The settings in both stories are very different. We come back to the beginning of the stories where the language used creates a very different atmosphere as to add to the tension. Dahl creates a suburban living room, warm and cosy, wheras Dickens creates the gloomy, lonely signal box.
The suspense in each story is also very different. Dickens spins out the tension until the very last scene when there is the climax of the story when the twist happens. Dahl on the other hand, has the death early on in the story and the tension builds up as we wonder if Mary Maloney will be caught for the murder of her husband.
The style of the stories is also different. Dahl uses short, blunt sentences with short undescriptive words, “and he told her”, but Dickens uses long winding sentences with long archaic words with a lot of description, “precipitous”, “saturnine”. Dahl has written in the third person “he said”, “she said” and Dickens has written in the first person “said I”. Dahl has used a lot of direct speech to make up the story wheras Dickens has hardly used any at all. Because of the different times that the two writers come from they have used different language. Dickens has to use lost of long descriptive words because people in 1866 were first seeing advanced technology and didn’t often know what a signal box looked like or the inside of a railway tunnel so he had to write in that style. Dahl has written this story in a more modern era where people know what a suburban living room looks like because of the powers of television and cinema and other technological advances. Because of this Dahl does not have to use much description. He lets the audience fill in the missing bits.
Dickens was not all in favour of the railways and possibly had a purpose in writing this story to put people off trains. Not many people had seen trains or knew how they worked so he wanted to give them a bad impression to people so he wrote a story about gloomy and supernatural happenings. Dahl may not have had any purpose in writing his story except for television broadcasting or to make money.
In Dickens story the ending is a little unexpected and the twist is saved till right near the end wheras Dahl started off with this friendly environment and twisted it gradually throughout the story. As we progress into the story we learn more about Mary Maloney and we think she is a little mentally un-hinged. Then at the end she is portrayed as some sort of psychotic desperate woman because we assume that her husband is leaving.
Dickens story is very supernatural and frightening but Dahl`s is more of a mentally frightening story. Dickens has a purpose, to put people off trains, Dahl has no purpose. Both of the stories involve a violent death in some way. The Death in Dickens’ story is expected because of the atmosphere created but the death in Dahls’ story is very unexpected.
“ “Don’t make supper for me, I’m going out.”
At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head. “
To summarise. The authors have to form their stories around their audience. They are the same kind of story but because of the time are very different. I enjoyed both but enjoyed Roald Dahls story more because it is more of a psychological story.
