Tension And Fear In The Red Room Essay Example

known as "Jane". They live together for many years whilst he created his wonderful works of poetry and short stories until "Jane" Wells his wife died in 1927.

He wrote very view things after she died, The Shape of Things to Come, This his penultimate book was published in the year that Hitler came to power it talked of global conflict in 1939. Produced at the end of World War II, his final book, Mind at the End of its Tether, argued that "the end of everything we call life is close at hand and cannot be evaded". He died on August 13, 1946, in London. The red room is a short story written by H. G. Wells. The story is about a young man who does not believe in ghosts. For some reason which we don't know why he ends up staying at a particularly scary house. This house is inhabited partly by 3 old people, they warn him of the fears in the house and talk of the night he was staying here as "this night of all nights" the immediately fill his head with strange stories.

He sleeps in a room known as "The Red Room" For which reason we never find out. During his sleepless night, there are many strange things that happen he can not sleep. Once a confident man he turns into a paranoid wreck. "The red room" is a gothic story as it complies with the rules of a gothic story IE ghost haunted rooms, passages, hidden stairways, and so on.

The red room contains several gothic elements; it is set in "Lorraine Castle" which is a typically gothic setting. The

story also contains several other gothic features the door is said to have "creaked on its hinges" To me, this suggests that the castle was very disused, the word "creaked" to me make me think of pain If the door creaked it means that the person opening the door must have done so gently being cautious not to disturb anything that the mind plants in our own heads. When we read this unconsciously we make note of it and the brain remembers all these feelings. The place is lit by "candles" this also is subconsciously taken in by the brain, when we think of candlelight we realize that it is neither bright nor dark it is dim, not everything is showing so there we get the fear of the unknown. A "spiral staircase is also mentioned" The Victorians when very interested and taken in by the tight of life after death and the supernatural.

We notice that everything Wells talks about to describe the house is rough this is intended to make us feel unsure about what is to happen next. It works. The old people in the short story are typically gothic we know this with the words used to describe them "withered" and "decaying" are good examples. They cause immediate discomfort to the narrator. The old people new give a straight answer they always tell him part of the answer and leave his mind to work out the rest this makes him feel unnerved and when he has finally got to know where the room was he make a detailed inspection, "I resolved to make a systematic examination of the place at once, and

dispel the fanciful suggestions of its obscurity before they obtained a hold upon me."

Here he is saying how already on entering the room his mind had begun to play tricks on him, but he quickly sorts this out by having a good look around. As the story progresses we begin to see that this "systematic examination" of the room has not worked. The old people had been referring to this night in an odd way, "this night of all nights" they added to the mystery of the house with the things they said. The story is written in the first person.

We get a biased opinion of the old people and the house as we only feel the thoughts and opinions of the narrator. He seems to be quite a confident person; I make this statement after reading "stood up before the fire with my glass in my hand" it seems quite an odd thing to do in someone else house. In Victorian times it was a house owner's place in front of the fire. I presume that in the glass was the alcohol of some kind of Dutch courage, maybe? He also announced that it would take a "tangible" ghost to scare him.

A bold statement to make in a haunted house at night time. This all changes it becomes clear to me that the narrator has been fooling himself into not believing any of it, but the way he searches the room and lights all the candles once he gets to the room seems to show how scared he is, after being so confident downstairs. The setting in which the story is set is typical

of gothic and Victorian ghost stories. To begin with, it is set in "Lorraine castle" which in its own right sounds eerie. Every little detail is told to make the perfect mysterious setting. Its overgrown gardens, spiral staircases, are all typical of a gothic story it is described as subterranean which suggests darkness and enclosed areas like a tomb.

Here the writer uses our knowledge of fear and darkness to create a better picture in our heads from a reader's point of view. The effect of the setting in the story is everything without it there would be no story; from the very first line, we can tell that this is not an ordinary house. The build-up of the setting is the backbone it never cools of the sense of fear and the unknown is always there throughout the story. The gloominess suggested by the cold and dampness contribute to the tension in this story. I believe that fear is a reaction to what is happening arrowed you.

If you're scared you often need someone to blame and so the mind creates ghosts you can blame things on them. I do not believe there was anything in the room downstairs the narrator's head had been planted with little thoughts that grew when he arrived in the room. When it's quiet and you're on your own in a big room that you don't know you start to scare yourself. I conclude that this story manages to create tension by using character and setting to capture the reader. The way Wells describes the old people and the walk to the room worked very well in making me as I

read it want to know more about everything surrounding the house.

My final thought is I wish it was not a short story as it left me wanting to no more.