This week I will be comparing Slenderman and the Dionaea house using their Tones. My definition of tone is the vibe the story gives the reader. In both cases it is very ominous. Since the beginning I was questioning if it was a story I should read or if they would be too scary. You can almost guarantee something bad is going to happen, but you cannot be certain what. Before I start comparing them, let me give you a summary of them.
Slenderman starts out with a girl who is in her room and starts to feel uncomfortable. She then goes downstairs to get some tea hoping it would help her relax and go to sleep. However, when she gets closer to the door the worried feeling worsens. She hesitates, but then looks out the peep hole to see if anything is on the other side of the door. She sees a black swirling mass that quickly disappears to reveal a tall unnaturally long-limbed man. She backs away from the door in terror as it slowly it creeps in around the door. She is so terrified by what she sees that she drops her hot tea on herself. That’s when the story switches to her in the hospital with injuries. It ends with her sibling seeing the tall black figure outside of the 3rd story window.
The Dionaea House is about one man’s mission to find out what happened to his old friend Andrew that became a killer. Something about it tells you he shouldn't be looking into it from the start. In the story only half of the conversations between two friends is shown. As he finds out more and more, he then disappears leaving another friend to carry on the search. This friend too disappears once he learns too much and you never truly know what was happening to the characters.
Both of these stories lack the details needed to fully understand what bad things happen or why which adds to the tone. While the characters are trying to figure out what is happening in their situations something is watching them almost mockingly. Slenderman is more of a formal text than the Dionaea house but it still isn’t an academic article formal. The Dionaea house I would consider informal because it is email logs between people. But, both lead me to wonder how they would differ if they were the opposite of what they are. The reader never sees the bad thing in the Dionaea house or even finds out what it is. However, the Dionaea house is significantly more entertaining and attention keeping because it keeps this ominous vibe going throughout. Slenderman is too short in my opinion to be as good as the Dionaea house.
http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Dionaea_House
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