Suspense
is a feeling of pleasurable fascination and excitement mixed with
apprehension, tension, and anxiety developed from an unpredictable,
mysterious, and rousing source of entertainment. The term most often
refers to an audience’s perceptions in a dramatic work. Suspense is not
exclusive to fiction. It may operate whenever there is a perceived
suspended drama or a chain of cause is left in doubt, with tension being
a primary emotion felt as part of the situation.
In the kind of suspense described by film director Alfred Hitchcock,
an audience experiences suspense when they expect something bad to
happen and have (or believe they have) a superior perspective on events
in the drama’s hierarchy of knowledge, yet they are powerless to
intervene to prevent it from happening. Films having a lot of suspense
belong in the thriller genre.[citation needed]
In broader definition of suspense, this emotion arises when someone
is aware of his lack of knowledge about the development of a meaningful
event; thus, suspense is a combination of anticipation and uncertainty
dealing with the obscurity of the future. In terms of narrative
expectations, it may be contrasted with mystery or curiosity and
surprise. Suspense could however be some small event in a person’s life,
such as a child anticipating an answer to a request they’ve made, such
as, “May I get the kitty?” Therefore, suspense may be experienced to
different degrees.
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