The Black Veil: How Does Dickens Build the Mood of Mystery in the First Three Pages?

Dickens story ‘The Black Veil’ recounts an unusual meeting leading up to significant events that neither character nor reader perceives up to part of the text due to the mystery of the story. Many techniques were used to implement this effect into the text. The writing style used slowly leads up to the event at the end of the story; this progression doesn’t happen until the latter pages. The reader is slowly immersed into the story through the first three pages. This is achieved by the descriptive narrative in the text, Dickens uses a highly descriptive motion of describing each action the character performs, putting the reader into the characters own perspective. Throughout the start of the story, Dickens is highly descriptive of the atmosphere around the character, without giving any inclination of mysterious events that inevitably happen. The character is in a comfort zone with his dream like state, when this is disrupted so is the reader’s perception of what they think the text is about and what is happening in the text. This gives the reader as much surprise as the viewer, for example when the strange woman appears, it’s surprising for the reader as well and creates the effect of being in the unknown. The structure of the text is much delayed, only revealing a small amount of information at a time, thus making the text full of suspense, causing the reader to carry on reading, slowly revealing information is another aspect of a mystery story and this is a reoccurring feature throughout the text. When the text finally starts to build up events it postpones telling the reader all the information, preventing the reader guessing the outcome of text, it is still not really known what the lady’s real motives are till later on in the text. Dickens successfully creates a mysterious mood to great effect through this text. By submerging the reader in a dark yet vibrant and recognisable environment it allows the reader to associate their own feelings to the text and keep themselves engaged at the same time. Slowly revealing the forthcoming event at each time, also keeps the reader engaged. However this also keeps them guessing whilst reading. The main character’s inexperience and weariness can also relate to the reader as both slowly over time throughout the text uncover the events about to happen. This is achieved by dickens plot building descriptive narrative that puts the reader in a suspenseful mysterious mood. These are many of the techniques dickens uses to create a mystery story.