A Comparison of Susan Hill's The Woman in Black and M.R. James' Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad

The clouded mystery behind a novel’s meaning often makes the work more enjoyable to read. In Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights, there is a mysterious aura which defines every aspect of the story. When understanding the story, the reader cannot look at Weathering Heights simply as a home, but as a necessary and unshakable part of life for the main characters. Critics argue many different theories regarding Weathering Heights and what its central theme is supposed to be interpreted as. Although the critics hold different interpretations of the novel, they all agree on the simple fact that deceit and deception both hold key roles within the story.

Two popular fictions that follow the themes and conventions of gothic fiction are Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Guy de Maupassant’s “The Horla”. Both are short stories that embody most of the conventions that can be associated with stereotypical gothic literary fiction. Both literary works use the deterioration of the human mind and the supernatural phenomenon throughout the story, a commonly used gothic convention. Although both stories are inherently different in aspects like narration, they are both successful in demonstrating the descent of the human intellect from obsessing over the unknown which only leads to self-destruction. Fear is a guiding force in both the short stories and the fixation the main characters with it only leads to their demise.

Although at times it is easy to get carried away with the adventure of a story, noticing the elements a writer has put into his work is very important. In reading “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” you can see both similarities as well as differences of how both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Washington Irving chose to illuminate their romantic writing styles. The writers both use a mystical woodsy setting with supernatural twists to draw in readers. Underlying you will find the differing romantic themes each writer used, as well as how each writer chose to end their work. Each author sets a gothic tone first and foremost by the techniques used to describe setting and characters.

Comparing and Contrasting ‘Interlopers’ by Kaki and ‘Story of an Hour’, by Kate Chopin It is important to note how each individual story is similar and different, because it allows us to understand how the emotions in the book affect us. ‘The Interlopers’ and ‘Story of an Hour’ are two of my favorite short stories. They are both very different, and have their own unique style. They are, also, somewhat similar. This is because the authors of the book are both similar and different, both in their backgrounds and personalities.

In result, an unexplainable bond is created between the characters and the audience. In conclusion, without the blurring of the truth and fiction, the story itself, as a whole, would lose a great amount of value that was abundant throughout the novel. The short fictional story, The Things They Carried, exemplified a wonderful example as to why blurring the lines between truth and fiction strengthens the story larger in meaning. Altogether, O’Brien’s storytelling structure, detailed descriptions, and playful imagery effectively illustrated the qualities that compelled readers to wonder whether or not he was telling a true story. In short, readers were able to recapture the “truth” to this war story through O’Brien’s exaggeration of what actually happened in the Vietnam War.

Jhumpa Lahiri's recently published fictional tome, "The Lowland" yields to a variety of interpretations because of the complexity of its plot and texture that have gone into its shaping imagination .Lahiri has rather intentionally turned her novel into" a tome of many-colored glass" ( to quote Shelley out of context), and leaves everything to the imagination of the circumspect reader to fill in the gaps in the multivalent mosaic of the narrative structure before he arrives at evaluative finality .There are two of the most significant strands that stand out transparently interwoven into the texture of the narrative -the one that deals with , as Lahiri calls elsewhere ," relational autonomy", and the other, the pivotally positined, and intricately melded with , is theme of existentialism. The central characters llike Udayan, Gauri and Subhash, around whom much of the narrative action revolves are meant to exemplify some of the basic tenets of Sartre’s existentialism. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines Existentialism, succinctly , thus: "Existence takes precedence over essence and holds that man is totally free and responsible for his acts, and this responsibility is the source of the dread and anguish that encompasses him". I would like to interpret the novel from two of these important foci which, seemed to me, are the conduits through which one must attempt to disinter the novel’s latent intention .I have a strong feeling that Lahiri intends her narrative to be an intricate oeuvre that turns out to be a challenge to the reader to piece its interests together . The one obvious strand of this multiplex narrative is concerned with interpersonal relationships .Udayan and Subhash are from the typical Bengali f... ... middle of paper ... ...ess”.

The purpose of this paper will be the comparing and contrasting of two short stories previously read and interpreted by the writer. The two stories chosen were “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, and “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell. These two stories seem to have nothing in common, as they have two separate meanings in two separate eras. However, the moral of each story draws similarity, the aut... ... middle of paper ... ...he comparison of the stories they were only link into how the author was portraying the stories to the audience. On the other hand, the differences are quite evident, and a lot more visible while reading both stories.

The sensational novel is usually a tale of our own times. Proximity is indeed one great element of sensation. A tale which aims to electrify the nerves of the reader is never thoroughly effective unless the scene be laid out in our own days and among the people we are in the habit of meeting. In keeping with mid-Victorian themes, Lady Audley’s Secret is closely connected to the street literature and newspaper accounts of real crimes. The crimes in Braddon’s novel are concealed and secret.

The main problem with this story was the inconsistance of the sentences, some sentences were too long while others were very short. The only way to truly fix this story would be to re-write it. The second story I chose to write about is called "Horses of the Night" by Margaret Laurence. I did enjoy reading this short story dipite the fact it seem to jump around alot; it would talk about somthing fairly in-depth then just suddenly jump to a different subject or time-era of the story. The author seem to show very good writing ability however so I think perhaps she did this on purpose either just for somthing different or maybe to give you a break from what she was currently writing about.

Woolf was unlike average writers in her day, Woolf liked to focus on changes in the literature world. Although she was a dark writer, she liked to mix her darkness in with the changes the world was experiencing. Woolf’s famous novels are Mrs. Dalloway, The Lighthouse, A Room of One’s Own, and Orlando. Woolf was born into a family of many literature talents. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephan, was an author of the Dictionary of National Biography.