Past question Arguments & Ideas
significance
Explore the Eel marsh
importance of Crythin Gifford
Monk’s piece/ London
settings London/ Monk’s piece
contrast is used to show
and exaggerate the
isolation and fear/danger
present in Eel house and
CG
Various settings
represent different
themes/ideas/feelings
and influences .e.g. Eel
marsh house represents
fear and threat
Each setting sets the
mood for that
episode.e.g pathetic
fallacy, fog - danger, e.g.
locked doors mean a
secret will eventually be
revealed
How is the belief in It is used to drive the plot
the supernatural of the story, supernatural
seems to increase as plot
significant goes along
It is used to develop the
character of Arthur
Used as a way to destroy
and build confidence in
Arthur.
Novel references Contextual
“A modest house yet sure Gothic - fear, pathetic
of itself” - monk piece fallacy, isolation. Gothic
was very prominent in
“A far flung part of the that time and was used to
world” - Cythin Gifford oppose normal ideal that
were seen as normal
A - Eel marsh house
“Almost in silence...save
for a hissing sound” - eel
“tiny hamlet... tucked
snugly into a bend of the
river below, white walls
basking in the afternoon
sunshine" - monk
“And we've a good wild
run of an abbey with a
handsome graveyard—
you can get to it at low
tide." - grifford
Before the young Arthur
Kipps leaves London, the
weather is already
foreboding: “It was, in
all, miserable weather
and lowering to the
spirits in the driest month
of the year”.
"I wouldn't have left you
over the night," he said at
last, "wouldn't have done
that to you."
“I did not believe in
ghosts. What
other explanation was
there?”
“My whole body was
trembling, my
mouth dry, the palms of
my hands
sore where I had dug my
nails...”
“I sat up paralysed,
frozen, in the bed,
 conscious only of the dog
and of the prickling of my
own skin” - These
Used as a way to destroy responses are the
a character confidence beginnings of extreme
fear. This draws out
empathy for the narrator -
we feel afraid with him

Explore the Used to show how “I tried to make light of

importance of fear people will not let it be something that we both
known to others knew was gravely
serious.” Arthur is afraid,
and feels the danger of
going against these
instincts

Used to show the

physiological responses “I sat up paralysed,
to fear frozen, in the bed,
conscious only of the dog
and of the prickling of my
own skin” - These
responses are the
beginnings of extreme
Used to show how fear fear. This draws out
can be used to control empathy for the narrator -
people we feel afraid with him

“She directed the purest

evil and hatred and
loathing, with all the force
that was available to
her”- This energy that
comes from the ghost is
frightening. The rumours
that a child dies every
time she is seen create
the long-term fear that Mr
Jerome, Keckwick and
eventually, Arthur Kipps
experience

How is mystery
created?

Explore the
significance of
mothers in the novel

Explore the
importance of
madness

What is the
significance of Eel
Marsh house?

Mystery:
 ● Use Gothic - "I wouldn't have left you over the night," he said at
last, "wouldn't have done that to you."

● First person - ‘I have told it enough’

● Recollection - ‘I had begun to question my own reality’
● Isolation - “Until the very last second, it seemed that I was to be alone not merely in my
compartment but in the entire train”
● Area of unknown things - nursery, papers, documents, people
● Pastiche of gothic text
● Hill’s own catharsis
● Victorian interest into the gothic + gap in the market for this type of novel
● All adds suspense + pathetic fallacy creates vulnerability and mystery

Mothers:

● Quite significant due to typical nature of mothers

● Contrast with WIB herself
● Ruins the rep of what a mother is
● WIB wants revenge for her child - motherly instinct/emotion
● Mothers significant as they emphasise how much they would do for their child
● Significant as
● ‘I had seen a woman whose form was quite substantial and yet in some essential
respect also, I had no doubt, ghostly.’
● ‘The woman in black seemed to haunt me, even here, to sit on the end of my bed, to
push her face suddenly down close to mine as I lay asleep, so I awoke crying out in
terror.’
● “Mad with grief, mad with anger and a desire for revenge”

● Link to typical roles of women in Edwardian society - typical roles: cooking, cleaning
etc
● Babies were taken away from their mothers due to them being conceived out of
wedlock

Eel Marsh:

● House adds to isolation and other themes - physical representation

● WIB fits in line with the appearance of the house
● Kipps is the prey in the predator’s house
● ‘So pale and gaunt’
● ‘Far-flung part of the world’
● “... never been quite so alone, nor felt quite so small and insignificant in a vast
landscape before...”
● ‘The house felt like a ship at sea, battered by the gale that came roaring across the
open marsh.’

● ‘Gaunt personifies the house adding tension and makes it more eerie, directly
associating it with the WIB
 ● Remote location
● People do not want to go there, some form of supernatural → gothic

Madness:

● Crewates doubt and worry

● Allows readers to sympathise with WIB
● Explains WIB actions in the story
● Exaggerates mental distress arthur has felt from this story

● ‘But what was “real?’’’

● ‘Whether because of her loss and her madness or what, she also contracted a
disease which caused her to begin to waste away.’
● “Her bitterness was understandable, her wickedness...understandable but not
forgivable”
● “They asked for my story. I have told it. Enough.”
●

● To a modern day reader, they can sympathise due to society today

● Contemporary readers would genuinely feel uncomfortable