Question

2. Face in the Dark
Justify the title 'Face in the Dark 'highlighting the impact of the supernatural
elements woven in the story.

Answer 1

Answer:

“A Face in the Dark” written by Ruskin Bond is a story replete with horror, mystery and suspense. A paranormal experience of a school-teacher, Mr Oliver, is the subject of this horror story. The atmosphere has been cleverly built up by the writer.

Mr Oliver, the Anglo-Indian teacher in a public school at Simla, often strols into the town because he happens to be a bachelor and has hardly any visitors in the evening. He has to return to the school residence at right and quite often takes a short cut through the pine-forest. When there is a strong wind, the pine trees make sad, eerie sounds. Mr Oliver is a man without a nervous temperament. He always carries a torch while passing through the dark forest.

Mr Oliver encounters a young boy while returning from the town. The boy is sitting on a rock, all alone in the forest. Mr Oliver senses that some thing is wrong. He finds the boy crying and shaking convulsively. When he questions the boy about his problem, the boy doesn’t look up and keeps on sobbing as before. As the teacher flashes the torch on his face, he is horrified to see that the face has no eyes, ears, nose or mouth. It is just a round smooth head with a school cap on. The torch falls from the teacher’s hand and he runs towards the school calling for help. As he stumbles upto the watchman, the latter asks him the cause of his terror. The teacher tells him that he,had seen a boy without a face. “Do you 1 mean it was like this, Sahib ?” asks the watchman.

Then the teacher notices that the face of the watchman also resembles that of the boy – no eyes, no ears, no features – not even an eyebrow ! As soon as the teacher sees this apparition, the wind blows out the lamp in the hand of the watchman. Darkness prevails all around.