Elements of a Successful Ghost Story and The Red Room The Red Room is a successful ghost story that was written by H.G Wells. The story was intended to be scary when it was written and it uses tension, atmosphere and a scary plot. Without these key features it would not succeed as a successful ghost story. The reason for this is to entice the reader by giving them small clues so it does not give the plot away, but you have to read on because it does not give enough away only small clues, so it is still a mystery. In 'The Red Room' there are quite a lot of things that help to cause a scary atmosphere in the story. The main thing that helps create the desired atmosphere for a ghost story is that it is set in the old castle. It is occupied by the three old people and the Ladyship left 18 months ago, what I think makes it look like she left in a hurry is that all the objects are left how it was when her ladyship occupied the castle. The old people are described as 'Custodians' on page 44(Guardian of something) but this then leaves the question what are they guarding? This then makes you think what drove her out of the castle that quickly? This helps the atmosphere because it adds mystery to the story and starts to make it a more successful ghost story. This is also linked to the tension in the story. The candles that are situated round the castle also helps create atmosphere because it shows that it is in the night and most ghost stories are set at night and it then in turn provides an eerie atmosphere. At the beginning of the story the old people help add to the atmosphere by saying the things that had apparently happened there in the Red Room in the past. These things include; 'This night of all nights,' this makes it sound like it could be a type of anniversary of when something or someone had died or an event happened and this night
The book “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction” was published in the year 2008 on the 12th of February by Knopf Canada. The author of this book is Dr. Gabor Mate who has worked for twelve years in the eastside Vancouver with patients suffering from addiction, mental illness and HIV. He is also a renowned speaker and a bestselling author. He also received the Hubert Evans Prize for Literary Non-Fiction and the 2012 Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award for his work. (….)
The book ghosts from the nursery: tracing the roots of violence which had been written by Robin Kar-Morse and Meredith S Wiley. Meredith S Wiley provides the person who reads an in detail look at child abuse and neglect. Morse and Wiley both discuss in detail the effects of neglect and abuse, looking at specifically at violence in children. The detail of the book is it follows a young male who is of the age of 19 years old named Jeffery, who is given the sentence of death row due to committing a murder when he was of the age of 16 years old. Jeffery’s case was a beautiful case study for the authors and audience to analyse and relate theories to. By looking at cases such as Jeffery and looking at other children who are in similar situation, both authors start to look at the honesty about the subtle and crucial years of infancy and early childhood.
The plot of the novel is creatively explained in a way that anyone can visualize through the event...
The Haunting of Hill House is a gothic horror novel written by Shirley Jackson. Supernatural occurrences take place within the house revolving around Eleanor. Eleanor is a thirty-two-year-old woman who never once has felt the sense of inclusion. Eleanor seems to never recall the feeling of delight in her adult years due to the fact that she was a caretaker for her now deceased Mother; who took away most of her freedom by being incredibly restrictive. Dr. Montague, a doctor that specializes in analysis of the supernatural rents Hill House, a supposedly haunted house. During the renting period, Dr. Montague begins an experiment inviting individuals who have had involvement in abnormal events
What the author is doing is letting the reader foreshadow. A technique which creates suspense, a vital element in any action story. The author then explained what was being hinted at;
This gives the readers a clue that what is to happen in the upcoming text is a
Was Eleanor mentally healthy or unhealthy? In the book The Haunting of Hill House, written by Shirley Jackson, the main character was Eleanor Vance. She was a 32-year-old woman that showed signs that she was mentally unhealthy. After receiving an invitation to stay at Hill House from Dr. Montague, a stranger to Eleanor and the rest of the invited guests, she made the carefree decision to accept the invitation to the comfortable country home (2). She felt as though Hill House was her calling, even though she had never laid eyes on the property and had no knowledge of what to expect. There was no way to know if the doctor could have been a psychopath that wanted Eleanor for some crazed morbid “experiment,” yet she had
“The Japanese Quince”, “A Haunted House”, and “Hills Like White Elephants” all have themes of love, but each type of love is different from each other. One is the story of someone afraid to face their love, due to being ashamed. “A Haunted House” shares the love of a ghostly couple as they find their love in a young couple. “Hills Like White Elephants” reveals the terrors of a love gone wrong. Although, each of these short stories have different tone, mood, imagery, diction, and detail they all use stream of consciousness to give insight to the characters’ thoughts and emotions. “A Haunted House”, steps into the mind of a specific character, where as the other two are narrated by an outside source that exposes the thoughts and feelings of the protagonists.
Neal, Pete, ed. "The Elements of Plot Development." Annenberg Learner. Annenberg Foundation, n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2014. .
Given the title of this work, you may mistakenly believe (as did at least one prior owner of the book copy I had read from, if their annotations are any indication) that this is a literal investigation into all things paranormal and society’s investment of that which goes bump in the night. In “Ghostly Matters: Hauntings and the Sociological Imagination”, Avery F. Gordon offers academics and ethnographers – those whose profession it is to unearth the secreted relationships between the signifier and the signified, the subject and object, the real and unreal - a disturbing ghost story that should leave those of us in the field who came claim these titles with both the deepest of darkest chills and, through a new method of revealing and acknowledging the ghosts we feel, the hope for something akin to redemption. (In this way, perhaps, Gordon accomplishes many of the same feats as Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe).
How Tension and Suspense Is Built Up In The Red Room There are many different ways in which HG Wells builds up tension and. suspense in The Red Room. One way in which he does this is through the use of language in the process. One of the main effective uses of language in The Red Room is the use of personification; "made the shadows cower" and quiver. The shadow embeds fear into the reader, as they wonder if the shadow is alive, which creates tension as the reader wonders what.
The Nelly Butler hauntings is referred to as the first recorded ghost story in American history (LiBrizzi 5), and possibly the most exciting hauntings to date as there are still many unsolved mysteries. The apparition appeared on more than 30 separate occasions to over 100 witnesses in Sullivan, Maine, just over fifteen years after the American Revolution (5-6). Although the Nelly Butler apparition is one of the most convincing ghosts of all time, it was subject to suspicions of fraud. These claims turn out to be groundless as the evidence reveals the ghost to be genuine.
Comparing The Red Room by H.G. Wells and The Darkness Out There by Penelope Lively
give depth to the plot so that the events of the present have a past:
a dull grey colour as if it had lost the will to live and stopped