In these three stories, atmosphere and suspense are developed through the physical description of the place. Settings are far from the community and no one could help them if they get into trouble. These three stories are typical examples of the ghost story genre as they are set in the recent past with supernatural phenomena. In “The Monkey’s Paw”, the talisman has a spell added by an old fakir and three separate men can get three wishes from it. This is something surreal but is described in the ordinariness of the story, which makes it believable. In these three stories, all involve death by having main characters killed, making a dramatic impact. This is what you expect to find in the ghost genre.
At the end of the three stories, uncertainty is present which invites readers to think what the uncertainties are. In “The Monkey’s Paw”, no one knows what Mr. White wished for his third and last wish.” This is unanswered and it makes the readers think. In “The Signalman”, the narrator says “Halloa! Below There!” A small expression that once understood strikes you with an essence of alarm, fear and intrigue. Throughout the story of “The Signalman”, these words are used several times and repeated by several characters. It makes the reader wonder, is this a coincidence? In “The Withered Arm”, Gertrude Lodge dies. Why? The reason why is unanswered as readers don’t know why she has been executed. They want to find out why and it keeps them in suspense. These three stories create an atmosphere and suspense by the unanswered questions.
One of the techniques used by the writers is narrative hooks. In “The Monkey’s Paw”, it describes Mr. White as he “Frantically breathed his third and last wish”. From this quotation, we know that Mr. White took his last wish but we do not know what he wished for. Did he wish his son to be dead, or not disturbing him forever? Readers want to find out what Mr. White wished for. Jacobs draws the readers in and keeps them in suspense. Similarly, in “The Signalman”, Dickens describes the Signalman saying “What does the spectre mean?” In this quotation, we understand that the signalman wasn’t sure if the “spectre” is giving him a signal that something ominous will happen or, scare him off? Readers are anxious to find out the answer as they want to know the symbolization of the “spectre”. Dickens keeps them in tension. In “The Withered Arm”, one of the milkmaids says, “He do bring home his bride tomorrow. I hear”. Milkmaids are gossiping that a man is going to bring home his bride the day after. This interests the readers as they might want to find out who “he” is and the “bride”. This keeps the readers in suspense. Milkmaids worked on the farms at that time and readers feel at that point is a normal situation. A false sense of security is set up but small community also means lots of people are interested in what others are doing.
For the three stories, two of them are narrated in third person narrative style which creates a sense of atmosphere through the physical description of the setting. “The Signalman” is narrated in the first person narrative style and his responses to events creates sense of atmosphere.. For “The Monkey’s Paw”, Mr. White responds to his wife as she asks him to wish his son to be alive with “It is foolish and wicked”. At the beginning of this story, Mr. White finds it is something which is hilarious. But after the death of his son Herbert, he tries to believe that the monkey’s paw will really bring him luck. This creates a sense of mystery as Mr. White thinks the death of his son is all because of the dried paw. Therefore, readers want to find out is the dried paw really going to make thing sinister? This keeps readers in suspense. In “The Signalman”, the narrator says, “I detected in his eyes some latent fear of me”. This creates a sense of fear as the narrator finds that the signalman seems to be afraid of him. Has the narrator appeared before? It draws the readers in because they want to know why the signalman is afraid of the narrator.
For “The Withered Arm”, Rhoda thinks “Could this be the explanation, and had such things as this ever happened before?” Rhoda Brook is uncertain about if Gertrude Lodge was the spectre she has encountered in her dream after she first saw Gertrude. Rhoda then thinks has it really happen or just merely of coincidence. This draws the readers in as they want to find out is there a link between Rhoda’s dream and Gertrude’s left arm? This keeps the readers in suspense.
In “The Signalman”, it is written during the Victorian times. People are excited about the train as it a new invention. However, they are nervous at the same point. This builds up an atmosphere that people are afraid of riding on a train as accident happens. This makes the story sounds scary. In addition, the signalman is overqualified for the job. He learnt languages. As being a signalman, no knowledge is required as just giving out signals to drivers. The signalman should have been working that jobs require higher qualifications. However, the signalman didn’t. This builds up an atmosphere as he really shouldn’t be in the story but he is. Something is going to be happened which link to his job. In “The Monkey’s Paw”, it was written in a period which people are obsessed by magic that can make something surreal happen in reality. Characters in “The Monkey’s Paw” believe in magic which can turn their life better. This creates an atmosphere as if magic exists at that time that they can really deal with magic. This creates a sense of mystery. In the “The Withered Arm”, it was written in a period where milkmaids still need to squeeze milk from the cow. Normally, it is done by machine now. This creates an atmosphere that milkmaids space to gossip about others affairs and they are interested on it. A false sense of security is set up where something menacing happen at this particular time.
In these three stories, Dickens, Jacobs and Hardy create suspense by locating stories in an isolated setting which is far from the small community leaving characters hardly get any help from the outside world. Through using the narrative hooks, readers are drawn in as they want to find out what happen and engage the readers to the stories. Each pieces of information are given out each time to create a certain atmosphere and suspense. All in all, a sense of mystery is added to the stories which build up atmosphere and suspense.
