Compare and contrast how the writers develop interest and suspense in the following short stories: the signal man by Charles Dickens and the three strangers by Thomas Hardy.
Compare and contrast how the writers develop interest and suspense in the following short stories: ‘the signal man’ by Charles dickens and ‘the three strangers’ by Tomas hardy.The first thing that would have been the main difference between the two short stories, one from Charles Dickens and the other from Tomas Hardy is that Hardy has wrote the Longest one, this difference is important because it shows a point that hardy takes longer to explain what his story is about and likes to use length in a way to build up more tension.Hardy, though out his story, gives us a lot of detail, he uses this to build up tension when he starts off his story he describes how this part of agricultural England has been little modified by the lapse of centuries, then his next paragraph he comes down to fifty years ago and the lonely cottage, and how by itself stands alone only a couple miles away from a “country town “. But yet that did not stop leaving the feeling of loneliness, because of that fives miles of irregular upland and the weather that night, it seemed they were isolated and very much by themselves, detached and undefended. The as Hardy progresses into his story it comes down to the night that he had based his story on. That night where everything seemed bleak, the rain poured down around them and how the wind battered at the sides of this lonesome cottage belonging to the shepherd, his wife and his two children, but then again hardy focuses in that bit more, as he says “yet never was commiseration for the shepherd move misplaced”, especially on a night like this, for he was having a christening party for his second baby girl. All the way threw Hardy paints a picture of a negative
image, they were meant to be sad, out in this lonesome place, deprived of all and to be miserable, so the reader is expecting to be one of those nights that people thought it would be horrible to live up there, but in actual fact he was merry as there was “cheerful music” and had a large number of guests. So for Hardy he uses a lot of detail and a grasdual effect to build up his tensionWhen Dickens comes to start his story he jumps right in, this is different to Hardys story as he likes to take his ...
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image, they were meant to be sad, out in this lonesome place, deprived of all and to be miserable, so the reader is expecting to be one of those nights that people thought it would be horrible to live up there, but in actual fact he was merry as there was “cheerful music” and had a large number of guests. So for Hardy he uses a lot of detail and a grasdual effect to build up his tensionWhen Dickens comes to start his story he jumps right in, this is different to Hardys story as he likes to take his time to build up his suspense, but when Dickens starts his story, he is straight in with the lines used thought out “halloa! Below there!” the question that automatically comes to mind is, who is he calling out to? Who is the man calling out? Where are we? The author wants you to read on. This opening is a dramatic one, and one which grabs the readers from the start. He creates threat by saying things like, “I stood at the top of a steep cutting”, looking down upon the “deep trench”, and the “angry sunset” which steeped the soundings, all of these phrases remind us of hell almost. He describes where he is, and it sounds very UN inviting and treating, it doesn’t sound nice, we wonder where he is. This builds up our curiosity. Another thing strangeness is used as well, such as when the man who he had called down to, looked away from him, he would not of expected this and we wonder, it says “instead of looking up to where I stood…, He turned himself about, and looked down the line”, also when he calls out to this man, he does not shout back or say a word he just stands there and looks about, odd behaviour. It also starts to build up even more tension by description, the man who had shouted down got an odd feeling as he did so, it then says there was a “vague sensation” with a “violent pulsation”, there was an “on coming rush”, which made him step back from the edge of the steep cutting which he was standing on because he felt as though it was dragging him down, this is a build up of tension. But the fear is soon lost when he finds out it was only a train. So dickens builds up tension with short, description, he likes to keep the reader hanging on until the last minute, which adds more tension. Even when the railway man does give in and tell him it’s ok to come down by the showing of his hand, to where the zigzag path leading down to him was, and yet the man still finds“reluctance” in the air, he doesn’t seem to want to show him down, his behaviour isn’t quite normal, and it again suggests something out of the ordinary. So overall, Hardy uses detail and likes to gradually bring it in to the point and usually has a twist at the end, like in his story he had negative points the whole way threw and misery, then it comes to when he describes the people, but everyone is happy, this is his way of giving an unexpected twist.,Something that we the readers would not expect. This is a good way to keep up suspense, but as for dickens, he goes straight in, short brief detailed description to keep us interested. Builds up a lot of tension that way he usually waits like Hardy until the end to give into what he needs or means to say, they are different beginners, but end the same. Even though the two short stories have different ways of building up tension they both get the reader to feel it.For the setting of the both stories, both are important. For the signal man, it’s important that it brings about the feeling of being claustrophobic, and the atmosphere to feels eyrie, he is trying to get the notion that there’s a feeling of something else there, the effect of the supernatural, and the whole point of the story is that something “ghost” like is trying to tell him something, to add to the fact the he likes to keep it scary, unkind, he says stuff like, it was a “dismal place”, the “dripping- wet wall of jagged stone”, “gloomy, he says how “barbarous”, and “depressing” it was, and how the “forbidding air” was making him feel uneasy about it all, these all give a real sense of darkness, how it suggests something very unpleasant, and how the elements of horror where very unpleasant too. For the three strangers, the setting is expansive, open, a lonesome place; this is the difference between the two short stories. Another difference between the two stories is the number of characters used. Hardy’s story uses many characters, he has it like this because they are used to create atmosphere, he also uses them to fill in the back ground information that the reader wouldn’t have picked up on upon otherwise. This is to make it move convincing. He also uses allot of in direct speech, hardy describes all of the guests, you even get a touch of personality, at points threw out the story. “On the earth, . . Blazed a fire of throngs, which crackled, ‘like a laughter of a fool”. So much detail makes the story credible like giving names of people at the party; how the wife had everything planned; these all make u believe that this has actually happened, and gives it more drama because when you believe it’s real it makes the whole story more exciting to read. The signal man how ever does not do it in this kind of way, he uses two characters including the “ghost”, to make his story come to life, he uses these characters in a lot of direct and indirect speech, but even then their comments are short , unexplained sometimes, this is an odd behaviour. His descriptive sentences are short as well, with unexplained details such as, “attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear”, “...attitude... One of such expectation...” these comments make you wonder and at the same point confused because u don’t know what he means at the start of the story, again it is another gripping effect on you.Something that divided the two stories from the start is comedy. In the signal man none what so ever had been used at any point, unlike Hardy’s story the three strangers, he had used it to break the tension when it had seemed a highly reasonable time, He used it for example when the police man and some of the party guest where running for who they thought was the man who had escaped out of jail, when they had caught up with them he said “your money or your life”, this humour is thrown in to the story, the reader would find it funny because it was not meant to be the “good side” saying this, so yes it brings fun to the story, un like Dickens story. Near the end of the two stories, Every thing is explained to the reader, in Hardys story, he tells the end by the conversation between his characters, Threw out his story they have all been used to move the story on and grip you though out, and he uses them at the end to finally tell u what had happened. But we are only to find out that, once hardy goes back over everything as though he was telling u the story again but in more detail that this thing he was telling us is that it happened many years ago, and the only thing left out of that story and what happened that night is the story it’s self. For the Signal man however, Thought out the story it had started out weird abrupt, and how everything seemed so dismal, upsetting and sometimes chilling, for this is how it ended too, cause the signal mans death had came so quickly and unexpected. But he also used his character to explain what had happened in the end and it all came about. So just as the story started, it ended the same. Cara-Jade Catterson