Write down 5 adjectives to describe each character:

The Woman in Black

The Landlord

Keckwick

Jennet Humfrye

Daily

Younger Kipps

Older Kipps

To analyse key quotations in Chapter 1 of The Woman in Black

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Hill

Pick a quotation and answer the question:

How does Hill hook the reader in the first chapter?

Remember to focus on language, structure and form.

• Point and technique• Quotation• Analysis – Extend using ‘because’ and ‘furthermore’• Zoom in• Reader reaction/Author intention

Woman in Black, OMAM Section A, Poetry

Language, Structure Form

RepetitionAdjectives, verbs, adverbsSimiles, metaphorsPersonificationSimple/complex sentencesOnomatopoeiaGothic genre (WIB)Dickensian pastiche (WIB)Frame narrative (WIB)First person narrator (WIB) AlliterationSuperlativeImperativeListEllipsisCaesuraPersonal pronounEnjambement (Poetry)

Extras for Language Exam Q 3, 4 and Section B:

HyperboleAnecdoteFactsOpinionRhetorical QuestionsEmotive languageStatisticsTriplingBiasHumour/SatireExclamations1 words sentences

1. Christmas Eve

Monks Piece – A ‘fertile, and sheltered, part of the country’ p.10

‘a widower’ and ‘prone to occasional nervous illness as a result of experiences I will come to relate.’

‘I was growing old well before my time’

‘I have never been a fanciful man’

‘I would not have wished for anything to ruffle that calm, untroubled sea’

The children ‘telling ghost stories…spoke with excitement and laughter’ ‘piling agony upon agony’ p.18

‘I began to feel set apart from them all, an outsider to their circle’

‘I fought a bitter battle within myself’

Like an old wound, it gave off a faint twinge’ p.22

2. A London Particular

Fog: ‘creeping’, ‘seething like sour breath’, ‘gaining a sly entrance’, ‘a filthy, evil-smelling fog’

‘I was in those days, a sturdy, commonsensical fellow and felt no uneasiness’

Pools of sulphurous yellow light, as from random corners of some circle of the inferno, flared from shops. They rose like flares from the pit.’ ‘boiling caulron’. P.26-27

People in London ‘groping, stumbling, clutching. Sounds were deadened, shapes blurred. It was a menacing and sinister game of Blind Man’s Buff’

3. The Journey NorthI ‘walked with a light step’ to the station. ‘All was cosy and enclosed as some lamplit study’ p.34

‘cheerless rows of empty carriages’ p.35

‘huffing’ engine and ‘bursts of rain, like sprays of light artillery fire, upon the windows’. P.36

‘ I put him down as a farmer’ his ring had a ‘touch of vulgarity’ p.36

‘You’re not going to tell me strange tales?’ ‘He gave me a straight look. ‘No’, he said, at last, ‘ I’m not.’ p.37

Crythin Gifford: ‘We tuck ourselves in with our backs to the wind and carry on with our business’ p.39

4. The Funeral of Mrs Drablow‘Mr Daily gave me a straight, steady stare, and said nothing’ p.40 Landlord: conversational then, on mentioning

the funeral: ‘He turned abruptly in the direction of the bar, ‘I’ll wish you goodnight.’ p41

‘I had the belief that those who inhabited remote corners of our island, were more superstitious, more gullible, more slow witter, unsophisticated and primitive’. P.43

I fell asleep most peacefully, happy and secure as a small child in a nursery.’ p.43

‘the houses huddled together and looked in on themselves. The town tucking itself in with its back to the wind.’ p.45

On the way to the funeral ‘We were the focus of uneasy glances feeling like some pariah’ p.46

4. The Funeral of Mrs Drablow (cont.)

The WIB p.48-50: ‘dressed in the deepest black, suffering from some terrible wasting disease as though she had been a victim of starvation’

‘I bent my head and prayed for the soul of that lonely old woman’ p.50

Children with ‘solemn faces. I smiled at one gently. He did not smile back’. P.51

Mr Jerome looks frozen, pale, his throat moving as if he were unable to utter.’ p.51

‘Much land is useless because it is all marsh’ p.55 (contrast?)

5. Across the Causeway

Nine Lives Causeway: ‘I saw how, when the tide came in, it would quickly be quite submerged and untraceable.’ p.60

Eel Marsh House: Reeds, bleached bone pale as if rising out of the water itself, a tall, gaunt house that gleamed steelily in the light’ ‘It stood like a lighthouse or beacon’. P.60

‘The most astonishingly situated house’ ‘I thought handsome. I was fascinated by it.’ p.60

Her face expressed ‘a desperate, yearning malevolence’. ‘as though she were searching for something she wanted and towards whoever had taken it she directed the purest evil and hatred and loathing’. p.65

‘I determined to follow her, and ask some questions to get to the bottom of it all’ p.66

‘I did not believe in ghosts.’ p.67 & 68

9. In the Nursery ‘Every hair of her body was on end.’ ‘I sat up paralysed, frozen’. P.107

‘a son was born to her and she wrote of him at once with a desperate, clinging emotion’ p.113 When the letters began again ‘it was at

first in passionate outrage and protest, later, in quiet, resigned bitterness’. P.113

He is mine. He shall not go to strangers. I shall kill us both before I let him go.’ p.113

‘Love him, take care of him as your own. But he is mine, mine, he can never be yours. I think my heart will break.’ p.114

In the chest of drawers and wardrobe there were clothes, underclothes, day clothes, formal clothes, play clothes.’ p.120

‘So many toys and all of them most neatly and meticulously cared for.’ p.212

‘I felt drained, exhausted, all the emotions that had poured into me and out again leaving me like something thrown up on a calm beach at the end of a storm’. P.122

10. Whistle and I’ll Come to You

‘The house felt like a ship at sea, battered by the gale that came roaring across the open marsh.’ p.123

I listened hard. Nothing. p.124

The door of the nursery ‘inexplicably opened’. ‘I tried desperately to provide a rational explanation for the presence I had been so aware of.’ p.125

‘I ran as I have never run before, heedless of my own safety, desperate to go to the aid of the brave, bright little creature.’ p.130

11. A Packet of Letters

The nursery was ‘the very heart of the haunting.’ p.138

The nursery ‘was in a state of disarray as might have been caused by a gang of robbers, bent on mad, senseless destruction.’ p.138

Clothes ‘left hanging like entrails from a wounded body.’ ‘the tin Sambo was smashed as by a hammer blow.’ p.138

The rocking chair had been pushed into the centre, to preside, tall-backed and erect, like a great brooding bird, over the wreck.’ p.138

‘I crossed the room to the window, for perhaps the vandals had gained an entry here.’ p.138

Daily: ‘The rest of us have to stay. We’ve to live with it.’ They have to live with ‘whatever will surely follow’. p.147

12. A Woman in Black

‘A puppy was booked for us’ p.154, ‘we were as happy as a young man and his bride may possibly be’, ‘busy and looking forward to the future.’ ‘Stella gave birth to our child.’ p.157

There was a festive, holiday air about the place,’ families strolled in the sunshine, children tumbled about’. p.157/8

‘Then, quite suddenly, I saw her.’ ‘I felt the malevolence and hatred and passionate bitterness. It pierced me through.’ p.158

‘They asked for my story. I have told it. Enough.’ p.160