Suspense

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By creating a situation in which something might happen, the audience anticipates danger. There are multiple factors that may help create this feeling. Whether it’s thrilling music or a prolonged reveal, it all means the same thing to the audience - something bad is about to happen.



The Wife's Story

In The Wife's Story, the author creates suspense by withholding detail and disguising descriptions. In the setting of the story is in the woods, the story does not state where it is specifically. The storyteller is the wife, when she describes her husband he was described normal loving, wonderful father and great partner, when the wife and husband got married, the wife realized after a while, that her husband gets out of bed in the middle of the night and leaves and then returns with a funny, gross, disgusting smell, as if he rolled around in dirt or something to get that smell. The smell would linger for days even after he bathe. One day, after returning, his daughter took notice of him and becomes afraid. The next time the moon changed, his wife finally saw what was happening. When he stood in the open, his fur fell away, revealing a pale, fleshy human where once a proud, handsome wolf has stood. After seeing this his wife cried out, howling in fear. Hearing her cries, the rest of the pack came and quickly hunted him down. As he lay dead, his wife watched his body, waiting for it to transform back into her husband, but instead his body remained motionless as a lifeless human body growing cold on the ground.

Jekyll and Hyde

So far in the story we have seen many examples of suspense. The author creates suspense by keeping the audience on their toes. The events that unravel in the story always keep us wondering what is going to happen next. The detail, or the lack there of, the author uses to arise questions out of the readers keeps it interesting. In the story, Utterson is always suspecting of something, which in turn, causes us to question the smallest of details. Because of Utterson's questioning nature, we know that all the little details are going to lead up to something big. Knowing we have to wait for the big reveal is what keeps the suspense alive.

The Phantom Coach

At the beginning of the story we can already see some suspense. A man gets lost on the way back to his house and he gets worried that his wife will be concerned that he won't make it home. On the way back home, he comes across a desolate house and decide to go in for a rest, he is freezing and hungry. He gets invited in but the host is very odd. He's obviously the only visitor they've had around those parts for a while. After having a bit of scram he decides he really has to make a move. The host tells him that if he hurries up he will be able to get on a coach that is due soon. The host then tells him about a horrific crash that happened a few years back involving the coach he is about to catch. The butler helps him most of the way across the moor to the coach stop, then turns back to his grumpy master's house. By a bridge, the man notices that part of the railing has gone. Then the coach turns up and he gets in. When he's in the coach, he thinks that things are pretty bizarre as his fellow passengers do not talk. Then he realizes that the coach is all moldy and his fellow journeymen are actually rotting corpses. He wakes up in hospital, having survived a coach crash. He has no idea whether it was all a dream. His wife is very relieved.

The Tell-Tale Heart

In this story, suspense is introduced in the very beginning. The story starts very abruptly with the narrator speaking on an event the readers are not yet aware of. This opening already has the reader on their toes, wondering what the narrator may be talking about. As the narrator goes on to tell the story, he prolongs the reveal. This adds to the feeling of suspense the readers may already have. In the story, the narrator, also being the main character, plots to murder his old friend because of the epiretinal membrane, or "filmy eye", he possesses. The narrator tells us that the old man's eye is what provoked him to commit such a heinous act. After the deed is done, the murderer feels relieved and confident in his wrong-doing. Even as policemen knock on the door, he is not worried. He invites them in the house to sit and converse with them. This again arises suspense because now the readers are wondering if the policemen are going to configure what had happened in the old man's house. As the murderer and policemen chat, the murderer himself begins to act paranoid. He is certain that he hears the old man's heart beating through the floorboard in which he buried him, and he is absolutely certain that his guests can hear it too. Not too soon after this "realization", he erupts. He admits to killing the old man, thus relieving the suspenseful feeling in the readers.

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Suspense is evident in this story when the name AM is mentioned yet we have no clue who, or what, that may be. The name is mentioned when the narrator hints at the audience that this AM character is particularly evil. The story goes on for about thirteen paragraphs before it is made known to us that AM is an it; an invention. AM likes to torment his five prisoners and has been doing so for about a hundred years. Everyday the machine shows his hatred for the human race by putting his prisoners through something horrible and atrocious. Not knowing what the machine has in store for them next keeps the characters in suspense. The most obvious revelation of suspense is the title. What does it mean and what or who is it referring to? At the end of the story, the only character left is punished for managing to kill the other four humans, actually "saving" their lives. The machine punishes him by giving him no eyes, limbs, or mouth; and he so desperately wants to scream.