Both 'The Monkey's Paw' by W.W. Jacobs and 'The Black Veil' by Charles Dickens create a sense of mystery, suspense and foreboding. How do the authors achieve this and how effective are they?

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Louise Collins

Both ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ by W.W. Jacobs and ‘The Black Veil’ by Charles Dickens create a sense of mystery, suspense and foreboding. How do the authors achieve this and how effective are they?

Charles Dickens was one of the most popular writers in the history of literature. He is most famous for his enormous collection of short stories, which contains ‘The Black Veil’, this was a reflection of his childhood and his observations of the world around him. W.W. Jacobs is a lesser-known author; he had a fascination with sinister and horrific themes, like many filmmakers today. His most famous short story is ‘The Monkey’s Paw’. Both author’s stories were written pre-19th Century. The atmosphere, when the stories were being read, was made more mysterious and frightening because the century they were living in held public hangings. Death surrounded them everyday; this made the stories seem more real.

        Both stories begin by setting the scene; they produce contradiction between a threatening and cold world outside to a harmonious and warm inside, like a shell protecting those within. Hostile environments are displayed in both tales, ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ is set on a ‘cold and wet’ night in an isolated house, in the White family’s road, only two houses of which are occupied. The White family seems more vulnerable within their living room, where a ‘cosy’ fire is ‘burning brightly,' this conveys a warm and happy family in an isolated and depressing area. The setting of the doctor’s surgery in ‘The Black Veil’ is like that of the White’s house, outside the surgery is ‘wet and cold’ but is then contrasted by the security and warmth of ‘the little parlour’ with it’s ‘cheerful fire’. The weather outside is described in an onomatopoeic fashion, as the wind ‘rumbles’ in the chimney; it creates a vividly sinister sound. This could be an attempt by the author to show the outside threat to the domestic harmony within seem more real to those who read the story or listen to it.

        The introduction of a foreign element and the impact made by them; the arrival of both characters, in both stories creates a dramatic beginning. In ‘The Black Veil’ the arrival of the woman is startling due to both her appearance and manner. The way in which she is dark, like the outside, symbolically links a threatening image which has been created by the atmosphere outside. This is also shown by the impact she has on the people around her, for example, the boy’s eyes grew ‘large, round and extended’, the doctor himself shivers ands ‘turns with a fright’ as he sees the overcast, hidden and daunting figure ‘pressed against the door’. Dickens describes her as a ‘figure’, which could mean either human or ghostly. Her appearance is described as ghost-like because she ‘conceals’ herself in a ‘thick black veil’, like a ghost wearing a sheet. The way in which she stands ‘tall and erect’ gives an overpowering image and causes fear to the characters involved. The woman ‘stood perfectly motionless’ suggests she is cold and to an extent in human, the doctor believes her eyes were ‘fixed on him’. This suggests she is like a statue and in doing so gives no signs of emotion and life but instead silence and mourning, she is still.

        ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ creates a similar character, in the form of a distant traveller, Sergeant-Major Morris, he is associated with the strange and exotic. When Sergeant-Major Morris introduces himself, he does so in a formal manner by ‘shaking hands,’ this may be because he is of a high status or just because he is secretive. We are later on informed of his ‘wild scenes and doughty deeds; of wars and plagues and strange peoples,’ this causes a curious and enigmatic response from the reader. Although the author doesn’t tell of these stories, our imaginations make his adventures more outrageous and spectacular.

        The actions of which both visitors display continue to intensify the tension in both stories. The woman in ‘The Black Veil’ begins to use an ambiguous dialogue towards the doctor; she describes a serious problem but fails to do this in a direct way. She uses small phrases, which give away little information, for example, ‘I am’. The doctor replies with few words in return, as yet he doesn’t get a chance to talk whilst the woman rambles on. Both the woman’s dialogue and her dramatic manner coincide together to give the effect she is becoming increasingly hysterical. The doctor tries to calm the woman but discovers that with every word he speaks, she only becomes more aggravated and baffling, the effects of her incomprehensible speech can be seen by the actions of the doctor. He takes many ‘short pauses’ between interrogating to try and contemplate what she is saying whilst she ‘bursts into tears’. The woman continues to disturb and confuse the doctor by stating these ‘is no way in which’ he can help her, she warns of a man’s demise but tells the doctor nothing. This heightens the cryptic issues within the story. When she leaves, the atmosphere in the surgery is left ‘cold and bitter’. Dickens describes this atmosphere by telling the reader the ‘considerable impression’ left on the ‘young surgeon’s face’ when she exits in ‘the same mysterious in which she had entered’.

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        Sergeant-Major Morris begins to arouse both the White family and the reader’s curiosity over the Monkey’s Paw by approaching the subject of it in an ambiguous way. When the family question him about the mysterious paw he claims ‘it is nothing worth hearing about’ and conceals what he doesn’t want told. He says this in ‘haste’ towards the family clearly showing his sincerity towards the paw. At this point the atmosphere changes from happy and jolly to secretive and suspicious. As he begins to tell the ‘magic’ of the paw the listeners’ attention is drawn towards him as they all ...

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