Analysing 4 Short Horror Story Openings.

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Amy Bramley

Analysing 4 Short Horror Story Openings

   In this piece of coursework, I am going to analyse 4 Horror Story openings. The first is ‘The Signalman’ by Charles Dickens. It tells the story of a man who comes across a seemingly normal railway cutting with a mysterious story to tell. The second is ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allen Poe. The main character, who is seemingly mad, has a grudge against an old man because of his ‘vulture eye’ and this drives him to take drastic action. For the third story, there is ‘The Landlady’ by Roald Dahl in which the main character is taken victim by a seemingly harmless Landlady of a small guesthouse. Lastly, there is ‘All But Empty’ by Graham Greene. In this story the writer finds a man in a cinema with a puzzling and inexplicable tale.

The settings for all of the stories openings have something in common to link them together.

   ‘The Signalman’ uses very atmospheric words to describe the cutting, its surroundings and the time of day.

   The actual cutting is described as “extremely deep and unusually precipitate”. These words give the reader the feeling that the cutting is forbidding and uninviting to the narrator/writer.

   The time of day that the opening is set is mid-evening, just as the sun is setting. This also has its part to play in the mood of the opening. The writer describes the cutting “steeped in the glow of an angry sunset”. The word “angry” brings up the colour red which is associated with danger.

   When the writer is making his way down to the cutting he gives vivid descriptions like “clammy stone”, “zigzag path” and “oozier and wetter”. These words as well as adding to the feeling of unwelcomeness, paint a picture of wetness and cold.

   Upon reaching the cutting, he describes the tunnel. He uses word like “gloomier” and “massive architecture”. Its greatness is made to make the writer feel small and insignificant.

   He also describes the tunnel by saying, “there was a barbarous, depressing and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy deadly smell; so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world”. Again the word “forbidding” shows the unwelcome feeling.

   The cutting is described as a “Great Dungeon” with a “dripping wet wall of jagged stone excluding all view but a strip of sky”. This shows that the cutting is secluded from all view. This adds to the effect that the cutting is a dark place, which has secrets to hide from the outside world.

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The first setting that is portrayed in ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ is when the writer is planning the murder of the old man and his vulture eye.

   The beginning is set at midnight, which is thought of as dark and quiet which makes it mysterious and secretive.

    The old mans room is described as being “black as pitch with the thick darkness”. It also says that the shutters were shut through fear of robbers. This shows that the old man is afraid. The darkness gives a feeling of seclusion. The ‘Tell-Tale Heart links with ...

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