“How, then, am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily--how calmly I can tell you the whole story.” The stories, “The Landlady,” by Roald Dahl, and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” by Edgar Allan Poe, each show suspense in different ways. Suspense is simply tension between the reader and anticipation for what will happen next. In the Landlady, a seventeen year old boy, named Billy Weaver, enters a motel named, Bed and Breakfast, he wanted a nice cheap hotel. The seemingly innocent land lady, who is the only worker running the motel, seems to be holding a secret from Billy. As the night moves on, Billy becomes suspicious about the previous guests of the Bed and Breakfast. The land lady seems more diabolical as Billy starts to unwind what is happening
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Diction, essentially, is word choice. Suspense expressed through diction is found throughout Dahl’s short story, “The Landlady” and Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart.” As portrayed in Dahl’s short story, “The Landlady,” “’How old are you, my dear?’ she asked. ‘Seventeen.’ ‘Seventeen!’ she cried. ‘Oh, it’s the perfect age! Mr. Mulholland was also seventeen. But I think he was a trifle shorter than you are, in fact I’m sure he was, and his teeth weren’t quite so white.’“ Dahl uses past tense in order to make the reader infer that Mr. Mulholland was murdered, hence creating suspense. Words like, “was,” and, “weren’t quite so,” help show past tense in this quote. Likewise, in Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “…I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or grief--oh no!--it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe…All in vain; because Death, in approaching him, had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel--although he neither saw nor heard--to feel the presence of my head within the room.” According to the evidence provided, the old man is terrified because of the use of phrases like, “enveloped,” “mortal terror,” “soul,” and “overcharged with awe.” These words help understand the fear of the old man, thus creating suspense. The diction in these stories help spawn suspense, similar to
Diction, essentially, is word choice. Suspense expressed through diction is found throughout Dahl’s short story, “The Landlady” and Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart.” As portrayed in Dahl’s short story, “The Landlady,” “’How old are you, my dear?’ she asked. ‘Seventeen.’ ‘Seventeen!’ she cried. ‘Oh, it’s the perfect age! Mr. Mulholland was also seventeen. But I think he was a trifle shorter than you are, in fact I’m sure he was, and his teeth weren’t quite so white.’“ Dahl uses past tense in order to make the reader infer that Mr. Mulholland was murdered, hence creating suspense. Words like, “was,” and, “weren’t quite so,” help show past tense in this quote. Likewise, in Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “…I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or grief--oh no!--it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe…All in vain; because Death, in approaching him, had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel--although he neither saw nor heard--to feel the presence of my head within the room.” According to the evidence provided, the old man is terrified because of the use of phrases like, “enveloped,” “mortal terror,” “soul,” and “overcharged with awe.” These words help understand the fear of the old man, thus creating suspense. The diction in these stories help spawn suspense, similar to