Collins’ tale is based around ‘The Black Cottage’, and the moors surrounding it, where he can use the deserted area to its full advantage, like any typical Gothic story. Most Gothic tales include an isolated area, in which the ‘nearest habitation’ ‘was situated about a mile and a half off’ where there’s no one around to save you, and the title, ‘The Black Cottage’ already has begun to increase tension due to the relation between ‘black’ and ‘darkness’ leading to evil. Moors always tend to increase tension, due to their associations with various other tales, and often being foggy meaning low visibility, so that you can’t see anything coming. Collins can therefore manipulate the setting and mould the story into a very tense tale, with Gothic elements, leaving a number of occurrences to surprise the readers in the future.
Similarly, Gaskell also creates feelings of isolation, again with a typical Gothic element, at Furnivall Manor. Hester is left trying to protect Miss Rosamond in their new grand home, with many a room to be able to wander around. This is the major difference in setting between ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ and ‘The Black Cottage’, that Hester is left in a grand house where one might be ‘lost’ in the ‘several smaller halls and passages’, whereas Bessie is in a small cottage with few rooms, where she could be trapped. Hester’s new home, ‘Furnivall Manor’, is very ‘old-fashioned’ and ‘old’ which meant that many secrets could be unearthed later in the story, and Gaskell is cleverly moulding the setting to suit the needs of her short story. Surrounding the manor is a ‘wild park’ and a ‘thick dark wood’ and not much else, leaving the Manor in a desolate area, much like the location of the Black Cottage.
Dickens’ settings are the most different by comparison to the other two short stories as it is in the midst of a poverty-stricken area of London, in Walworth, and at first in the doctor’s surgery. These two settings sharply highlight the class system within the Victorian era. The house in which the ‘ill-favoured’ man dwelled was set in a corner, where it was isolated from any other area, similar to ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ and ‘The Black Cottage’ where each setting is ‘desolate’. A ‘cold damp mist’ which ‘hung heavily’ over ‘Walworth’ presents it with a ‘lonely and dreary’ appearance which will likely ‘shroud’ the truth in the future, similar to the ‘mist (that) was rising’ over the moors within ‘The Black Cottage’.
There are several minor characters within the stories, which also increase the tension or add to the story, like in ‘The Black Cottage’. Mr and Mrs Knifton are only minor characters but they are needed in order to leave the ‘pocket-book’ in Bessie’s ‘trustworthy’ hands, to attract the ‘bad character’ of ‘Shifty Dick’ and ‘Jerry’ into the story, followed by the anticlimax of them leaving. Collins has had Mr and Mrs Knifton provide a reason for the villains to frighten Bessie with their ‘huge hairy hands’. ‘Shifty Dick’ and ‘Jerry’ are welcomed into the story in order to increase the tension and create villains for Bessie to outsmart with the continuous climaxes and anti-climaxes to increase the tension of their failed entrances. They are a very stereo-typical duo, as everything about them is blatant and they do not hide themselves away. They are also used to build up Bessie’s character which, at the point where they were introduced, was still being developed. It is because of the ‘ragamuffin thieves’ that Bessie is allowed to tell the audience that she is ‘strong-spirited’, quite different to any ‘poor’ ‘cherub’ ‘left alone in the house’ that would have been ‘terrified’ ‘out of their senses’.
Similarly, the ‘pale and haggard’ man that opened the door for ‘our doctor’ in ‘The Black Veil’ is in the story for the purpose of increasing the tension in Dickens’ tale, as he is the stereotypical villainous character that would appear to a door in ‘Walworth’. His being compared to ‘death’ follows the theme that is being increasingly built up within the story. Similar to ‘The Black Cottage’, a very minor character is introduced in ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’. Mr Henry is added solely for the purpose of introducing Hester to her new ‘wilderness of a house’, and the terror that she may face there later on in the story. While serving his purpose, Mr Henry also manages to increase the tension within the story by ‘taking no notice of (Hester’s) sweet little Miss Rosamond’s out-stretched hand’ which clearly left Hester feeling upset, and reaffirmed the fact that the ‘needle-point’ wrinkled ladies had ‘never loved or cared for any-one’ which in turn increases the tension of what will happen later in the story to Hester.
