The narrator was a Doctor; this encouraged the Victorian reader trust in him as social status was of large interest in Victorian times. This is like “The Red Room” by H.G Wells, as the main character is high class, and makes the reader more likely to trust him as they were considered “better people” at the time. Also, as he is a doctor this makes the reader more likely to believe his word as doctors cannot exaggerate due to their jobs they must state facts. The reader will believe the doctor is a good man with good morals as he wished to see Isaac who he believed to be unwell.
Collins uses the description for his inn to be a typical ghost story setting as it was described to be “dingy, quiet, old-fashioned” also uncared for as “the sign had not been repainted for many years past”. This provokes the reader to think that something supernatural will happen. When the doctor goes into the inn he meets a couple of strange characters, the waiter and the landlord, whom both seem to be secretive and mysterious. The conversation that the doctor had at the inn with the waiter was odd as he mentions that the Ostler was asleep, this leaves the reader to think why he sleeps in the daytime. When the doctor asks why the waiter “smiles to himself in a rather strange way”, this makes the reader think that there is something supernatural within the inn and adds to the typical expectation of a ghost story.
Also, when Collins describes Isaac he makes it seem as if he is a tortured soul as he has a “withered, woebegone face. Eyebrows painfully contracted” and his mouth “drawn down at the corners” and his “hollow wrinkled cheeks” and “scanty grizzled hair” all showing his “past sorrow or suffering”. This is likely in a ghost story to have a character that is suffering and in pain and provokes fear in the reader to wonder what will happen to him later on in the story. In the second installation of story the Ostler is given an identity “Isaac Scatchard”, this makes it more personal to reader to know exactly who is being talked about.
Isaac is described to have “bad luck” the reader will expect that something paranormal will happen to him. Although an interesting thing about Isaac is that his mother is actually above her class status as she is considered a “lady” as she is kind, wise, polite, helpful and speaks like a perfect lady. Although she is a typical expectation of a female as she “feels faint” when she is under shock that her son’s wife has the same knife as was described in his dream. Women were considered to be timid and fragile little creatures. Whereas the “The Withered Arm” has characters that are woman that are very different from the women characters in “The Dream Woman” that have women that are strong such as Rhoda who is strong enough to be a single parent even though she knows that many look down on her.
The structure of the “The Withered Arm” is fear provoking as it has chapters that have titles that makes the reader thing that there is something supernatural coming up and creates tension, such as “a vision”, this title makes the reader want to ask why is there a vision, what is the vision and what caused the vision. By having these titles for the chapter it makes the reader want to read on and to find out the reason for the title. Also, the structure is clever as it has a twist at the end of the story as Rhoda’s son is to be hung, so when Gertrude felt “the condemned wretch’s destiny was becoming interwoven with her own”, she foreshadows herself which make it understandable when and this makes the story fit together.
The language is very old as it uses words that are not used in modern times any more such as “supernumerary”, “water medows” and “tisty-tosty”. The language also gives the reader a lot of images in their head; this makes the story provoke fear into the reader. When the description of the incubus is being read, the reader has imagined “the blue eyes harshly peering onto Rhoda’s face” and then the incubus “flashing its left hand before Rhoda” and the changing tempo of the incubus’s actions, this also provokes fear in the reader as it is surprising and makes you unaware of what is going to happen next. The structure of the whole description is a long complex sentence for suspense. Then the morning after the incubus experience, Gertrude comes in with light and gentle imagery such as “Mrs. Lodge’s gentle knock”, “her smile to tender” and “a gown of light material”. This makes the reader calm down from the harsh descriptions of the incubus and settle down and think about the light colours that are being described, but then as soon as Gertrude leaves “a light seemed to have gone from the dwelling”, this provokes fear into the reader as something frightening is expected to come when light is gone even though it is morning and not the time expected to be afraid.
I thought that this story was more fear provoking as more supernatural experiences happened which made it more interesting and even thought the narrative viewpoint was more believable for “the dream woman”, the structure and the twist at the end of “the withered arm” was more interesting and cleverly thought out. I also thought that as a modern reader it made it more frightening to think about being so far back in time and imagining such a huge judgement in social classes, whereas the Victorian reader would find this a normal thing to judge people on their social class, much like “the signalman” by Dickens as the narrator was surprised to find that the signal man was educating himself even though he was low class. This is different in modern day which makes the whole theory much more strange and undesirable.
Bibliography
Moore, J. and Catron, J. (editors) (1999) Pre-twentieth Century Short Stories,
Hodder & Stoughton, London:
o Collins, Wilkie. (1855) The Dream Woman
o Dickens, Charles. (1866) The Signalman
o Hardy, Thomas. (1888) The Withered Arm
Dickens, Charles (1865) To be Taken with a Grain of Salt
http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/ghost-stories-dickens.html
Wells, H.G. (1896) The Red Room,
