Compare and contrast the presentation of the supernatural in three 19th centaury short stories

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Decland Ellwood

Compare and contrast the presentation of the supernatural in three 19th centaury short stories: ‘napoleon and the spectre’ by charlotte Bronte, ‘an arrest’ by Ambrose Bierce & ‘the adventure of the speckled band’ by author Conan Doyle

In this essay I am going to compare and contrast the presentation of the super natural in the 19th centaury short stories witch are ‘napoleon and the spectre’ by charlotte Bronte, ‘an arrest’ by Ambrose Bierce & ‘the adventure of the speckled band’ by author Conan Doyle all of these were written in the 19th centaury Victorian times they were fascinated by the supernatural, murder and anything that was unexplainable

these were dark time witch is probably why they were obsessed by these things.

In ‘napoleon and the spectre’ the writer builds up a very tense and scary atmosphere because it says things like “…a deep groan burst…” and “deep hollow voice…” hollow make the voice sound quite cold and evil all of these thing give the story a lot of tension and in Victorian time they would have been reading this at night by candle light in almost the same setting this would have terrified them even more than usual because they would thing this could happen to me as they had a very strong belief in the supernatural. The supernatural is built up by the negative and scary language like noises from no were but afterwards there is always a valid explanation to what has happened like the noises from the closet was the cloak falling down but when the mysterious figure came up to napoleon it doesn’t tell you right till the end that he was sleep walking and dreaming some of the negative language she uses also brings out the supernatural like it being cold “he stood there shivering” and it also describes abnormal things happening like “the solid wall of the apartment fell open”.

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Napoleons reactions in ‘napoleon and the spectre’ would scare a 19th centaury audience this a leader a strong man and he just doesn’t even put up a fight when the ghost asks him to go with him and this would make them think well if this could happen to someone that powerful then what could this ghost do to me also the setting in which they would have been reading it would scare them too as they would probably been reading it in the same setting as in the story. The twist in napoleon and the spectre gives the reader ...

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