Two of the short stories have included a theme of mental instability, which appears to have been of interest in Victorian society. The ‘shrouded figure’ within ‘The Black Veil’ concludes that she may be ‘mentally’ ‘ill’. The same theme arises with ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ when Hester was ‘uneasy in (her) mind’ that ‘Miss Furnivall was crazy’, which again follows the same theme of mental instability, which I must conclude was feared within Victorian society.
Throughout the middles of the three stories each writer had the task of managing to create and maintain the suspense that they had begun to build within the beginnings of the stories. Within ‘The Black Cottage’ the tension begins to increase when Bessie is enjoying ‘knitting’ ‘lazily’, listening to the ‘splashing of the rain outside’ and the ‘sullen sobbing of the wind’. These are typical Gothic features, and while ‘The Black Cottage’ is an adventure story, the bad weather like the ‘rain’ and ‘sullen’ ‘wind’ is a signal for a bad occurrence to come. This increases the tension as the reader begins to wonder what is to follow after Bessie seems to be ‘drowsy’ near a ‘cheerful fire’ where nothing can be more perfect. This is similar to where ‘the surgeon’ is enjoying the ‘cheerful fire in his parlour’ in the very beginning of Dickens’ tale, which within both tales seems to signal comfort but that soon there will be a disruption. The tension suddenly rises after this signal of supreme ‘luxurious’ comfort within ‘The Black Cottage’, where Bessie is startled by ‘a loud bang at the front door’. This sentence is very short, in a paragraph on its own in order to make it sound very sharp and short and startling, like the ‘loud bang’ itself. This too is used to affect the reader, which increases the suspense as they have to read on to find out what the noise is. Following this Bessie is querying whether she had ‘dreamed about the bang at the door’ or not, which keeps the reader waiting to see whether she is at threat.
The main part of ‘The Black Veil’ however is the ‘depressing’ journey throughout ‘Walworth’, which gives the educated readers of ‘The Black Veil’ a taster of a ‘poverty’-stricken life. Dickens knows first hand what a place like ‘Walworth’ would be like, as he spent a considerable part of his early life financially deprived and maybe this story is a plea to the readers be attentive to the ‘decay and neglect’ that these people had to live through. The ‘dismal’ words used by Dickens to describe Walworth are ‘miserable’ and ‘dreary’, having a cumulative effect in order to increase the tension that ‘our doctor’ has to plod through this ‘dirty’ area, risking the likes of ‘Burke’ or ‘Bishop’. There is many a ‘desperate’ character in this area, whom the upper-class readers would have feared, so they would empathise with the vulnerable doctor, wondering whether he may stumble upon one of these ‘depraved characters’. What increases the tension is that a neighbourhood could be left ‘entirely to the mercy of the moon and stars’. This shows how poor the neighbourhood is, as it has not even street lighting of its own. Authorial interjection from Dickens here tells us that our main character, the ‘doctor’, is of ‘strong mind’ and full of ‘courage’ and that even the ‘boldest reader’ would be intimidated. This is a very good way of increasing the tension, but of course could not be used within either of the other stories due to their narrative choice. Dickens here is directly addressing the readers, like one would in everyday speech, in order to tell them how to feel. In this case they should feel in awe of this man’s bravery, as Dickens tells them to do so, and that the doctor is so brave to face such a tense situation. Dickens’ interjection is postpones the unveiling of what lies beyond the door, increasing the suspense as with every word the readers are agonising more and more about what is lurking. Dickens purposely waits for the reader’s suspense to peak before he finally shows them who opens the door, where the likely inhabitants are all ‘filthy’, ‘depraved’, ‘desperate’ and ‘questionable’. Prior to the interjection, Dickens has increasingly built up the likelihood of the doctor being killed while in this area where all was ‘isolated’ and not even the ‘police’ could help. During the interjection these characters are built up even more, leaving the audience anticipating the arrival of one of them at the door, and what he will do to ‘our’ vulnerable ‘doctor’.
