"Afterward" Genre Study

Afterward is a story about a couple named Ned and Mary Boyne. While talking to their friend Alida Stair, they find that there is a haunted house in Lyng, Dorsetshire. The couple being very intrigued wants to move in immediately. The only thing is, is that Alida Stiar said that they would not know that they even encountered the ghost until long after. When asked what she means by this Alida just says that's how the story goes. The couple move in and everything seems fine at first. They have yet to see the ghost, but Mary notices that Ned is acting weird. At one point in the story Mary and Ned were on a secret spot on the roof. Ned noticed someone and ran down the stairs without even waiting for Mary. Mary, thinking that he saw the ghost, hurries after him. She finds him in his office just looking through papers. Ned says that the person he thought he saw was Peters and he just wanted to ask him a question, but couldn't get to him in time. Mary finds that Ned is having a suit brought against him by an associate of his. This worries Mary, but Ned tells her he has it under control. One day while Mary is out in the garden a man comes and asks to speak to her husband. At first she tells him that he cannot because her husband is working, she then feels sorry for the man and tells him what room her husband is in. She then finds later that her husband has disappeared. She goes through many months without knowing what could have happened to her husband. A man her husband knew named Parvis stops at the house to offer Mary his condolences. In the conversation he shows her a newspaper clipping that has both pictures of her husband and the man named Bob Elwell who was the one who brought the suit, Bob was also dead at this point from trying to kill himself. Mary then realizes that Bob Elwell was the man Ned had seen on the roof and the man in the garden she had spoken to. She puts everything together and realizes what has happened, the ghost of Bob Elwell came for her husband and he went with him. Mary then realizes what Alida had meant when she said you would never know it was the ghost until “long, long afterward”.
This story shows a lot of fear of the unknown, which is the whole reason why they moved into the house in the first place. They were trying to look for a ghost without even knowing what they were looking for. Mary even at one point tells her husband that she has given up looking for the ghost and asks him the same thing. It’s not that they are actually scared of seeing the ghost, but I think the fact that they might not know what it is frightens them or Mary at least. Mary at one point thinks that Ned has seen the ghost and just isn’t telling her about it, because it did something to him. That’s why Mary thinks Ned is acting weird. Mary is fearful that is unknown ghost did something to her husband.
We see the fear of the unknown in many of the stories we’ve read. The Lonesome place is one that expresses fear of the unknown very clearly. The two young boys in the story are terrified of what they can’t see on a dark part of the street at night. Their fear takes over their imagination and runs wild.
The Veldt may even be considered as fear of the unknown. The parents are afraid of the unknown future of their children’s minds. They’re not sure what the children will think up in this futuristic house that they have. Or how not being able to do anything for themselves will affect them when they are older.