The Old Nurse’s Story is not what I expected it to be. It is filled with all those horror story tropes that you still see in literature and film today. From the nurse and Miss Rosamond being immediately told not to go into certain rooms in the house and the organ playing at strange times throughout the night and day. I mean, how many times did we see an organ in Scooby-Doo? It also plays into those old horror tropes that everyone in the house just accepts the fact that it is the dead father of Miss Furnivall playing the organ. It begins to get weird when Miss Rosamond claims that she had a little girl tell her to go outside. The nurse later sees the same young girl out the window. Another classic horror trope, little girls in creepy rolls are much more terrifying than little boys. Think of The Shining. Once we begin hearing the entire story from Dorothy, the resolution falls into place just like any good horror movie. The love triangle aspect and forbidden love mentioned in the origin story just gives a new level of drama as you would expect in a Victorian Age story. With a perfect horror and supernatural twist at the end, the ghosts appear in front of the organ and we see the whole scene play out of Maude getting kicked out with her child. The twist is revealed when Miss Furnivall’s ghost also appears in the scene. We find out later that she has died that night. The Old Nurse’s Story was by far the most interesting story I have read recently.
