Choose two of the pre-20th century short stories that you have studied. Compare and contrast the ways in which they make use of character, plot and language to create tension.
Pre-20th Century Prose : Short Stories
Choose two of the pre-20th century short stories that you have studied. Compare and contrast the ways in which they make use of character, plot and language to create tension.
The two chosen short stories to be compared and contrasted in such a way as to examine the tension created are "Hop-Frog" -otherwise known as "The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs"- and "The Tell-Tale Heart", both written by the same author: Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was considered as the best known American writer of the nineteenth century, mostly writing stories that could be found under headings such as 'Horror' or 'Supernatural'. Taking a look at his background, one can note that his childhood was a very troubled one, and the tension in all his stories is possibly due to this significant fact. Young Edgar Poe's unsettled childhood initiated with the death of his mother when he was only 2 years old, and not long after he was taken in by another family, the 'Allan' family, hence his two surnames. His teenage years were no better, for after enrolling at the University of Virginia, he was quickly expelled for drunkenness and debt. He soon joined the Army, taking a teaching post at the West Point military academy, only to have it taken away from him again after being court martialled in 1832 for gambling and, again, drunkenness. This scandal pursued him during the rest of his life, until in 1836 when he married Virginia; the 13 year old daughter of his favourite aunt. When she died in 'suspicious circumstances' eleven years later, Poe undertook a series of semi-public love affairs until his early death in 1829.
We will first consider the way in which the characters in the two stories create tension, and we can observe that in both, the way they are presented is very important. It may be a coincidence, but it is unnerving to note that both are disabled. In "Hop-Frog", the main character is described in great detail, and we find out that he is physically disabled, being a cripple and a dwarf, and this in itself brings about tension for Hop-Frog is someone clearly conscious, but troubled by his disabilities, for since he is a jester in court he is constantly made fun of about his physical appearance, and we learn he is a very secretive character, who keeps his feelings to himself, and seems to have much inner bitterness and rebellion, though he does not show it. He also has troubles walking -hence his name 'Hop-Frog'- and can only move "by a sort of interjectional gait" which is not very reassuring. The reader is left quite unsettled as we wonder what is going on in the dwarfs mind behind his 'funny walk' and his mask of fake placidity.
"The dwarf laughed [...] and displayed a set of large, powerful, and very repulsive teeth"
We also learn the dwarf has a certain liability to mild insanity upon drinking alcohol, and when forced to drink alcohol before the king's banquet, the tension is high, and it leaves us apprehensive and fearful of what will come of this act.
"He placed the goblet nervously on the table, and looked upon the company with a half-insane stare"
In "The Tell-Tale Heart" the main character, who is also the narrator, is mentally disabled, but hardly at all portrayed physically. We only know of his ill state of mind, which he tries with much vigour ...
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We also learn the dwarf has a certain liability to mild insanity upon drinking alcohol, and when forced to drink alcohol before the king's banquet, the tension is high, and it leaves us apprehensive and fearful of what will come of this act.
"He placed the goblet nervously on the table, and looked upon the company with a half-insane stare"
In "The Tell-Tale Heart" the main character, who is also the narrator, is mentally disabled, but hardly at all portrayed physically. We only know of his ill state of mind, which he tries with much vigour to deny even with the first few lines of the text where the narrator begins by assuring us that he is not mad and then, through the story he relates, he convinces us beyond any shadow of a doubt that he is as mad as a hatter.
"Why WILL you say that I am mad? [...] How then am I mad?"
And being very persistent he sets out to prove his sanity by explaining to us how he planed and executed the perfect murder. Although the narrator seems to be blatantly insane, and thinks he has freedom from guilt, the feeling of guilt over the murder is too overwhelming to bear. His nervousness and guilt eventually lead him to the admittance of the murder he accomplished. This story shows Poe's underlying desires to kill, his true madness, and thoughts of revenge.
The plot of is essential to the build up of any story, and to the two studied, to the build up of tension. The plot of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a story of conflict. There is a mental conflict within the narrator himself, and through obvious clues and statements, Poe alerts the reader to the mental state of the narrator, and to his obsessions. The insanity itself is described as an obsession with the old man's eye, which in turn leads to loss of control and eventually results in violence, ultimately, with the death of the old man. With the appearance of the police, the narrator, who in the beginning attempts to prove his fake innocence, cannot tolerate the guilt any longer and eventually confesses to his "perfect" crime.
"Villains! [...] I admit the deed! -- Tear up the planks!"
We feel the tension mount throughout the story as we learn what happens, and since it is written in first person, we discover the storyline as the narrator tells it, it is written as a confession, as if the narrator was trying to find a way to 'pardon his sins'. There is clear tension in the way the story is narrated. Though our main protagonist attempts to tell his story in a calm manner, as he describes various parts he begins to rant with a great deal of passion and enthusiasm, occasionally getting caught up in his own words.
"And they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises"
We also remark that he pays particular attention to emphasize specific parts of his story, for example, he is sure to highlight the fact that he is simply nervous, that he could not possibly be mad because as he says, "the disease had sharpened my senses" referring to his madness, rather than the disease, it only allows him to hear more clearly the sounds of his imagination, to see what his mind wanted him to see, rather than see the truth
Even at the beginning of the story, we are prepared for a tragic ending. As we learn of the plot, more tension builds up around how the narrator prepares, in an insanely obsessive way, the murder he wishes to commit. We sense right from the commencement a sense of tension behind the speaker's words, and as he narrates the story, his agitation rises, and visibly reaches a peak at the arrival of the officers in the room where he hid the body.
