Writer
Susan Hill
Born
In Scarborough beside the North Sea on 5 February 1942
Family
Father Harrie A. Cole, mother Doris Freeland and two sisters: Harriette Cole (19 years younger) and Stephanie Hill.
Short life story
She said about her birth: “I was born beside the North Sea, in Scarborough, Yorkshire one bitterly cold winter during WWII, when the snow was deep and the waves were crashing onto the cliffs not far away.'
She lived in Scarborough until she was 16. She attended Scarborough Convet Grammar School. After a while (in 1958), her family moved to Conventry. She attended a girls’ grammar school Barr’s Hill. She took A-levels in English, French, History and Latin. After that she got her English degree at King’s College London. In her first year of University she wrote her first novel, The Enclosure. The Daily Mail said in their review that the novel was too highly sexed for a girl still in education. In an interview Susan Hill said that her first two books are the worst, but she needed them to better writing.
In 1975 she married the Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells. They have two daughters, Jessica and Clemency. She had another daughter Imogen, bet she died at early ages.
Study
- Scarborough Convent Grammar School
- Barr’s Hill
- King’s College London
Message from books
Features
Susan Hill said that the sea and the surrounding area of sea, will always feature in her books. Mostly she writes in gothic style.
She thinks it is important to set a good atmosphere and that it needed to be good described.
Topic book
Death
Period features
Most of the books are written in the 20th century.
Main characters
In the book there is mostly a main character with some other characters. There are not much people involved in the story.
Was it reflected in the books I read?
Yes, it was. I made it regarding to the books I read and information found on the Internet.
Books
In the springtime of the year
The woman in black
Genre
Roman
Ghost story.
Time
In the 20th century.
Beginning of the 20th century.
Telling Time
The story takes more than a year before it ends.
The story itself takes a week. In the beginning the writer starts telling about Arthur Kipps, what only take some hours.
Place
The story is set at the cottage of Ruth Bryce.
Cryntin Gifford near by the sea at the house Eel Marsh House. Susan Hill describes the setting very detailed.
Building
The story starts with Ruth Bryce who is happily together with Ben Bryce. After that story is written how Ruth Bryce get through her grief.
The story starts with Arthur Kipss at old age and he told us why he had written the story. He is looking back to his awful incident in the house Eel Marsh House. After that the story starts and there are not any flashbacks or flash-forwards in the story itself.
Narrative perspective
First person , Ruth Bryce
First person, Arthur Kipps
Main character
Ruth Bryce
Arthur Kipps
Characters
- Ben Bryce
- Jo Bryce
- Alice Bryce
- Arthur Bryce
- Dora Bryce
- Potter
- Godmother Fry
- Family Ratheman
- The woman in black à
Jennet Humfrye
- Mrs. Alice Drablow
- Stella
- Keckwick
- Samuel Daily
- Mr. Bently
- Mr. Jerome
Theme
Death, grief, pattern, marriage, losing someone,
Death, revenge, betray, isolation, fear, supernatural, madness, exploration, trauma
Good part
The feelings that you have when you lose somebody. It is not easy to let go someone, but somehow you need to do it.
Tension in the book kept you reading. I really wanted to know how the story ends. Arthur starts with a “mission”, he has to sort out the papers of Mrs. Alice Drablow.
Bad part
I did not like to read about how Ruth Bryce thinks. In the beginning it was interesting to read, but after a while it bored me. At the end, she could accept the death. I think that everybody need it to do. When you always think about somebody, how sad it is, your live does not go on.
I do not think there is any...
Explanation title
The title: “In the springtime of the year” referese to the time Ben Bryce was killed by a tree. It was the first day of Spring. Spring is the time that nature is going to “live/grow” again.
The title: “The woman in black” is chosen because Arthur Kipps sees a ghostly woman in black clothes. The story is about that woman.
Symbolism
- Pattern
- Nature
- Pony-trap
- Innocent death
- Nature
Message
Death is a part of life. People die at early ages. Thereby she tries to tell us that you must look beyond your own grief when someone has died. You must share your mourning, you can't deal with it by yourself.
“I set out to write a ghost story in the classic 19th-century tradition, a full-length one.”
She did not want to spread a message, but she wanted to “entertain” us.
Reason why written
“She was young, successful and in love. She remembers her fiancé, David Lepine, the young organist at Coventry Cathedral, as "a genius". Then, in 1972, quite suddenly, Lepine died of a coronary, a heart attack. Her world fell apart, she struggled on with some short stories, and only began to put herself back together again with In the Springtime of the Year, a powerful novel about grief which, she says, "had to be written".”
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