‘The Old Nurses Story’ is less effective than the expectation of what a great ghost story.
Hester and Rosamand are the main characters. These are the characters which we know most about. The living characters are described fairly well, like Hester. We know that she is a loving person who cares a great deal about Miss Rosamand. The way she reacts to events shows the reader what kind of character they are. The story does use a lot of words to show the readers what kind of characters they are ‘stern proud’ telling readers what kind of expectation and what kind of man lord furniwall was. This makes the story more effective as it explains characters in great deal and shows an insight to the characters. We learn what fears the characters and I think this makes an effective story but the part that brings the effecting down is that they go into too much detail.
‘The Old Nurses Story’ has some major settings. The story is set in a creepy old manor around winter. The settings are good for a ghost story because its old and it creates lots of atmosphere. The manor is very dark and gloomy and vast inside.
“It was so desolate “(18)
This makes an effecting on what a good ghost story because it has good settings. The place is old and creepy and it’s very dark so people would find places like this scary and it’s set in the winter which makes the place cold and chilly. These kinds of settings make the mood an eerie kind of place dark and creepy.
‘The Old Nurses Story’ develops slow and has a slow build up. The plot of the story is, two sisters fall in love with the same man; a musician, Maude wins against grace for the love of the musician and Maude has a child with the musician. She keeps the child away from her father as she knew if he found out he would go mad and would chuck her out. Lord Furniwall was a very proud cruel, difficult man who loved music. He does not want her daughter Maude to marry a common musician. Soon afterwards the musician abandons Maude and his daughter. We learn that when Maude was alive she efficiently abandons her daughter as she is ashamed of having her out of wedlock.
The lord is ashamed of Maude and rejects his granddaughter when Maude goes to see him. Then the next day the child and Maude are found frozen to death on the fells. So soon later they become as ghost, come back for revenge and grace feels partly responsible for the death of her Sister Maude for and the little girl.
This makes the story really effective because there’s background to why the ghosts are here and what they want. It’s written very well but it has taken very long to an understanding the story like this as the build is very slow and goes into every tiny detail.
In ‘The Old Nurses Story’ the development was very slow and was building slowly but has a very powerful ending. The story is well written but goes into too much detail and reader learns as the characters have learned. Near the last line of Tons grace has been death stricken feeling guilty as she is muttering about youth past which cannot be undone. “Alas! Alas!”
The Old Nurses Story is slow than a story now days and people today would find it boring as it goes into too much detail. The stories developing for a ghost story is quite surprising, as most stories now days don’t go into great detail and goes into the plot slowly. The parts where the ghosts come in, it goes into too much detail. The story goes into history to tie up all the weird things that was happening and this develops very slowly as well. They go into ‘the attic’ where the old photos are and the past is known.
I don’t this makes the story effective because it develops very slow and it goes into too much detail about characters manor etc. if people started to read it I think they would find it quite boring as there’s too much detail; as it does not go into the plot quickly and we are still learning about the manor.
The languages in the old nurse’s story are not common and are not used now. The words are very old fashioned compared to ‘The Call.’ Tons use words like ‘hither’ and ‘thither’. The tons has a very slow reaction and has the suspense building up very slow whereas a good ghost now won’t have old fashioned words and will build up a great deal faster. ‘The old Nurses Story’ uses old fashioned words and builds up very slowly is to the fact that it was written by a great writer at an different time; which could have been very terrifying but time has changed and people today wont find this great. This don’t make the story effective as it has old use of language whereas the Call has words that we can understand more easily, so I think the language of is old and mostly people around the when it was written would really understand, and language has changed through out time and the call has more efficient language.
The ending of ‘The Old Nurses Story’ was pretty dramatic. Hester had found that she was a girl who had been sent out to freeze to death in the freezing cold by lord Furniwall. Miss Grace Furniwall felt guilty for what had happened; she saw her father as a ghost, in a vision and she cried out and went to sleep moaning about what happened to her when she was in her youth cannot be undone in when future. “What is done in youth can never be undone in age!” this makes the ending very effective and has an excellent finish to what has been a very slow build up. All of her guilt about the past explains the atmosphere at Furniwall manor. All loose ends in the story all come together at the end. This makes it an effective ending.
The main characters are Harry, Meg, the caller Agnes Todd and Geoff. Harry is the character that is mostly spoken of through out the story. Harry was the founding member in 1963. It is set in the Samaritans office where
Harry answers calls to people who wants to speak to someone. No one knows except Harry about the caller who has been phoning every year at Christmas Eve saying that her husband is trying to eradicate her. Harry is established as a kind and caring person, so when we eventually find out what we did, it is a shock. I think this makes the story effective because we were thinking something else and we didn’t really think that Harry knew all along and this shock for the readers and the character makes the story very effective.
The settings of ‘The Call’ are in a small Samaritans office where all the calls take place. It’s near winter and nearer to Christmas and out by the river Ousam. They respond to the call when the caller says someone’s trying to kill her and they don’t know she’s a ghost, who could be back for revenge. The reader is put in a position where they have to solve the mystery. This makes it an effective story as the characters do not know that she is a ghost and they still haven’t learned that she could be out on revenge and they could be her targets and the readers have been put in a position to solve a mystery.
The plot of this story is where a call comes into the Samaritans office where Harry isn’t there and Meg and Geoff cover for Harry; as Harry has cracked his head. They got a phone call and Meg answers and she heard a lads saying that her husband is trying to kill her and she’s at the bridge. Meg got petrified and told Geoff to check it out and the story carries until they discover that the caller was a ghost who has been phoning every Christmas Eve. We later find out that Harry has been talking to her for the last 20 years and is ringing up on Christmas eve to tell the same story again but this time Harry isn’t there and meg and Geoff didn’t knew about this caller that Harry has been hiding all this time. This makes an effective story as we find out a secret that has been kept for twenty years and has finally came out.
The development of ‘The Call’ is very rapid. So the story begins to develop quickly as events hastily takes place. This is what we would expect from a good ghost story. This makes it effective to the swiftness of the events unlike ‘The Old Nurses Story’.
The language in ‘The Call’ is very modern unlike ‘The Old Nurses Story’. ‘The Call’ uses a lot of typical ghost story language. For example words like ‘horrified’, ‘cold’, and ‘dull’ all add to the atmosphere we would expect. ‘The Call’ makes use of short, sharp dialogues and the sentences are not that descriptive except for some parts of the story, where it is more appropriate. This makes the story effective as there are words we are able to easily understand and mostly there are not that many parts that it goes into too much detail and the parts where it goes into more detail are the parts that are appropriate for the story.
In ‘the call’ the story ends by the reader finding out who this caller was. In this story the person has been phoning for the last 20 years and Harry was there to answer all of them. Harry dies and takes Agnes Todd with him and think that’ll be the last they ever hear from them again. This is effective because it’s the types of endings you will see in a ghost ending.
All of these elements language, characters, plot, development and settings and story endings all determine how effective a ghost story is. In my opinion ‘The Call’ is a more effective ghost story than ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’. As it was written in 1989 the language is modern, simple and precise. This, I think, is more appropriate for a ghost story than the over descriptive prose of ‘The Old Nurses Story’! I also find the twist in the end of the tale typical of the genre. Whereas the ending of ‘The Old Nurses Story’ is farley predictable, it was a complete surprise to discover the extent of Harry’s involvement in Agnes Todd’s murder.