In "Hop-Frog" the tension doesn't start at the beginning. The initial description is of life in a "normal" medieval court. With the benefit of hindsight due to the text being written in 3rd person, the narrator gets hints of tension by clues such as the emphasis placed on jokes and the subtle information that this court is not like any other court for its king has a special likeness for practical and verbal jokes.
"I never knew any one so keenly alive to a joke as the king was."
This intrigues the reader though it doesn't create a lot of apparent tension. Tension starts to build up at the end, when the dwarf starts to drink wine and chains the king and his ministers. At that moment the reader feels that trouble is brewing, the tension is clearly visible as Hop-Frog reveals his plans, and as the end approaches there is transparent madness in the air. In this story the duration of the tension is shorter, but stronger than in "The Tell-Tale Heart" for it is unexpected and more powerful. The killing the king and his ministers is much more abrupt and shocking, while in the "The Tell-Tale Heart", the reader is being prepared throughout the whole story for an unexpected end.
"I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever"
The ending of hop frog is surprising for the naïve reader. At the beginning of the short story we aren't prepared for a dramatic end, there is nothing unusual in the way the story starts. The reader is aware that life mustn't be very pleasant for the dwarf but his is like that of any other jester of any other king. Though there are numerous indices throughout the text, the reader only becomes truly aware of the extent of the jester's hatred towards the king and his ministers only at the end, during his last speech and act.
Apart from the plot and the description of character, the author also uses language to create tension in the two stories. In "The Tell-Tale Heart" the story is written in first person, therefore the reader feels closer to the character and shares the narrator's thoughts and emotions as he himself experiences them.
The story thus seems to evolve in its own time, as the narrator adds information in the order he remembers them in. The result of this is a rather jumbled mixture of feelings, actual happenings and insane ramblings. The abundance of punctuation also plays a big part in the creation of tension. though we notice no abuse of punctuation in the beginning of the tale, it initiates very well structured, but as the story unfolds and the narrator gets more and more excited and nervous, we feel the tension mounting as paragraphs get shorter, punctuation becomes frenzied, and use of capitals becomes much more plentiful.
"No doubt I grew VERY pale [...] Yet the sound increased [...] It was a LOW, DULL, QUICK SOUND-MUCH SUCH A SOUND AS A WATCH MAKES WHEN ENVELLOPED IN COTTON."
The use of words in "The Tell-Tale Heart" clearly indicate the tale was written as a speech, which shows s the spontaneous side behind the writing, how the narrator gets carried away in his own emotions and story telling, proven by the use of words such as: "oh", "Ha!", "no, no?" or "Almighty God!".
The repetition of certain words is used frequently as the tale develops and the tension mounts, for it is used to emphasise the nervousness and instability of the narrator, for example the word 'mad' is repeated many times throughout the text, but also other repetitions such as
"nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous",
"Hark! louder! louder! louder! LOUDER!"
"It grew quicker and quicker and louder and louder, every instant".
The phrases are often short and sharp, with a certain pulsing rhythm to mimic the quickened beating of a nervous or anticipating heart. We also note, especially in the last paragraph of the text where the narrator's tension overbears him, a certain 3 word repetition, a confirmation of his agitation and anxiety, his unwillingness to give himself up as a criminal, but as his insanity and inner guilt overpower him he is forced him to confess.
"I foamed -- I raved -- I swore!"
"They heard! -- They suspected! -- They KNEW!"
"It grew louder -- Louder - -louder!"
In contrast, the author of "Hop-Frog" uses a much more Gothic style of writing, which gives a mysterious, secretive aspect to the story. The language in this short story is less charged with emotions for it is from an external neutral point of view. Poe uses the third person to narrate the story, and the role of an observer is given to the reader, and we learn about the plot as it evolves chronologically, though not once do we delve into Hop-Frog's thoughts. The vacancy of such emotion leaves us uncertain of how the story will end, and we find out at the same time as an observer would the drastic end of the tale. The abundance of punctuation in "Hop-Frog" is only visible in dialogues. A characteristic of this style is the emphasis of words in italic.
"It was passed about the waist of the kind, and tied";
"A low harsh and protracted grating sound"
This story also has apparent repetition at the beginning of mocking words, words such as "jokes" and "fool":
"a joke", "the joke", "for joking", "as jokers", "inimitable jokers", "by joking", "a lean joker", "practical jokes", "their fools", "his fool", "was not only a fool", "as fools".
The repetition of these words have a very strong effect upon the reader, who realizes these words must be important, and though we are not sure of the significance of this clear repetition at the beginning, it still brings about uneasiness and tension.
In "The Tell-Tale Heart" the author uses many metaphors and similies all through the story, for example when he writes about the eye he refers to the "vulture eye" or the "Evil Eye", and when he writes about the heart beat he compared it to the sound that "a watch makes when enveloped in cotton".
These enrich the text thus emphasizing the impression of tension that the author wants to create. In "Hop-Frog" there are fewer metaphors and similies, one being the word 'monster' used to describe the king, though there are many more descriptions of Hop-Frog, usually referring to animals. He is said to resemble
'A squirrel, or a small monkey, rather than a frog."
And his gait is to be called "something between a leap and a wiggle" which also brings us back to the animal connotations, and a bizarre way of describing the jester.
In conclusion, we can clearly see that both stories effectively use tension, though in different ways. The tension in "Hop-Frog" the tension is much more subtle and the end much more unexpected, while the 3rd person point of view doesn't reveal much about the storyline and the ending, and the reader has to read into the discreet clues that the author gives about the emotional state of the characters. In opposition, the blatant tension of "The Tell-Tale Heart" that is shown even in the first two lines of the tale.
"TRUE! Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am"
The tension Poe faced in his life clearly reflects upon the way he writes and the way tension is shown in his prose, through the use of punctuation, language, plot, character description, all indicating tension in his stories.
