there it wouldn’t be scary. In the story “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe, he creates a very suspenseful mood to entice readers into continuing to read the story. In the story, “The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W Jacobs, he also creates a suspenseful mood to make readers interested and read until the end of the story. The authors of these stories, Edgar Allen Poe and W. W. Jacobs, also use other techniques like setting details, imagery, and a character’s feelings and dialogue. Even though both authors use these techniques, there are some differences and even some similarities between their usage of them.

My impression of the narrator is that it is a man, a gentleman of the

There are only two characters that really are prominent in the short story. In fact in the story, there are only about three to five characters. The important characters are the signalman and the narrator. Charles Dickens uses dialogue to make the characters more appealing and easier to understand. He has written exactly what was need to understand the story, nothing

These stories draw up on his experiences enabling him to write ‘Wessex Tales’. Among many pieces of work is ‘The Withered Arm’. ‘The Withered Arm’ is a well-crafted short story written in the prose format. The quote above portrays what pre-twentieth century literature should embrace; good literature should be insightable, realistic and significant to all people from any era.