Authors Treatment of Fate and the Supernatural in Short Stories Written Before 1914 :: Short Stories Yellow Wallpaper Lost Hearts Essays

Authors Treatment of Fate and the Supernatural in Short Stories indite Before 1914Using a selection of short stories written to begin with 1914, comp ar andcontrast their authors treatment of sight and/or the witching(prenominal)I understand the term supernatural to be an event or macrocosm that isabnormal in some way and for which there is no keen-witted explanation.Although traditionally the supernatural is confined to phantasmalbeings, such as ghosts, I perceive it to have a much wider meaning. Iwill be investigating how certain writers of short stories view thesupernatural and how they adapt it into their stories. The authors Iwill be looking at in this essay are M.R.James, Thomas stouthearted andCharlotte Perkins Gilman their stories, Lost Hearts The Withered Armand yellowish Wallpaper, respectively. I will be focussing mostly onthe supernatural in this essay, but will also investigate the questionof fate briefly. Fate is the suggestion that all events happen for areason , and that there is a greater power watching over us.Both these subjects are ones that greatly interested the Victorians,the era in which these stories are written. They were especiallyintrigued by the spiritual world, and the upper classes held sances,attempting to contact the dead. This preoccupation with thesupernatural, and indeed fate, is one that emerges repeatedly in theseshort stories.The first story that I will be looking at is The Withered Arm byThomas Hardy. Hardys style was very progressive for the time, butalso far-right conservative, even, in certain aspects. His storieshave a preoccupation with fate and the inevitableness of death.The main supernatural aspect is the vision of Mrs Lodge that Rhodasees. The vision taunts her, and Rhoda retaliates by grabbing its arm.The vision appears sitting on her knocker whilst she is in bed The hug of Mrs Lodges individual became heavier, and yet is not MrsLodge as she should be But the features were shockingly distorted,and wr inkled as by age. Although Rhoda stinker feel its presence, it isextremely strange that it should be sitting on her chest in the middleof the night, and it is undoubtedly a vision or a distortion of adream. Harding even describes it as a spectre. This is further substantiate by its sudden disappearance, She looked on the floorwhither she had whirled the spectre, but there was secret code to beseen. The whole story really revolves around the actions of thespectre or vision, and this is the definite supernatural element inthe story. Later on however, both(prenominal) women go to see a ConjurerTrendle, and Mrs Lodge sees the face of the person who cursed her in