Susan Hill keeps the reader guessing by not telling the whole story but breaking it down and uncovering little pieces at a time and making you wait to read the whole story to uncover the real truth. An example of this is when Mr. Kipps is taking Spider for a walk around the gravestones and it only shows ‘in L…g Mem…., …net Drablow, …190……’ this shows the audience that someone has to have died and it is relevant to the story but the audience does not know how it is relevant till a couple of chapters ahead and then they start to piece what the worn out gravestone reads. When Mr Kipps hears the ‘shout (and) a terrified sobbing’ this makes the reader want to know whom the sobbing is from. Hill uses this to keep you guessing right to the end, she also repeats the epic of the pony and trap later on to add to the effect and to remind the reader of it. Arthur Kipps also finds three death certificates, two of the people who mentioned in the death certificates drowned in the marshes and one of them wasted away. This gives clues and relates to the grave that was found before. This keeps the audience in suspense not knowing who the characters are and them wanting to know. In Eel Marsh House there is one locked door in the whole of the house, in the middle of the night you can hear a sound coming from this locked door which is locked from the inside. This makes the audience anticipate what is on the other side. Hill makes it so that the reader wants to read on to discover what’s behind the door and all the secrets of it. Susan Hill makes her plot so that we do not know what is quite going to happen next and is unpredictable, she give clues during her novel subtly so that the audience can not quite realise what’s happening until everything is pieced together.
Hill uses the sense of place as one of her main criteria. In The Woman In Black she uses a simple setting in the countryside and adds a twist. The house that Mr. Kipps has to go to is isolated from the rest of the town and you cannot pass at certain times during the day. This is strange because it means once you are there you are trapped so you can not escape because of the tide and the ‘sea frets’ this suggests that something strange is going to happen because it can change the scene into something that was peaceful to hectic. It develops that something strange is about to happen, because in her novel every time the ‘frets’ are up something bad does happens and the Woman In Black appears. Hill sets the area in a happy, bustling town, this makes it seem more catastrophic because you know something bad is going to happen, but you do not want it to happen to the colourful town. Hill picks this area because it is so ordinary. When Mr. Kipps and Mr. Jerome were walking down he saw ‘men draw back from (him) slightly and fell silent’ this shows that, that busy market place had gone solemn this give the audience a strange idea about Mrs. Drablow and why the people were quiet when they walked past.
Hill’s uses the first person so that the audience can feel closer and be in the same position as Arthur Kipps when he encounters everything in his journey. He describes his meeting with the Woman In Black that he ‘felt an indescribable repulsion of fear.’ This describes the unbearable fear that he felt with encountering the Woman In Black. The words ‘indescribable repulsion’ suggests that he was so frightened and horrified he could not contain his fear. By saying that the audience can use these words and feel them themselves. Hill shows Kipps expressing his feelings to the audience and lets us know how he feels every second by saying ‘(he) felt a second of pure despair’ this let the audience know how he was feeling at that exact moment, both of these quotes are typical in a ghost story for their chilling feelings about what is happening that and Susan Hill grasps that and lets the audience feel the fear themselves through the character of Arthur Kipps.
Hill’s use of the importance of children makes the reader feel more terrified because it has an innocent child murdered. Hills present the death of the children so that the reader can digest and feel the same as the parent of the child. When describing the ghost-like children in the graveyard Hills describes them as ‘ a row of pale, solemn faces’, this indicates to audience the death-like children. The word ‘solemn’ suggests that the children were sombre which is quite the opposite of how children should be. The word ‘pale’ also suggests to the reader that the children were sick and ill. Hills uses the same word when describing Mr. Jerome’s reaction to Kipps talking about the Woman In Black he ‘looked frozen (and) pale.’ Hills use a child as a psychological tool to make the reader feel distressed about the child. Hill makes the reader capture this feeling by saying ‘another cry, a shout a terrified sobbing ……… but with horror (he) realised ……it came from a child, a young child.’ Hill uses this to make us feel the hard pain that the child was going through and says ‘cry’ in another two ways to make the reader feel the trauma. It suggests when Kipps says ‘child, a young child’ it shows the reader that even Kipps can not believe the child by repeating this it is giving emphasis on the child in pain and agony. Having someone being hurt uncontrollably and being tortured mentally is typical of a ghost story.
Susan Hill incorporates many different techniques of typical writing for ghost novels. She does this by using atmosphere to enhance the effect of the daunting ghost story; she uses the plot to keep the reader interested and prediction. She uses the sense of place to make an ordinary place strange and haunted without giving anything away, she uses the first person narrative so that the reader can get closer to Arthur and interoperate his feeling easier, she uses the children to add effect and to make the story have a twist and make the reader experience the fear of the adults towards the Woman In Black.
Overall I think that Susan Hill interprets all these points incredibly well and I think that she uses all of the points of a typical ghost story but adds a fresh sense of fear.
