Ghost Story

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1979

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Literary Devices

Mood

Content Warning: This guide’s source text discusses abuse of prescription substances and alcohol, suicide, physical and sexual abuse of children, violence, and sexual assault. The source text relies on anti-Black stereotypes and contains some anti-Black epithets.

Ghost Story creates a mood of suspicion, anxiety, and fear. Straub creates this mood by using diction, or word choices, that support the atmosphere of fear. The first paragraph of the novel uses evocative language and images that pull the reader into the mood of suspicion. The food is not chewed but gnawed; Don obscures his license plate and avoids crossing a border; The most terrifying sentence is the last one, “He still did not know what he was going to have to do to her” (13). Straub allows the reader to imagine any number of terrible acts and sows suspicion against both the little girl and Don.

The prologue itself heightens the sense of dread, fear, and suspicion by deliberately obfuscating intentions and context, deepening the suspicion of the scene’s mood. Don’s act of kidnapping immediately makes the reader suspicious of him and his motives, especially in his intense control of her. The suspicion of the girl begins when she acts so strangely, protecting Don, cocking her head in mimicry, and the final question, “What are you?” lead the reader to have an inherent mistrust of the novel’s characters and the initial reality presented.

Imagery

Imagery, the use of words that appeal to the reader’s senses to create an image they can almost experience, appears throughout the novel in support of both the mood and the themes of the novel. The images of Milburn create the sense of community foundational to Straub’s exploration of terror’s effect on that community. The imagery of the woods and the monsters add to the mood of fear and suspicion. Peter’s vision of Gregory draws the reader into the image, causing fear and doubt, “The stranger was clapping his hands together, making the sparrows scatter like spray from a shotgun; he looks irrational as a beast [...] he was grinning like a hungry leopard” (335). This image of Gregory Bate stirs terror in Peter. The detailed description allows the reader to see Gregory and experience Peter’s terror through comparisons and similes to dangerous, violent things.

Anecdote

Anecdotes feature heavily in Ghost Story. Straub builds the novel around a group of men telling stories to each other. Each anecdote revels more about the men and about their enemy. The tradition of telling ghost stories has existed for millennia. Straub draws on the American Gothic tradition to build the foundation of his novel. The anecdotes in the novel allow multiple people to describe their encounters with the malevolent shapeshifter. The stories also bring individual insights and clues into how to attack the beast.

Omniscient Narrator

Straub uses an omniscient narrator, a literary tool where the author writes a narrative in third person and the story’s narrator has complete awareness, understanding, and insight into the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of some or all of the characters in the story. This narrative choice allows the reader to follow multiple characters actions simultaneously. The jumping perspective lends itself to the mood of the story, as the terrifying action does not stop. Each perspective experiences terror and loss. Straub’s omniscient narrator also echoes the power of the shapeshifter, echoing the ability of the creature to act in multiple places simultaneously. The jumping narrative creates a sense of speed as each character’s individual struggle is followed back-to-back-to-back.

The narrator, like the shapeshifter, knows the sins of each character and the secrets they keep. The narrator, however, does not manipulate or judge. Straub creates this contrast to show the two approaches to knowledge, just as the choices of the Chowder Society members demonstrate the choices one can make when revealing that knowledge or shame to others. Straub’s central argument for transparency to create connection is supported by his narrative choice. By telling secrets, shame and fear of exposure are powerless.