How Does Roald Dahl Create A Scary Story

The author uses foreshadowing to create suspense. Dahl carefully places foreshadowing throughout the rising action to cause the reader anxiety about what will happen next, such

Fear is among one of the most universal human emotions that everyone is interconnected at one point or another during their lifetime. In the gothic stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “House Taken Over” written by Edgar Allan Poe and Julio Cortazar respectively. Edgar Allen Poe writes about how the character Mr. Usher, who because of his mental illness and delusions, cannot come to terms with his reality. Cortazar writes about the relationship between a brother and sister who have normal everyday lives and have strange and odd nightmare that haunts them. The

Well, Roald Dahl uses trickery in his stories, so the sweet old lady isn't so sweet after all. “I stuff all my dead pets when they pass away”. The landlady is a taxidermist. Next , Mary Maloney in “Lamb to the Slaughter”, she's a lovely caring wife to her husband, “but darling you must eat, I will fix supper for you anyway. Yet Roald Dahl uses trickery so… “So, I've killed him”.

Horror is the genre that keeps the reader on their toes for nights upon end. It keeps them thinking. Thinking about how cruel and disturbing someone, or something, could possibly be. Thinking about what in the world happens to a character after the story drops off in a cliffhanger. Thinking about the probability that the events in the narrative could transpire in real life. Thinking about how likely it is for those things to happen to the reader. Refusing to look out their window in fear of seeing the glimpse of a murderous face, and listening to every sound with acute accuracy, praying that the noise is not one of a stranger creeping up the stairs. Scary accounts make the reader live in fear whenever the

Conclusion: Roald Dahl uses his characters to portray his personal views that troubles in life can be solved by rationalizing the situation before making a decision, that you should appreciate what you have, and that ultimately that everyone is a lamb, all with the power to break free of their

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.

One of the spookiest experiences in Harley’s life was on a cold, dark Halloween night when Harley and her friends, Lauryn and Heidi, got chased by a clown for 3 blocks on a gloomy narrow road. This scenario relates to traits  of Gothic Literature and Magical Realism because, that experience was in a dark setting and contained weird incidents and a disturbing plot. Those two genres are similar because they both usually have unrealistic characters and scary plots. However, in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” is an example of Gothic Literature because, the story’s setting is in an isolated, creepy, and large house with odd characters and a frightening plot line, while Julio Cortazar’s “House Taken Over” is an example of  Magical Realism because the realistic characters are accepting the unimpressed narrative tone in an ordinary way of life. Gothic Literature is a style of writing that is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom. Settings are usually in a isolated and haunted location in a big house or castle with trap doors, dark rooms, and secret passages. Characters are usually supernatural beings or monsters.

Throughout history, various works of literature compelled the readers to feel a specific way. The authors used different techniques to illustrate emotions toward their audience. Specifically, Edgar Allan Poe, author of The Fall of the House of Usher, uses literary elements, such as imagery, characterization and word choice, to portray the build up the sense of horror.

Through the novel Billy visits the planet Tralfamadore. He learns to live the way they live and think. They use the phrase whenever they see a corpse. In the novel they state “…all he thinks is the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment,

people are not what they appear to be. Dahl's works for children are usually told from the

            As mentioned before, the seduction of the stories of the Monster and Frankenstein aim at binding the listener to a promise. The theme of promising is also reflected in two contrasting episodes of the novel, the one about the Russian

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines fear as “an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger”. Despite this feeling being extremely unpleasant for most, both authors and readers alike love the feeling that fear can give a person. Authors, especially those of different types of Gothic literature, particularly enjoy using transformation in their work to provoke feelings of fear in their readers. It helps them to draw readers in and keep them invested in their reading. Two examples of pieces of literature that use transformation to scare are “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Where is Here?” by Joyce Carol Oates. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is about a man who goes to visit his

Horror Stories are a very popular genre of books. Some can be exceptionally malicious and gruesome in nature while others are tamer and rely on suspense. People tend to read these stories for the adrenaline rush, to explore the unknown, and to conquer their own adversities. Studies show that us as humans like to experience fear. We read and view scary stories so we can experience artificial situations of “fight or flight.” These scenarios, whether real or imagined, get your body ready for action by giving you an extra dose of adrenaline. The thrill and suspense that hangs over us while reading, is a welcomed feeling. Scary stories also allow us to explore the unknown. In books there are boundless supernatural realms, where wonder and horror walk side by side- realms were people rise from the dead, and fight their own

The concept of the Uncanny is the idea of something that can be both familiar and fearful. Namely, it is a subject, situation or object that creates a sense of discomfort but yet it is familiar to the person who is exposed to it (http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf). In the beginning of Dahl’s short story before the protagonist decided to go to the boarding house he just approached it to take a look and his description of the place shows that he likes it ‘…The chrysanthemums looked wonderful…a bright fire burning in the hearth…a pretty little dachshund’ (story 63-68). In contrast to that it is a part that he described his feelings about this kind of houses and he expresses negative feelings ‘He had never stayed in any boarding –houses, and, to be perfectly honest, he was a tiny but frightened of them… watery cabbage, rapacious landladies and a powerful smell of kippers in the living room ’ (Story, 86-91). Later in the story is presented in practice what Freud was presenting in theory, the uncanny feeling which can be described as this ‘sense of helplessness’ that the person might feel in a dream (freud1.pdf, 10). The part that shows us this feeling is when the protagonist decided to go to ‘The Bell and Dragon’ but he was not able to move away from the place that he was standing ‘He was in the act of stepping back and turning away from the window when all at once his eye

In Gothic Literature, writers are able to choose between traditional and contemporary. This style of writing typically relates back to fiction that gives an atmosphere of uncertainty by featuring horror, death, curses or the supernatural. In “The Signalman” written by Charles Dickens, we can depict that his writing falls under the category of traditional gothic literature as he chooses to stress the fear of the unknown- whether it be the setting or the supernatural. On the contrary, Roald Dahl who wrote “Lamb to the Slaughter” chooses to write under the category of contemporary gothic literature, as we are introduced to a familiar setting, and common issues that arise when we face reality. Nevertheless, both stories choose to emphasize the