Compare how James Watson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Create Fear and Tension in Talking in Whispers and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”

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Jordan Clement                          GCSE English Coursework                           4/27/2007

Compare how James Watson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Create Fear and Tension in Talking in Whispers and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”

In the novel Talking in Whispers and the short story “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” both Watson and Doyle use fear and tension within their stories to get the attention of the reader. Both authors create fear and tension but they create it in different ways and they use different writing techniques to create fear and tension one reason for this could be that the stories were written at different periods of time. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was written towards the end of the 19th century and is set in Victorian England, whereas Talking in Whispers by James Watson was written towards the end of the 20th century and is set in Chile. Both Stories however contain elements of fear and tension. In the course of my essay I shall examine the different ways that both authors use fear and tension to their advantage.

James Watson creates fear and tension in the novel Talking in Whispers by using many different writing techniques. These techniques are very effective in creating fear and tension. Watson uses techniques such as juxtapositioning, identifying the reader with the characters, chapter endings, direct speech and inter-chapters. These all, when used correctly create fear and tension.

The fear and tension created by James Watson when he uses juxtapositioning is very effective as it gives you one scene and in the next paragraph you get a total contrast of it. This surprises the reader, which builds up suspense and a feel of uncertainty. An example of juxtapositioning from Watson’s novel would be.

“The crowd thundered its joy.

  From tomorrow all will be different.

Andres knew for certain his friend Horacio was dead”

From this example you can see that ‘the crowd thunders with joy’ is a scene of hope, promise and joy but then immediately afterwards you get a scene of violence, horror and despair ‘Andres knew for certain his friend Horacio was dead’. This all helps to build up tension and fear.

Watson makes you feel sorry and sad and angry for characters if anything happens to them. Watson does this by identifying the reader with Andres. What Watson does is he lets you into Andres’ mind he lets you see his feelings he lets you feel his pain he lets you know his sorrow. An example of this technique would be near to the end of page 12.

Jordan Clement                          GCSE English Coursework                           4/27/2007    

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“I should have let myself be taken there’s no honour in this, skulking in brambles with only a scratch to show for my bravery.”

From this example you can see Watson lets you know what Andres is feeling and thinking. From the sentence ‘I should have let myself be taken’ we know that Andres is not a coward and will not back down to the CNI (Chile’s secret police) we also know from this that Andres is going to try to avenge his family and friends. This starts to build up the fear and tension within ...

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