With Reference to Collins A Terribly Strange Bed and Conan Doyles Essa

With Reference to Collins A Terribly Strange Bed and Conan Doyle's Speckled Band, Discuss How Both Authors Create Mystery and Tension. Although these short stories are fictional and were written in the mid 19th Century they are crime dramas containing stereotypical images of the villains of the time. These include social outcasts such as Dr Roylott and Monsieur Faulkner. Many writers use suspense in their stories in order to excite the reader more and to make them want to turn over to the next page. This is can be done by giving the reader some information, but not enough for him or he to be able to answer the mystery or riddle that they may be trying to solve. 'The Speckled Band' focuses on the Roylott family, of Stoke Moran in Surrey. The family includes twin sisters Julia and Helen Stoner, and their stepfather Dr Grimesby Roylott. The readers' first impression of Helen Stoner is that she is grieving over someone's death, due to her appearance. She is "dressed in black and heavily veiled". The reader is encouraged to feel sympathy for Helen Stoner and anxious to find out who has died and how, as she is clearly in mourning. The simile used to portray her fear and suggests she is weak and vulnerable, maybe even the next victim. "Restless frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal", indicates to the reader how she is being "hunted" like some kind of prey. This assists in building the suspense, as the reader is unaware of the details of the death, it is still a mystery. Conan Doyle's use of nouns, when Helen is speaking, suggests how scared she is. "It is fear, Mr Holmes. It is terror", illustrates that either Helen Stoner is exaggerating the situation, or something terrible has happened to c... ...hen the story would be a complete failure because we would know he survives, yes there would be an adventure but it wouldn't grab the audiences attention and they wouldn't feel involved in the story. Therefore I think both authors go about creating mystery and ttension the best possible way because if they swapped round and Holmes was telling the story then the audience wouldn't want to get involved and the same with "a terribly Strange bed" Both authors create suspense in their own way that in my opinion are as effective as each other but I felt more eager to turn over the page in "The Speckled Band" Also the description of the setting is successful in creating the most suspense, as the use of darkness suggests something is going to happen. We don't find out a lot about the setting in "A Terribly Strange Bed" but it his little relevance to the story.