how does susan hill create tension in the story

The next thing I will talk about is the plot and how she builds tension in to it. The plot plays a big part in building the tension in the story. At first the mood is calm until his family start telling ghost stories, he then recalls the time in his life he would rather not refer to, as they were telling the stories he had tried to “hold back the rising flood of memory.” After being calm the tension rises here as you know there is something wrong as Arthur get more uncomfortable. He then storms out after being called a spoil sport for not telling a story but and decides that the only way he will be able to get rid of the bad memories would be to exorcise them. So he decides that he will write a story on what had happened.  He then starts writing his story and he starts in London and takes a trip on three trains to Cry thin Gifford. The trip is an easy one and he meets Mr. Samuel daily on the way. When he reaches Cry thin Gifford he is an untroubled man just going to sort out some papers of an old lady who had just passed away. But then he starts to experience some strange and unreal happenings when he gets to cry thin Gifford like experiencing a few sightings of the woman in black and when he sees people’s bad reactions to the mention of Mrs Drab low and the woman in black. He starts wondering why they are having bad reactions and becomes quite agitated and curious as he knows they are not telling him something. The tension rises at this point. As he gets more stuck in to the work he experiences more of these bad happenings like the noise of the pony and trap and noise in the nursery as well as more sightings of the woman in black the tension is still high and there is no explanation for the happenings which he has experienced which leaves a lot of mystery which happens to create tension with it. It is only till the end that the tension builds up to its peak when he is about to be told the reasons for the happenings and what the consequences are by Mr Samuel Daily. The tension stays at its peak as you are just waiting and wondering if the consequences(a child dying) is going to happen as well as hoping that it doesn’t happen at the same time. The tension then dies again after all the disastrous consequences have been endured (his child and wife dying!). As well as there being a main plot and a tension increase, usually after a strange happening occurs and the tension rises there is an aftermath of calm.

Now I will talk about how the writer creates tension through the dialog in the story. Dialog doesn’t play a great part in the story but I think that there is one main way he creates tension through dialog. This is through the reactions and speech of certain persons after the mention of Mrs Drab low. Many people in the story like Mr. Jerome the landlord and Mr. Samuel daily have bad reactions to the mention of Mrs. Drablow. This brings tension in to the story because you don’t know why they are happening which brings a sense of mystery in to it and also tension is brought up by Arthur’s agitation to their reactions because it makes you feel that their reactions are important and the source to their reactions plays a big part in the story.

There is one thing now I would like to speak about which the author creates in the story which I think leaves a great deal of tension. That is the mystery. The writer creates mystery all the way through the story. By this I mean he leaves many things UN answered and unknown. This means that your mind has a bit of own free will to guess what might happen. And the tension is never ending because you never know what is going to happen next and have the urge to find out what it is.

Now I’m going to talk about a part in which Susan hill creates tension. I am going to talk about the part in the story when Arthur had been to Eel Marsh House for the fist time and he was going to have a brisk walk back to cry thin Gifford. The mood was calm but the a mist swept across the marshes and he began to panic because he was worried about not swerving off the causeway and being sucked in the marshes the writer then took the chance to cause even more tension by putting the sound of the horse and trap in to the equation. And then when the horse and trap sinks in the marsh he becomes in a terrifying panic because he thinks that it is Keckwick that had sunk in the marsh. I think that the writer has done very well here in creating tension because she starts with a small thing which then leads up to the main blow.

I hope that in this essay I have shown some points in the story where the writer Susan Hill has caused tension in the story of the woman in black. I could have been writing pages on this essay about how Susan hill has created tension but I hop I have summed it up well.