Comparing The Superstitious Man's Story And The Call

Comparing The Superstitious Man's Story And The Call

Iam comparing the two stories, The Superstitious Man written by Thomas

Hardy and The Call written by Robert Westall.

The Superstitious Man's story is narrated by a third person. We don't

actually find out much about the narrator because not much is

mentioned. However in The Call the story is narrated by the

rota-secretary of the local Samaritans.

Tension in The Superstitious Man is built up in many ways in the

story, when Betty finishes her ironing she decides to go up to their

chamber but to her great surprise, on reaching the foot the staircase

she sees Williams boots, standing in the same place as they always

stood, when he had gone to bed. Then going up the staircase and

entering the chamber, she found William in bed sleeping as sound as a

rock. By now Betty was confused and couldn't quite work out what had

gone off. She wonders now how William could have got back again with

out her seeing or hearing him, this was beyond her comprehension.

Further on in the story Betty, walking down Longpuddle Street met Jim

Wardle's daughter Nancy. As they were both talking Nancy started

telling Betty about what she saw on midsummer's Eve, when she went to

church porch she told Betty that it is believed that the ghosts of the

people entering the church and not returning are those who are going

to die within the year. But those who enter and are seen returning are

those who get over their illness. Betty finds out that it was William

who Nancy saw going into the church and not returning and say's "And

he didn't come out of church again: I knew it as well as you." From

what Betty say's we ...

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...ead Meg and Geoff into the river so they both

could die a tragic death like she had and this also would lead to the

breaking up of Meg and Geoff's relationship.

Both of the stories have tragic endings. In The Superstitious Man's

story William dies at the end. "William did not wake…John went up and

shook him, and found that he was dead." In The Call Harry Lancaster a

good friend of Geoff died in his sleep. "Harry Lancaster died

peacefully in his sleep."

Overall I think that both of the stories were great because they are

different to general ghost stories. Out of both of the stories I likes

The Superstitious Man's story the best, it really gets you thinking of

how William got up to the chamber with out Betty seeing him, but

towards the end of the story you find out that William is going to die

within the year.