I strongly disliked the "supernatural occurrences" in "The Queen of Spades." I thought that a lot was taken away from the story with these events and felt dramatic moments became overplayed. I underlined "it seemed to him the dead woman gave a mocking glance, and winked at him" (300) and next to it wrote "cliche." When this happened again with the card I had to roll my eyes. The lack of this type of illusion in any other part of the decently sized narration makes these two isolated instances seem out of place. There is an art in subtlety and by neglecting to realize this the story was destroyed. I enjoyed a lot of the text but by making the key moments implausible with random paranormal events it tore down the respect it had earned.