Comparing the Techniques Used by the Writers to Create a Sense of Fear and Tension in The Black Cat, The Red Room and The Yellow Wallpaper

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Comparing the Techniques Used by the Writers to Create a Sense of Fear and Tension in The Black Cat, The Red Room and The Yellow Wallpaper

Short stories like 'The Black Cat', 'The Red Room' and 'The Yellow

wallpaper', which were all written during the pre-1914's, were used as

popular entertainment during the 19th-20th century. At that time there

was no television. Today, if we wanted to be entertained by something

with similar horrific content we could watch a film on TV, however, in

the late 19th century this role had to be filled with the short story.

The social context at the time was male dominant and a woman was

expected to stay at home looking after the children and cleaning while

the man went to work to bring home the money. This is shown especially

in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' because the man dominates his wife by

locking her up. The gothic genre was used a lot in these three stories

to add to the fear and tension portrayed, especially in 'The Red Room'

where the writer explains the setting as being 'old and scary'.

'The Red Room', by H. G. Wells, is about a man who goes into a gothic

castle with an open mind to see whether the suspicions of it being

haunted were true but comes out knowing that there is no ghost, people

just get scared of fear itself. 'The Black Cat' by Edgar Allan Poe, is

about a caring, animal loving man whose alcoholic behaviour causes him

to become cruel to his pets, especially his favourite, a black cat

named Pluto. 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is

about a woman who is shut up in her bedroom by her husband because she

suffers from a nervous condition. She becomes paranoid that there is a

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stop and take a breath. For example, she says 'to jump out the window

would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong to even try.

Besides I wouldn't do it. Of course not', in that quote although there

is sufficient punctuation it seems as though the narrator says it

really fast and says it all in one breath in short, sharp sentences.

In 'The Black Cat' Poe is purposely ambiguous to build tension. He

often says one thing that could mean something else. One example of

this is at the beginning of the story, he says 'my wife… made frequent

allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded black cats as

witches in disguise' he then dismisses it by saying 'not that she was

ever serious upon his point and I mention the matter at all for no

better reason than that it happens, just now to be remembered'.

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