Similar to ‘The Black Veil’, ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ also uses a journey to build up suspense, when ‘there was no answer’ from Miss Rosamond. Miss Furnivall ‘shivered and shook’ when she realised that Rosamond was missing and Gaskell does this in order to increase the tension in a slow, steady climb. The suspense within the other stories is handled differently. Gaskell manages to keep increasing the amount of tension up in a climb to the climax, whereas Collins has several jumps of suspense and tension where the ‘ragamuffins’’ plans are foiled by Bessie, and they develop a new one. Dickens’ tale is a mixture of both a steady climax rising up, with many small leaps of tension throughout the tale, for example the doctor’s string of ‘preposterous’ ‘misgivings’. During Hester’s journey the plot begins to unfold as she becomes sure of supernatural occurrences. The extensive use of exclamation marks begins to increase the tension that the readers feel, as Hester uses her dialect and a scatter of exclamations to the readers (or her ‘dears’ listening to the tale) to draw them in so that they feel that they are there, and that their own ‘Rosy-Posy’ is missing, and not Hester’s, as she polishes the tale with her own pet names for Miss Rosamond. ‘Well-a-day!’ is a typical phrase that the ‘Old Nurse’ Hester uses, to exclaim about how terrified that ‘(her) lamb-(her) queen- (her) darling’ was missing. This exaggeration is used to convey how Hester feels for her ‘bairnie’, and relays her feelings to the readers. Gaskell warns us of what is to come throughout the tale, increasing the tension with the tell-tale signs that she subtly drops into the story where ‘great, large flakes’ of snow lay ‘soft, thick and deep’, when the bad weather signals a bad occurrence to follow, like any typical Gothic tale.
The ‘black shadow’ in the snow is a subtle hint that Gaskell leaves the readers, like a clue to where the story is going. It suggests the supernatural is at work in Miss Rosamond’s disappearance, and as Hester ‘ran on’ Gaskell exaggerates every movement to the readers in order to increase the tension. The ‘cold’ was not just ‘bitter cold’ but it tore ‘the skin off (her) face as (she) ran’ and Hester was so worried about her ‘lamb’ that everything hurt her. Every word that Gaskell uses here is to increase the tension and suspense and each phrase is hyperbolic, such as;
‘perished, and frightened.’
This proves Hester’s love for her ‘wee bairnie lying still, white and stiff’ which lists, in a pattern of three, how dead Rosamond looks which increases the tension for the small climax, where the readers are frightened for Rosamond’s life.
The endings of all three of these Victorian stories are high in suspense as they resolve the plot, for the climax of the tale. The endings of ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ and ‘The Black Veil’ are both very tense, and leave the readers thirsty for the very end when each tiny clue, that the authors have dropped, is wrapped up, where the readers see if their guesses about the mystery are correct.
Within ‘The Black Cottage’, Collins has built up the tension in the middle of his adventure story, with many climaxes and anticlimaxes and continues to increase the tension as the tale draws to a close. Bessie reasons with herself, in order to directly inform the readers of what her next plan is;
‘I must trust to the night and the thick darkness, and save my life by running for it, while there is yet time.’
This concludes that Bessie with ‘no fear’ has decided on her plan, and by telling the readers their suspense is increased as they read on to see whether her plan is successful. The short sentence that the ‘upper hinge (had) gave way’ echoes how it was sharp, taking the readers by surprise as Bessie would have been. The suspense increases as they wonder whether there is time for Bessie to ‘trust to the night’, and ‘save (her) life’ or not, and a short paragraph of information increases the tension as Collins postpones the information that his readers are waiting for. He does this in order to continue increasing the suspense, then again reassuring them that ‘the lower hinge of the door’ ‘kept (its) place’. This, again, introduces a small climax and anticlimax, followed by the ‘villain’s cry’, which again increases the suspense as the readers again wonder whether Bessie can escape, due to the direct speech.
