Whistle and I'll Come to You part 2

Whistle and I'll Come to You

From The Woman in Black

Part 2

Recap

• Susan Hill uses atmosphere and background to create suspense

• The tension builds throughout the text but is also cut at times

• First person narration (narrator: Arthur Kipps)

• Death-related vocabulary

• Imagery

• Gothic elements: isolated location, stormy weather, paranormal activity, rational protagonist

Recap

• It is night-time and the wind is blowing hard

• Arthur Kipps, staying at Eel Marsh House, hears a cry

• He tries to be rational about the situation he is in

• He tries to comfort himself

• Spider (a dog) is with him

• He feels someone's presence

Multiple Choice

l.35 "And the person who had gone by, and who was now in the house with me?"

What technique is used here?

• assonance

• rhetorical question

• complex sentence

• personification

Multiple Choice

l.35 "And the person who had gone by, and who was now in the house with me?"

What is the effect of this rhetorical question?

• It shows Arthur Kipps is not very bright.

• It shows he is going crazy because he thinks another 'person' is there.

• It shows uncertainty as he questions whether there really is 'a person' there.

• It shows he doesn't know where his guest went.

Multiple Select

"I had seen no one, felt nothing. There had been no movement, no brush of a sleeve against mine, no disturbance of the air, I had not even heard a footstep."

What do the negative words show?

• They show Arthur's disbelief at the situation.

• They show Arthur's lack of intelligence.

• They show Arthur was not very aware of his surroundings.

• They show Arthur's uncertainty at the situation.

Multiple Choice

"I had seen no one, felt nothing. There had been no movement, no brush of a sleeve against mine, no disturbance of the air, I had not even heard a footstep."

What does this juxtapose?

• Arthur's bed in the nursery

• The cry

• Spider following him

• The stormy weather

Multiple Choice

"Down the short narrow corridor that led to the nursery whose door had been so firmly locked and now, inexplicably, opened."

What does this link back to?

• Arthur's bed in the nursery

• The cry

• Spider following him

• The stormy weather

Open Ended

"For a moment, I actually began to conjecture that there was indeed someone - another human being - living here in this house, a person who hid themselves away in that mysterious nursery and came out at night to fetch food and drink and to take the air."

Susan Hill uses a lot of non-specific nouns and pronouns in this text, like the highlighted words above. Can you find any other in what we have read so far? Quote as many as you can find.

Open Ended

What effect do these non-specific nouns and pronouns have?

"Perhaps it was the woman in black?"

• Link to title of the novel

• Eponymous: when a person is named after something

• Rhetorical question is immediately rationalised away with the next rhetorical question: "Had Mrs Darblow harboured some reclusive old sister or retainer, had she left behind her a mad friend that no one had known about?"

"My brain span all manner of wild, incoherent fantasies as I tried desperately to provide a rational explanation for the presence I had been so aware of. But then they ceased. There was no living occupant of Eel Marsh House other than myself and Samuel Daily's dog. Whatever it was about, whoever I had seen, and heard rocking, and who had passed me by just now, whoever had opened the locked door was not 'real'. No. But what was 'real'? At that moment I began to doubt my own reality."

• Description of thoughts and feelings

• Non-specific nouns and pronouns create a sense of isolation

• Rationality kicks in

• Tension > Arthur Kipps is descending into madness

Open Ended

From lines 52 to 57 (11th paragraph), find the verbs that create the impact of Arthur's confusion.

Multiple Choice

How is Arthur feeling at this time?

• Panicked

• Confused

• Mesmerised

• Excited

Multiple Select

"crawling about on my hands and knees"

What effect(s) does this phrase have?

• It links Arthur to the child whose cry he hears/

• It makes him seem vulnerable, like a child.

• It shows his movements.

• It shows how he is trying to find the torch.

Open Ended

"No light came on. The torch had broken."

What technique is used here, and what is its effect?

Open Ended

"No light came on. The torch had broken."

What symbolism can be seen here?

"For a moment I was as near to weeping tears of despair and fear, frustration and tension, as I had ever been since my childhood. But instead of crying I drummed my fists upon the floorboards, in a burst of violent rage, until they throbbed.

It was Spider who brought me to my senses by scratching a little at my arm and then by licking the hand I streched out to her. We sat on the floor together and I hugged her warm body to me, glad of her, thoroughly ashamed of myself, calmer and relieved, while the wind boomed and roared without, and again and again I heard that child's terrible cry borne on the gusts towards me."

• The climax

• Arthur Kipps' emotional state is described (note the pairs of words)

• The resolution (for now...)

• The imagery and atmosphere at the end indicate there is more to come

Open Ended

Find as many quotations as you can in three minutes that link to the theme of isolation.

Open Ended

Find as many quotations as you can in three minutes that link to the theme of the supernatural.

Open Ended

Find as many quotations as you can in three minutes that link to the theme of fear.

Open Ended

Find as many quotations as you can in three minutes that link to the theme of a sense of the past.

Open Ended

Type any questions you have about this text here.