"How does Dickens' create mystery and suspense in his writing?"

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Simon Docking 10GN English Coursework

“How does Dickens’ create mystery and suspense in his writing?”

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812. Most of his books were written in the mid-eighteen hundreds and some of them include Great Expectations, Hard Times, and Little Dorrit. The three I will be referring to are Oliver Twist, The Signalman and A Christmas Carol. Back in Dickens’ time there was a lack of education, a huge wealth divide between the rich and the poor, and the environment was unpleasant compared to todays.

Dickens’ creates mystery and suspense in his books through techniques of writing language, the background, the characters, and the weather. Dickens often has moralistic themes to his books, in A Christmas Carol, Scrooge changed from being a horrible man who hated Christmas, into a nice, pleasant gentleman, who came to like Christmas.

One of Dickens’ main techniques is his use of language. He used elaborate descriptions, alliteration, repetition, listing and onomatopoeia. An example of his elaborate descriptive writing is shown in ‘A Christmas Carol’ – “A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner.” Another example of Dickens use of language is also in ‘A Christmas Carol’ –“The phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached.” This is an example of tripling, and the word ‘gravely’ again refers to death. This piece of writing certainly does create mystery and suspense. In the ‘Signalman,’ there are many examples of Dickens’ descriptive language, - “a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing, into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush.” Here Dickens uses many adjectives to create mystery and suspense. Another example is in ‘Oliver Twist,’ - “face so distorted and pale and eyes so red and bloodshot.” He also uses many adjectives here.

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There are many times in which you can see the characteristic language of the time in Oliver Twist, where Fagin is referred to as,  - “The Jew.” It is obvious to us that this book was written in the eighteen hundreds as now, it is politically incorrect, to call someone, “ a Jew.” In the ‘Signalman,’ Dickens uses another factor in which is known as “his” style – “That light was part of his change? Was it not?” He uses rhetorical questions like this to make the reader think Charles Dickens also uses alliteration a lot in most of ...

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