Sarah Walters’ gothic novel, “The Little Stranger” is a thrilling psychological horror. Through this bizarre novel, numerous uncanny events happened to the Ares family. Readers are engaged in this journey through the eyes and thoughts of Dr. Faraday. In the end, the Ares family, including their dog, were taken from society. I selected the uncanny scene on page 492, in chapter fourteen. This scene was important to the book as a whole and raised questions about the hundreds ghost and the Ares family. Betty the housemaid articulates events from this scene. Betty shares her recollection of the night Caroline committed suicide. This scene illustrates to readers that the ghost of Hundreds Hall is dangerous and causes a great deal of violence. I started
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Was Caroline really suicidal, or was the ghost the cause of her death? We are taught who Caroline is through the first half of the novel. Her suicide came at a great astonishment in this chapter. This scene is extremely scary for the typical reader, I cannot imagine how frightening it would be for Betty and Dr. Faraday. This scene is very important to this book as a whole because, it raises the question of how much the ghost actually effected the Ares Family. In this scene, Betty states her side of the story and no one, including us, has any idea what to think about it. Betty begins by telling how she and Caroline were having a normal evening packing boxes. Betty and Caroline became tired from so many chores, that they went to bed early. The next thing Betty remembers is waking up to the sound of Caroline moving about. Betty investigates the noise and witnessed Caroline’s body …show more content…
Faraday immediately turns to logical reasoning behind this bazar event? Dr. Faraday states his opinion on the matter just minutes after finding out about Caroline’s suicide. He says” I mean, as to how exactly Caroline died. The post-modem might shed some light on it. There might have been some kind of seizure, who knows? People are bound to assume the worst, but it was probably an ordinary accident, and we’ll simply never know for sure what happened.”(Waters 493) Through this novel Dr. Faraday witnesses a copious amount of evidence of a haunting, but he still chooses to believe logical reasoning. I found some more background information into the past of Dr. Faraday and it turns out he once had a similar patient. Dr. Faraday once had a patient that killed his wife because he was mentally insane. This former patient went into the mental hospital and eventually became well. This could be a cause of his logical thinking behind everything. This also makes me think, Dr. Faraday wasn’t thinking logically, but reasonably. In the end all the Are’s family members became infatuated with the idea of Hundreds Hall being haunted. All these characters started off normal and became mentally ill. Dr. Faraday knew the Are’s family better than anyone else. There has to be some kind of reason why he would state that the whole family became mentally ill under his close supervision. Like Dr. Faraday said, I guess we will never know for sure
Was Caroline really suicidal, or was the ghost the cause of her death? We are taught who Caroline is through the first half of the novel. Her suicide came at a great astonishment in this chapter. This scene is extremely scary for the typical reader, I cannot imagine how frightening it would be for Betty and Dr. Faraday. This scene is very important to this book as a whole because, it raises the question of how much the ghost actually effected the Ares Family. In this scene, Betty states her side of the story and no one, including us, has any idea what to think about it. Betty begins by telling how she and Caroline were having a normal evening packing boxes. Betty and Caroline became tired from so many chores, that they went to bed early. The next thing Betty remembers is waking up to the sound of Caroline moving about. Betty investigates the noise and witnessed Caroline’s body …show more content…
Faraday immediately turns to logical reasoning behind this bazar event? Dr. Faraday states his opinion on the matter just minutes after finding out about Caroline’s suicide. He says” I mean, as to how exactly Caroline died. The post-modem might shed some light on it. There might have been some kind of seizure, who knows? People are bound to assume the worst, but it was probably an ordinary accident, and we’ll simply never know for sure what happened.”(Waters 493) Through this novel Dr. Faraday witnesses a copious amount of evidence of a haunting, but he still chooses to believe logical reasoning. I found some more background information into the past of Dr. Faraday and it turns out he once had a similar patient. Dr. Faraday once had a patient that killed his wife because he was mentally insane. This former patient went into the mental hospital and eventually became well. This could be a cause of his logical thinking behind everything. This also makes me think, Dr. Faraday wasn’t thinking logically, but reasonably. In the end all the Are’s family members became infatuated with the idea of Hundreds Hall being haunted. All these characters started off normal and became mentally ill. Dr. Faraday knew the Are’s family better than anyone else. There has to be some kind of reason why he would state that the whole family became mentally ill under his close supervision. Like Dr. Faraday said, I guess we will never know for sure