Discuss how the authors create tension and discuss the devices used to mislead the reader in 'The Speckled Band' and 'The Monkey's Paw'
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Read ‘The Speckled Band’ by A. Conan. Doyle and ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ by W. W. Jacobs. Discuss how the authors create tension and discuss the devices Used to mislead the reader.
‘The Speckled Band’ by A. Conan. Doyle and ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ by W. W. Jacobs are two very different stories; ‘The Speckled Band’ follows the ‘murder mystery’ line whereas ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ is based more around horror genre. This means that they will create tension and mislead the reader in completely different ways. In this essay I am going to explore how the two authors do this, and compare their methods for doing so.
Arthur Conan Doyle creates tension in many ways. At the beginning of ‘The Speckled Band’, he creates tension by showing the effects of this dreadful crime on the characters. We are told Sherlock is usually a ‘late riser’, however, because of this new case, his routine was broken because at a quarter-past seven, Watson awakes to find Sherlock Holmes, fully dressed, standing by the side of his bed. Helen Stoner, the client who sought Holmes’ services as a detective, when speaking to Sherlock and Watson, was shivering, not from the cold as one would first assume, but from fear. The way she says “It is not cold which makes me shiver. It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror,” creates tension because she first says what does not make her shiver as if holding off telling them, and then, using short sentences, she repeats the two words, ‘it is’. These two events evoke tension because these events are directly linked to this one case which at this point, we still do not know about.
The location of this suspicious death, the austere house of Stake Moran which “was of grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high central portion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab.” Only three people live in this spooky house. It seems rather odd that in this grand manor house only three people live. Everyone can empathise with the fact that being alone in a large house is incredibly scary, so, you feel scared for these three people, and this then creates tension.
The mysterious Dr. Roylott, having spent a lot of time in India, lets a cheetah and a baboon roam the house. This strange assortment of animals creates tension as it seems strange that such a vicious animal (the cheetah) would be allowed to roam the house. And on top of this all the rooms are barred, “the windows were blocked by old-fashioned shutters with broad iron bars. The chimney is wide, but is barred up by four large staples. This creates tension and portrays the rooms as cells, trapping them. It is a sinister thought that these three people are trapped within this house which has a cheetah and a baboon roaming around.
Arthur Doyle creates tension by using scary and sinister adjectives, such as “a long drawn catlike whine” or “there darted what seemed to be a hideous and distorted child, who threw itself upon the grass with writhing limbs. On the night of Julia’s death, the weather was wild, “the wind was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the windows”. The adjectives used in this description of the weather creates the most horrific images and evokes tension because you can just imagine how scared they must be, locked up in this macabre house.
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Arthur Doyle creates tension by using scary and sinister adjectives, such as “a long drawn catlike whine” or “there darted what seemed to be a hideous and distorted child, who threw itself upon the grass with writhing limbs. On the night of Julia’s death, the weather was wild, “the wind was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the windows”. The adjectives used in this description of the weather creates the most horrific images and evokes tension because you can just imagine how scared they must be, locked up in this macabre house.
In ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ there are only 4 main characters; the mother and father who live in their isolated house with their son, and a sergeant-major. This is a major difference as characters play a huge role in ‘The Speckled Band’.
William Jacobs creates tension by using sinister images, and sudden actions. Just like in “The Speckled Band”, the weather plays a huge part in the tone of the particular part of the novel and the tension created. This story starts off with the father and the son playing chess. This in itself evokes tension because we hear of the disastrous weather, “The night was cold and wet. Path’s a bog, and the road’s a torrent,” and yet these two characters are calmly playing chess, ignoring the sombre weather.
He also creates tension by using sudden actions and short sentences. For instance, tension is immediately created when Sergeant Morris came out of the night into the house, his ‘heavy footsteps came toward the door, as the gate banged to loudly’. This gives him a mysterious aura
Short sentences also add to the tension of the story, “The paw!” she cried wildly. “The monkey’s paw!”. Not only adding tension, this then reminds us of Julia’s dying words in ‘The Speckled Band’, “It was the band! The speckled band!” It is interesting that in both the stories, the mystery in each is completely based on the title.
The author also uses portent to hint what is going to happen. “[Herbert] sat alone in the darkness, gazing at the dying fire, and seeing faces in it. The last face was so horrible and so simian that he gazed at it in amazement. His hand grasped the monkey’s paw, and with a little shiver he wiped his hand on his coat”. This could be hinting to the bad things that are going to happen to him. These sinister faces create tension and adds to the mysterious air surrounding the paw. Another possible hint to the bad things ahead is that when the sergeant was describing the paw, he said,“ It had a spell put on it by an old fakir. He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow”. This last sentence was a possible sign for the terrible events ahead.
In ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ tension is created by seeing how the characters behave to the certain events. For instance, when a man came from Maw and Meggins, Herbert’s place of work, to tell the family of Herbert’s accident, we see that Mrs. White was distraught by this accident, “She caught her breath, and turning to her slower-witted husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his, and the fact that Herbert was ‘caught in the machinery’ means that his body must have been desecrated which creates the most horrific images. This creates tension and enables the reader to empathise how they must be feeling.
Another way in which tension is evoked is by characters being mysterious and withholding information. When the sergeant is asked indirectly whether he has had his three wishes he said quietly, “I have” and his blotchy face whitened. He is being very secretive as to the wishes he wished but we can guess that there is something wrong about them for he turns white when he talks vaguely of them.
In ‘The Monkey’s Paw the reader is constantly trying to determine whether this paw is powerful or just a part of Mr. White’s ‘fancy’, or whether it will result in good or bad. These attitudes change constantly throughout the story, and all this does is confuse and mislead the reader.
The family and the sergeant’s emotions constantly seem to be opposites. When they are discussing the ‘monkey’s paw’, the family are eager to find out about the paw, whereas the sergeant is being very secretive, “His three listeners leaned forward eagerly. The visitor absent-mindedly put his empty glass to his lips.”
Then later Herbert White cleverly said, “Well, why don’t you have three, sir?” “I have”, he said quietly. These two adjectives seem to be opposites, ‘cleverly’ and ‘quietly’.
As I have already said, the family constantly change their views on whether the monkey’s paw will work, or whether the sergeant is lying. While the sergeant is talking about the paw, they seem to be taken in by the paw and even take it out of the fire when the sergeant threw it in there. When he told Mr. White to put it back into the fire, Herbert said with pretended horror, “Likely”. But when they had made the first wish for two hundred pounds, because they did not see the money, they thought “it must have been [their father’s] fancy” and joked about finding “the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle of you bed”. But when they found out that the first wish had been granted and the disastrous circumstances that was brought with it, they still wanted to use it again to wish Herbert back to life. And at the end of the story, when the disfigured body of Herbert is knocking on their front, although we are not told what Mr. White whished, we can guess that it was for Herbert to return to the dead. This links it to the first man’s wishes. The sergeant said that the first man’s last wish was for death, and this might be, like in this case, for another person.
At the beginning of the story, the family believed that the ‘monkey’s paw’ would result in good. They even joke about how two hundred pound might be dangerous and said, “[It] might drop on his head from the sky”. However, after the death of Herbert, they realise that this paw was magical and sinister.
Because ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ is a different kind of story to ‘The Speckled Band’, the reader is mislead in completely different ways. In ‘The Speckled Band’, it misleads the reader by hiding the truth beneath layers of uncertainty and withholding certain information, such as the fact that Dr. Roylott had a snake.
In Julia’s dieing words, she screamed out, “It was the band! The Speckled Band!”. This is a cryptic clue, hinting to the poisonous spotted snake which bit her. The author, Arthur Doyle, deliberately chose these words so to make a mystery, for, if she had said, “It was the snake” then there would have been no mystery at all.. This was a conscious decision made by the author to deliberately mislead the reader.
This seemingly strange clue, only seems to be hinting towards the gypsies with spotted scarves, whom Dr. Roylott allowed to stay in the garden. They play no role in the mystery, hence giving depth to the plot.
Also we are told of the animals he has, a baboon and a cheetah. These seemingly pay no role in the mystery, until Sherlock Holmes later finds a saucer of milk in the Doctors bedroom and then finds out that he also has an extremely poisonous Indian snake.
I think that although it gives us background information, Helen Stoner’s first speech which ultimately gives us more information than we need, could be put there to mislead the reader, because we are trying to take in all this information and make our own predictions as to what we think happened. Therefore this would just confuse the reader.
In this speech, we are told that Helen’s sister, Julia, could smell Dr. Roylott’s cigars, because of a small ventilator connecting the two rooms.. However, in the coroner’s report, he mentioned nothing about the ventilator which just misleads the reader. Also, he did not see the two puncture marks made by the snake which would have made the mystery a lot less confusing.
Although ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ is a story full of mystery and suspense due to the immense tension created, my favourite out of the two is undoubtedly ‘The Speckled Band’ due to its sensational plot, a successful combination of elaborate characters and the intriguing circumstances which we are presented at the beginning of the story. One of the most iconic things about a ‘murder mystery’ is its unique ability to keep the reader guessing until the end of the story until the truth is revealed to us by Sherlock Holmes, which is why, in part, ‘The Speckled Band’ is so effective.
