Choose two parts of The Woman in Black which you think are frightening. How does Susan Hill make them frightening to the reader?

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Choose two parts of The Woman in Black which you think are frightening. How does Susan Hill make them frightening to the reader? (30 marks) Fear is a central theme in Hill’s ghost story and there are several episodes which illustrate this. The two most poignant and frightening are the death of Kipps’ baby son and the night after Kipps is allowed into the nursery at Eel Marsh House. These are very different episodes because in fact nothing happens in the latter other than Kipps is woken by the storm and hears ‘the familiar cry of desperation and anguish, a cry for help from a child somewhere out on the marsh’ which he knows has no foundation in reality. Yet in the episode at the end of his account his baby son is killed.In the first episode Kipps is awoken by the storm. Hill uses a simile to describe his immediate feelings of danger and uncertainty:‘The house felt like a ship at sea, battered by the gale that came roaring across the open marsh.’The words ‘battered’ ‘roaring’ and ‘open’ emphasise Kipps’
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vulnerability and exposure to the elements. The sound of these words is harsh and frightening andKipps feels ‘like a small boy again.’ His fear increases as he hears the ghostly cry of a child in danger. He goes out onto the landing, a ‘tremendous blast of wind’ rocks the house and the lights went out. This reminds me of a gothic horror movie as in those days they wouldn’t have had electricity but paraffin lamps and for them all to go out together has got to be more than a coincidence. Susan Hill maintains the tension and builds up the ...

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