The very ending of Collins’ tale relaxes the tension within the story quite quickly, presenting the readers very quickly with a brief summary of what happens in the short future- quickly stripping Bessie of her strong, resolute, fearless character to become a feeble wife. Bessie here instantly loses a modern reader’s respect. Whilst a reader within our era may not feel that this way of ending is very acceptable, ‘The Black Cottage’ was written in 1859, and a marriage up through the classes might have been an amazing opportunity during Collins’ lifetime, and a great privilege. Collins had successfully increased the tension within the centre of the exciting, suspenseful tale and then decides that at this point he needs to speedily snuff the suspense in a quick blow, to deliver the moral that was so popular in the Victoria era, as Bessie’s ‘marriage is the moral of (her) story’. Both Dickens and Gaskell also state a moral at the end of their story, and Collins chooses to deliver his moral to his readers quite blatantly, in comparison to Dickens’ moral which is quite subtle. Collins rewards Bessie’s ‘wit’ with her ‘husband’, and he briefly sums up the occurrences following the ‘horror-struck’ night, which if they were written in detail would bore the readers. The ending follows each theme that was presented within the beginning of the story; philanthropy and class, as Bessie is rewarded and the readers feel content after they have followed Bessie’s tense journey.
These two themes are also presented within ‘The Black Veil’, as the story concludes. Direct speech is used to increase the tension, as the quick, short, commanding statements increase the tension. Both ‘our doctor’ and the woman in the ‘black veil’ exclaim increasing the stressing of these words, that panic the reader too as they await the doctor’s conclusion;
‘This man is dead!’
This short statement offers the readers no explanation about the death, increasing their suspense as they wonder why, and how, he has been killed. Dickens’ leaves the readers in this suspense for two more pages until he finally presents them with the reason. Again Dickens gives small details about the ‘pitiless, inhumane murder’ and that the death has been a result of ‘violence’, recapturing the reader’s interest. Instead of explaining, Dickens describes the ‘black veil’s’ features, which are presented in a glance at her ‘deadly pale’, once ‘handsome’ face. The identity of the veiled woman had been a continuous mystery throughout the tale, and now the readers are being told information which increases the tension as their priorities have changed. They want to know about the murder. Dickens increases the tension as the readers now are wondering about how the woman’s ‘sorrow and weeping’ had come about and her ‘accumulation of misery’, the events in her life which left her with ‘an unnatural fire in her eye’.
The tension peaks as the woman sums up the final mystery of the story, that the deceased is in fact ‘(her) son!’. Dickens uses the woman in the ‘black veil’, which the readers would sympathise with, in order to voice his own opinions on the death penalty and the British justice system in his era. By using emotive words like ‘butcher’s marks’ and ‘inhumanly’ he evokes the reader’s emotions, in order to show the damage to a completely innocent woman that this punishment (that was unfair to the other criminal) results in, being uncivilised and life destroying. Similarly to Collins’ ending, Dickens briefly sums up events in another authorial interjection, an overview of the story detailing the literal ‘plunge’ of the ‘poor, friendless creature’s’ son into ‘a career of dissipation and crime’. It explains how the moral that it is branded with, fits the didactic tale that he has written. The doctor is portrayed as a philanthropic person, like Mr and Mrs Knifton within Collins’ tale, as he cares for the lower class woman with compassion. The moral is subtly presented to the Victorian audience, as it follows religious teachings highlighting how the doctor’s compassion, and ‘pecuniary donations’, were repaid to him a ‘thousand-fold’. The story ends with the title ‘The Black Veil’ just as ‘The Black Cottage’ does, so must have been a respected way of ending a Victorian tale.
