Another thing that makes an excellent traditional ghost story is the inexplicable happenings and the supernatural events that take place. One example of a supernatural event that occurs in The Woman in Black is the sounds of the pony and trap that Arthur hears whenever he exits Eel Marsh House. He also hears the screams of the child and the thud, thud noises that emanates from the nursery. The first time that Arthur hears the noises he becomes very afraid, “Then my heart lurched as I realized that of course it had not been Keckwick …but someone else, someone with a child, and now they were gone, dead”. This quote shows us that Arthur had become very scared when he found out the truth and the source of the noises that were coming from the Marsh. He realizes that noises weren’t from the present, but were some thing that had happened in the past and was being repeated.
Furthermore, gloomy weather is another factor contributing towards making a traditional ghost story. The weather would usually mirror how any character would be feeling. When this occurs, it is called Pathetic fallacy. An example of this is that nearly all of the times that Arthur enters or is in Eel Marsh House the weather is nearly always gloomy and is mirroring how Arthur feels. But there is an occasion when Arthur is feeling lightened and is in fairly high spirits and the weather again mirror how he feels, “The sun was high in the sky, the water glittering, and everywhere was light.” This shows us that, for once there wasn’t an eerie feel to the place and Arthur did not have any worries about going into Eel Marsh House.
In addition to those points, another factor that contributes toward having a traditional ghost story is that the reader learns of events at the same pace as the protagonist and so the truth is not revealed all at once, but is gradually revealed in stages. One way in which this is shown in the book is when Sam Daily is telling Arthur about the woman in black and he tells him that whenever someone has seen her, a child has died as a result. The reader only learns about this when the protagonist finds out as well and so the reader only learns about these things when the protagonist learns about them.
Another factor that contributes towards making a good traditional ghost story is that there are many cliff-hangers. One example of a cliff-hanger in The Woman in Black is when Arthur is wondering around the graveyard at the back of Eel Marsh House and finds the grave but is unable to read all of it. Another example is when Arthur finds the letters from the person called “J”. This creates an eerie atmosphere as you know that those things are somehow linked to the woman in black, but you don’t know how and so it creates a sense of a sinister atmosphere and suspense.
As well as those points another feature that creates a good ghost story is that the story is told in a first person narrative. The example of the first person narrative in The Woman In Black is that the story is told by the protagonist Arthur. When the story is written in this way it makes that whole story seem more personal and then that in turn makes it more believable. The reader feels more involved in the story and so it becomes more emotional.
There are also certain elements that are necessary for a story to have a ghost story genre. The elements are loss, heartbreak, disease, revenge and all of those elements culminate in death. The example of this in the Woman In Black is the woman in black. The woman in black experienced the loss of her baby and the heartbreak of that loss. Those factors then resulted in disease and then seeking revenge for her loss by making other people lose loved children as well. In this case Arthur lost his baby child after he had been to Eel Marsh House and the same had also happened to many other people such as Samuel Daily. This is one of the key factors as it gives the ghost a reason to be there and a reason to do what she or he does.
The Woman In Black was set in the Victorian era. During this time there was a great absence of religion. In the story there is only one time when anything remotely connected to religion appears and that is at the funeral of Mrs Drablow where they at the church. Victorians were the people who made the ghost story genre very popular. This is because it was around this time that Darwinism came to light and so then they looked towards the supernatural in an effort to understand life and how it works.
