Literary Elements Of A Ghost Story By Mark Twain

In the story “A Ghost Story” by Mark Twain, it tells the saddening story of someone who is not accepted trying to be himself again. At first, the story uses literary elements in order to set up fear and anxiety for the character in question. Then, the main character, who remains nameless throughout the story, tries to settle down the monster, and successfully does so and starts talking to him. He tells him that he is the ghost of the Cardiff Giant, and he was trying to haunt the museum across the street because he thinks they house his former body. He is mistaken when he is informed by the main character that it is in Albany. Then, the “giant” thanks him and heads on his way. The story, in my opinion, doesn’t use literary elements to it full
In my opinion, this story should not be listed under horror, the way I discovered it. The first half showed promise however, with it’s use of tone and mood and foreshadowing. At one point, it says that something kept tugging on the foot of his covers, and as he was walking away, he could hear what sounded like elephant footsteps leaving his room. Mark Twain states the character’s thoughts when he says, “Presently I heard a heavy footstep in my room — the step of an elephant, it seemed to me — it was not like anything human.”(1) For me, this seemed like a very scary and suspenseful tone, and my mood matched what the author intended. This also set up foreshadowing later on in the story for when he was going to show up next. This was apparent when he saw “ashes” of a foot on his floor that made his own foot look like a baby’s. This all lead up to the main character discovering dead bodies hanging from his ceiling, and then seeing the behemoth of a ghost that was causing all of this. However, once he actually saw the being, he knew he could do no harm since he was just a mere ghost of what he was. His happiness rejoined himself once he discovered this as well. Overall, I think that this story did have a few instances of quality literary elements, but not enough for it to have a true horror fell