I think that both texts make use of the ordinary and the
possible building to the bizarre and unusual in terms of suspense techniques. Each text
has a lead up to the murder in ordinary domestic circumstances that are capitalized on
by the killers. Each text takes a basic area of vulnerability the reader could
experience and then extends that fear to a terrifying
conclusion.
The narrator in The Tell Tale
Heart tells us he is mad when reflecting on the events of the story, but we
can believe that his behaviour towards his victim would have appeared normal in the lead
up to the crime. He tells us that he liked the old man, but his calm observation of the
old man with the ‘vulture eye’ becomes a sinister possibility that could have involved
many of the readership of the time. Being observed whilst asleep is a latent fear that
many readers could have.
Similarly, Norman Bates appears
calm and gentle, if a little diffident. His entry into the motel room and his stabbing
of Marion is a credible, if unpleasant, scene. As with Poe’s story, the shock of the
shower scene is its credibility given the characters involved. The violation of privacy
that Marion experiences is another latent fear – the stabbing just compounds the
terror.
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