Anyone who has been in a truly frightening situation—a victim of a crime or a near-death accident—can attest that really, there is nothing fun about being terrified, and traumatic experiences may even lead to long-term psychological pain. So, why is it we all enjoy a good scary story? Even if the average blood-dripping horror film is not your choice entertainment, chances are you once sat passing a flashlight around a circle, sharing the most bone-chilling tales you could imagine—probably some you even claimed were true! There were at least two stories about a menacing hitchhiker. And another where someone ended up hung from a tree.
If you don’t believe that fear “sells” itself, just look at the headlines in the papers. There’s nothing like a disaster to keep us glued to our TVs and radios. Perhaps this more serious form of fear is related to the pleasure we derive from scary stories: in both situations, we are tucked safely in our homes and can give long leash to the deep, primordial parts of our brains that thrive on intense emotion. I can think of no other handy explanation to affix to the eagerness with which we turn the pages of a thriller, even when the shadows in our own little bedroom begin to leap at us.
On that note, in honor of All Hallows Eve, I’d like to share two little ghost stories with you, so that I might make the shadows leap—at least a little—for you. These two stories are quite different, but in more ways I find them similar, especially in their structure, which makes them “classic” ghost stories.
For example, both of these stories utilize a frame, which is a common device. This technique sets us up with a narrator who is going to tell us the “actual” story, usually proclaiming that they don’t pretend to understand it and can only relate what happened to them (or to the person who told them the tale, in the third-party version)—to let the facts stand for themselves, as it were. Presumably, this structure makes the supernatural events seem more credible because they are being related by a witness. In other words, it forces us to approach the story as an “account” rather than as a “story,” as such.
Furthermore, the outside layer acts as a gateway that forces us to come “into” the story in a way that is not necessary when the “real story” starts in the first sentence, the aim being to immerse the reader more deeply in the world of the story through the application of layers. This might make the ghost story have greater impact because it has real impact on the frame story characters. This is similar to the magical effects of the Arabian Nights stories (see the October 17 discussion), which must indeed be something magnificent if they are enough to keep the sultan from executing his command!—i.e., the mystical power the inner story has on the frame characters may be transmitted to us.
Lastly, a frame story sets the stage. Usually, the characters at the beginning will warn us that what we are about to hear is so terrifying it remains indelibly in the mind, often driving the narrator to terrors whenever he thinks of it. Well, in that case, of course we must keep reading!
As mentioned, this frame technique has been used in innumerable ghost stories, from Edgar Allen Poe’s common use of retrospective-first-person narration to Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, where we begin gathered around a fire (as the best ghost stories often do). Perhaps the most complex use of the scary-story-frame I’ve yet seen was achieved by Mark Z. Danielewski in House of Leaves, where our narrator is telling a story that yet another character was attempting to archive (but died in the process—mysteriously, of course), and in the effort of relating events, the outermost frame character is gradually driven mad, apparently approaching a similar fate to his predecessor. There are a lot of remarks that could be made about this eccentric and noteworthy novel, but they are beyond the scope of this post.
As for other similarities between the two ghost stories featured this week, you’ll just have to listen and judge for yourself—though personally, I think it’s in the use of details at just the right moments: The clinging black hairs, for example, or poor Mrs. Bird, washing the dishes all over again…
Read more creepy stories from Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman and Guy de Maupassant online, or else check out your local library or buy something for your home collection:
Freeman's Collected Ghost Stories
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