On the night the man made his first wish in ‘The Monkeys Paw’, he saw a painful grotesque face in the fire.
The man form Maw and Meggins comes to tell their family their son has had a accident, but he only implies that the son is dead as he says, ‘ he’s not in n any pain’, he uses the euphemism ‘not in any pain’, as he is trying to explain the situation in a nice way.
Only when the actual reality of her sons death comes to reality does she display grief, this increases the tension by use of silence. Dickens speaks about ‘her laying and trembling hand’ the word ‘trembling’ adds to the emotion as it makes you think of people shaking with fear.
The audience will feel that the tension in the story is building as if the price of their first wish being granted is the death of their son, they might wonder what will happen next, what will their next wish be and what will be the cost of it?
The shriek of the mother makes you realise that she has become aware of the evil of the monkeys paw and the obvious distress of what’s happened, because this paw has caused the death of her only son and basically torn her life apart in a matter of days.
The man is preventing his wife from opening the door as he says, ‘ for god sake, don’t let it in,’ we the audience think he may be worried about what will be behind the door, he knows something bad has already happened so he thinks worse may come of it. Also as his son was killed in the machinery his corpse would be deformed so this adds to the horror of the occurrence.
In the short story ‘ The Black Veil’ the lady says a lot of unusual and mysterious things which create a eerie or ‘supernatural’ feeling, for instance when she first arrives at the young practitioners parlour she doesn’t speak or if she does she speaks very little, which creates a sort of ‘supernatural’ atmosphere, because if the story had a happy atmosphere the lady would probably arrive and be friendly and approachable, but in the black veil she is quiet and it creates the sense of her being almost motionless, slow and unusual. Also a lot of things happen which we cant understand like when the lady says she is ill not bodily but mentally but doesn’t give a explanation of her illness or exactly what she is talking about.
The words ‘in an agitated tone’ reveal that the surgeon is feeling disturbed and something very wrong is happening. It also shows that the surgeon may be feeling a little scared as he’s just found the answer to the ladies ‘riddle’ and he may have just discovered he is dealing with someone who is mentally ill, and he’s found the truth about the lady.
Dickens uses words such as ‘The throat was swollen, and a livid mark encircled it,’ this may affect the reader because the words used are harsh and create images of horror and death in the readers mind. This also adds to the tension as the truth is thrown at the reader suddenly.
The story ends by explaining the death of the son of the lady in the black veil; it also then explains that the lady is insane; this leaves the reader feeling shocked and maybe saddened that the end of the story isn’t happy. The ending of this story differs form others because in the other two stories, ‘The Monkeys Paw’ and ‘The Signalman’, they end by eventually achieving something even though their achievements aren’t great. In ‘The Monkeys Paw’ the story ends when the family finally realise the monkeys paw may have dark secrets behind it. Also ‘The Signalman’ ends when the Signalman dies and the narrator realises he may have been insane.
On the night when the white family choose to make their first wish on the monkeys paw they choose to wish for £200 this is a affection of their poverty and shows they may be quite gullible as in the times when this story was set £200 would have been a lot of money. After the old man makes his wish him and his family sit and joke of the old man who delivered and believed in the monkeys paw, they then start to predict what will happen next then later retire to bed.
When the man from Maw and Meggins first arrives, Mrs White begins to feel excited as she sees the man is wearing fine clothing, and may have come to grant their wish of £200 from the Monkeys paw, a sense of false hope is created. Then when he eventually reveals the news is not good but instead extremely bad, there is a complete change of atmosphere. Mrs White says ‘You’ve not brought bad news I’m sure sir’ which creates a awkward atmosphere and you feel she’s only making the situation worse.
Then the man reveals the news, and tells the Whites they will receive compensation the truth suddenly hits the White family, and when they go on to ask the sum of compensation is the audience feel spooked because the sum is so predictable. Mrs White’s actions during this event show how terrible the situation is.
When Mrs White comes up with a solution to her son’s death by wishing fro Herbert to be alive again by the Monkeys paw, the audience knows something bad is going to happen again as they’ve already seen the anguish the paw can bring. So when Mrs White hears the knocking on the door and quickly tries to run the reader feels a sense of horror, and that maybe she has gone a tiny bit insane, then when Mr White whispers, ‘What are you going to do?’ it shows he also is scared of his wife’s actions, it then says, ‘Catching her by the arm, held her tightly’, the fact it says tightly shows he really doesn’t want her to go to the door.
Then Mr White searches frantically for the Monkeys Paw, because he knows if only he can get to the paw he can wish the son to go away and no more pain will be caused.
By the end of the story the readers feel in a way exhausted because there are so many events in the story, which make the reader feel happy, sad, scared and worried. So the reader may be left feeling unhappy because the Monkeys Paw ruined the White family completely.
The story ‘The Signalman’ is told by a gentleman who acts as the narrator, this helps to create suspense and tension because the narrator knows exactly the same as the readers do, and they go along the story with the narrator feeling the same feelings as he is and trying to work out the story with him.
When the narrator first comes across the Signalman he is shown as a strange character because he is silent and still in a ghost like way. The words ‘’Halloa! Below!’’ seem to be disturbing towards the signalman because he remains motionless and silent when the narrator shouts down to him, he later goes on to say to the narrator ‘’I was doubtful, whether I’d seen you before’’. This leaves the reader feeling further intrigued because they may wonder whether or not the Signalman may be dreaming or could even be a little mental, and by the Signalman speaking these words he creates a peculiar atmosphere. And the reader may feel the need to read on because they want to find out more about this strange character who is the Signalman.
