This week’s homework

Year 11 – in today’s lesson we focused on the genre of the ghost story and Hill’s similarity to Dickens. Your homework is to spend 45 minutes on the following question:

How does Hill use the conventions of the ghost story in the novel? (30 marks)

Below are your ‘group’ genre conventions from today’s lesson. Use them to help you along with your Telegraph Article – Ghost Story Writing and the pointers on your question sheet.

 

 

Well done to the team on the left – cookies coming your way in Thursday’s lesson!

Miss O

More on The Ghost Story Genre

Ghost stories and the appearance of ghosts form a powerful and compelling part of the history of literature and act as a mirror to reflect the fears and paranoia of society. Great ghost stories such as Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw also achieve the feat of seeming to believe in a paranormal malevolent force whilst questioning the sanity and stability of the character who ‘sees’ the ghosts – the unreliable narrator. The power and quality of The Woman in Black is that it is written in adeliberately ‘Victorian’ style while analysing the emotions and reflections of the narrator from a more modern psychological perspective.

Charles Dickens wrote a number of deliberate ‘ghost’ stories for his monthly magazines (specifically  A Christmas Carol) and there are ghostly elements in classics such as Wuthering Heights and the short stories of M.R. James; the Victorian age was very drawn to tales of the supernatural.

 Susan Hill’s inspiration for The Woman in Black  was her love for The Turn of the Screw and notes that she admired ‘how brilliantly James creates the atmosphere of the house called Bly in which it is set’. She set herself the challenge to write a ghost story with the intention of creating something for which there was no ‘straightforward’ explanation or which was inhabited by fantastic creatures or ‘monsters’. The crucial element of a ghost story is a ghost, and this means, as Hill explains it,‘a human being who appears in recognisable form after death and is seen at certain particular times’. She allows herself certain parameters within which to create a ‘classic’ ghost story, the most important of which is the sensible and ordinary nature of the narrator and the sheer plausibility of the tale. The story can be seen as an attempt to exorcise or therapeutically draw this particular ghost from Arthur’s mind and memory: but there is little solace in the final pages. The novel celebrates the Victorian ghost story in the late twentieth century in a style that is perhaps psychological as well as powerfully evocative of atmosphere and place, of cold fear and self-doubt.

Remember to refer to the genre of the ghost story in your essay responses/exam. This shows a clear understanding of the form of the text. I would suggest you make reference to the genre in your introduction therefore showing the examiner that you understand Hill’s aims.

Miss O

The Ghost Story Genre

Click on the image for an interesting article about the ghost story genre. The article make reference to The Others and also The Woman in Black and focuses on key elements of the genre. Remember in the exam it is important to make reference to the novel’s genre to show your understanding of the text as a whole and also Hill’s aims.

Miss O