Within ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ the occurrence that ends the tale is when ‘New Year’s day had come at last’ and after a ‘great and violent noise (had been) heard’ as well as ‘moans and wailings on the hill-side’, the final climax begins. The readers are already tense after Gaskell has dropped the hints which warn the reader of the supernatural, rendering the readers ‘frightened’ for Hester and Miss Rosamond’s safety. Dorothy, whose purpose within the story is to supply information, had just warned Hester of most of the background information about ‘a dead child’ which increases the reader’s apprehension. The supernatural had begun to play a bigger part within the story, as ‘the old lord was playing wilder and wilder than ever’ and the pace of the story begins to increase as his playing is ‘wild’, much like the whole setting of the ‘wild park’ in the story. The ‘gusts shook the windows’ leaving the house seeming insecure and Hester and the readers feel that she is vulnerable, as the wind was ‘rising and howling’, and becoming very extreme, like the Furnivall’s very extreme emotions. The direct speech used makes the situation seem more real to the readers, as they feel like they are hearing the exclamations themselves, like when Rosamond explains about ‘the lady below the holly trees; and (her) little girl is with her’. The readers here feel that they are in this situation, hearing Miss Rosamond explain. Miss Grace’s exclamation is short, to echo her surprise at what she was hearing, increasing the tension with her short, and direct sentences, which the readers quickly understand and become fearful of;
‘ “I hear voices!” said she. “I hear terrible screams-I hear my father’s voice!” ’
This increases the tension, as the past invades the present. Only Miss Grace has the ability to hear the Furnivall’s ‘phantoms,’ until Hester’s ‘darling (was) weakened with a sudden start’. These short, sudden sentences reflect the sudden shock of these ‘ghastly’ ‘moans’. The direct speech also increases the panic that Miss Rosamond feels, and is also scattered with exclamation marks to increase the tension;
‘Hester! I must go! My little girl is there!’
Noise is used effectively within ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ to increase tension, as the ‘wild’ ‘organ’ and the direct speech voice the character’s opinions. As the readers should feel empathetic toward the characters, they feel the same horror that Hester feels, and the same love for ‘Rosy-Posy’ which is leading Hester to be over-protective. She is beginning to believe in strange and unnatural things- which the readers are led to believe in also due their empathy with Hester, increasing the tension enormously.
Following this, Gaskell uses a small taster of supernatural activity as ‘the bronze chandelier seemed all alight’, yet strangely ‘the hall was dim’ and the ‘fire was blazing’ yet ‘it gave no heat’, which seems strange and suggests that more horror is to come. This contrasts with the beginning of ‘The Black Veil’ and ‘The Black Cottage’ where the ‘fire’ was ‘cheerful’ and ‘comforting’ yet now within ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ Gaskell is using the fire to create an eerie atmosphere, and build the tension.
As the story becomes more and more tense, Gaskell uses many violent adjectives like ‘thundering’ and each adjective is much more powerful to increase the tension as the supernatural is more real. Again, Gaskell ends her tale with a moral, which the story has influenced and that her Victorian readers can relate to their own life. Gaskell sums up the story with another overview, like Dickens and Collins did in their story, except that Gaskell doesn’t slip out of Hester’s role and report the occurrences but uses direct speech to voice her very subtle moral;
‘ “What is done in youth can never be undone in age!”.’
The direct speech used here makes the moral seem like it applies more to real life, as Gaskell has continuously used direct speech to bring the situation to life, in the eyes of the reader.
Personally, I feel that this ending to Gaskell’s tale successfully manages to draw the readers into every word which the heroine of this amazing tale, Hester, archaically presents. The suspense is continuously increased throughout the tense tale up to the superb climax, making the readers feel as though they are there, being quite chilling and Gothic. The beginning of this story is quite confusing though, I felt, and the best beginning out of the three tales studied was Dickens’ ‘The Black Veil’. This immediately begins working on the tension and suspense, rather than beginning the whole family history. I felt like this presented its themes clearly and maintained them throughout as well as adding to the tension in the long run, and building in a few small anticlimaxes throughout, in order to engage the reader. Even so, I feel it is based too heavily on the moral and it felt like the story wasn’t meant to entertain. The nameless doctor didn’t appear personalised enough to draw you into the story, as ‘The Black Cottage’s’ narrator did. The female, resolute character of Bessie was the best character within the three stories, I feel, as she was brave, role model material, yet personable too. It seemed like she wasn’t too perfect to be unrealistic, and so made me favour Bessie’s adventure in Collins’ tale, which constantly kept you enthralled by the tremendous story with its regular leaps in tension and suspense.
