Famous professor Mason Cooley once stated, “ Suspense combines curiosity with fear and pulls them up a rising slope.” Based on the words of Mason Cooley, suspense has many parts to it. Blending together fear and curiosity helps create a certain feeling in the reader. The readers are discovering piece by piece what is happening within the story. With curiosity and fear, the reader is taken on an adventure, but adding the elements of suspense creates all the more excitement. Due to these reasons, authors incorporate the feeling of suspense in their stories in many ways. In both “ The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Landlady,” the authors use multiple elements of suspense such as, foreshadowing, grim humor, unreliable narrator, and cliffhangers.
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As Mr.Weaver entered the house, the reader instantaneously felt a feeling of suspense due to the foreshadowing used by the author. Specifically, the landlady states, “But I’m always ready. Everything is always ready day and night in this house just on the off chance that an acceptable young gentleman will come along” ( Dahl). The landlady stating this adds suspense to the story because it makes the reader wonder if she has done something like this before. It adds the feeling that something bad will happen to Mr.Weaver because people aren't usually waiting for an “acceptable” gentleman. Other people just want money no matter who stays at there house. Readers will be edging to see what will happen to Mr.Weaver throughout the rest of the story. At the very end of the story, the author leaves the reader with a suspenseful ending by not giving the reader a clear cut answer to all there question. In the text, the narrator describe the landlady as, “Holding her teacup high in one hand, inclining her head slightly to the left, she looked up at him out of the corners of her eyes and gave him another gentle little smile. ‘“No, my dear,”’ she said. “‘Only you’” ( Dahl ). This conveys the use of suspense because it leaves the reader wondering what happened to Mr.Weaver. The reader is left there with a ton of unanswered question. They are uncertain of what exactly happened to him, which keeps them pondering. Therefor, Roald Dahl adds suspense into the story “ The Landlady,” by using foreshadowing and
As Mr.Weaver entered the house, the reader instantaneously felt a feeling of suspense due to the foreshadowing used by the author. Specifically, the landlady states, “But I’m always ready. Everything is always ready day and night in this house just on the off chance that an acceptable young gentleman will come along” ( Dahl). The landlady stating this adds suspense to the story because it makes the reader wonder if she has done something like this before. It adds the feeling that something bad will happen to Mr.Weaver because people aren't usually waiting for an “acceptable” gentleman. Other people just want money no matter who stays at there house. Readers will be edging to see what will happen to Mr.Weaver throughout the rest of the story. At the very end of the story, the author leaves the reader with a suspenseful ending by not giving the reader a clear cut answer to all there question. In the text, the narrator describe the landlady as, “Holding her teacup high in one hand, inclining her head slightly to the left, she looked up at him out of the corners of her eyes and gave him another gentle little smile. ‘“No, my dear,”’ she said. “‘Only you’” ( Dahl ). This conveys the use of suspense because it leaves the reader wondering what happened to Mr.Weaver. The reader is left there with a ton of unanswered question. They are uncertain of what exactly happened to him, which keeps them pondering. Therefor, Roald Dahl adds suspense into the story “ The Landlady,” by using foreshadowing and