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Structure of the short story the red room
Terror and horror in gothic texts
Terror and horror in gothic texts
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The Red Room’ written by a famous writer H.G Wells. He was a science fiction writer who lived in the Victorian times. People in the Victorian times believed in science and also believed everything they were told. I will be explaining genre, the structure, setting, language, imagery and atmosphere in order to create suspense. The Red Room is based on a gothic horror story. This type of fiction existed in the late 18th and 19th centaury, gothic stories are mainly based inside big, dark, ruined castles or abbeys and featured mystery and horror, it would also feature ghost haunted rooms, secret stairways and underground passages which would create tense and drama. The Red Room has many gothic aspects such as a dark room in which weird, scary …show more content…
The writer starts right from the very beginning and goes on creating suspense, he describes the characters as deformed in some sort of way: “The man with the withered arm”, this suggests that his arm is not right and has something wrong with it. He describes them as something very gross, “I had scarce expected these grotesque custodians”, and he is also scared of them. He is not happy with the three weird people and he does he does not feel comfortable with them, “The three of them made me feel uncomfortable, with their gaunt silences, their bent carriage.” The old people in the house are described as ghostly figures “Their very existence was spectral; the cut of their clothing, fashions born in dead brains”, he also calls them ‘dead brains’ this suggests that they don’t know the proper meaning of fashion and it suggests they are dressed as something other than human. The story is told in first person so that we as the readers can have a good understanding of what the characters look like and how they talk e.t.c. “ The echoing of the stir and crackling of the fire was no sort of comfort me.” In the story the mention of ‘The Red Room’ is repeated this is so that it engages interest to the reader’s attention. “I can assure you,” said I, “that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me. And I stood up before the fire with my glass in my hand.” This conflicts with the views of the old people. The narrator is quite cheery at first, and builds up tension “I must confess that the oddness of these three old pensioners... affected me in spite of my efforts to keep myself at a matter-of-fact phase.” As the narrator carry’s on the tension is getting built and more panic is being built “My candle rolled away from me, and I snatched another as I rose. Abruptly this was blown out.” At the end he says ‘I opened my eyes in day light’ this suggests that the darkness was messing with his mind which
In comparison The Red Room was written only thirty years later in 1894 by HG Wells although it feels more timeless. At that time technology had improved intensely, nevertheless Wells still imitated the old fashion gothic literature style writing, which is ironic, due to the time. Both stories have managed to engage its audience by creating suspense and tension. Besides that both stories have been written in first person, this in sequence makes it sinister, in a way because we get to know the narrator’s impressions and feelings. The authors of both stories have selected discomforting places in which to set their story, they are made more eerie because that in the 19th century time many people believed in ghosts and the supernatural.
“The Secret Room” holds true to the Robbe-Grillet style. It is a solitary scene, fastidiously itemized, with no clarification of who, why or how. Yet, toward the end, the impact is solid, the feelings are mixed however there are a lot of remaining details left hanging in a manner of speaking. The story apparently introduces a homicide riddle; the reprobate is a dim caped man; the stripped lady the "conciliatory casualty" is tied, dead. The lady has been shackled in a spread-bird position, making sex with her conceivable as well as ensured she would have been not able stand up to. She is lying on a dark velvet spread, tossed over purple pads. The dark spread is typical of death. The man goes left alone "deed fulfilled;" this may indicate occurrences when a lady is not
Comparing The Signalman and The Red Room These stories written pre-1900 at a time when one would have feared the unknown and hadn’t benefited from travel, TV, and an education that we have today. These stories have typical features of the 19th century ghost stories such as a castle, candles at night, an uninviting setting, a lonely man and so on. The supernatural means something that is beyond our control and therefore, as humans, we fear what we don’t understand, in both stories the writers show how this fear affects people lives. The Signalman is set outside near a railway line whereas The Red Room is set inside a castle largely in one room.
While describing Aswarby Hall, M R James describes it as a "tall, square, red-bricked house." This is done to create curiosity and interest as the description given is of an average looking house that would be similar to others around it as nothing in particular stands out about the home. M R James uses unexpected settings like this. In traditional ghost stories the setting of a house is often of a grand and unusually eerie house which creates a dark and sinister atmosphere, but M R James does the reverse of this. He describes his settings using people’s everyday lives, for example, the description of the house they live in. He does this as he believes it has a scarier impact on the audience as the reader feels connected to characters and settings that are ordinary just like them, and can no longer separate themselves from characters like Mr Abney. Although to create a sinister atm...
Reed had received a letter from a John Eyre of Madeira; saying that he wanted to meet Jane and wanted to adopt her because he didn't have any family himself, he was not married and had no children. As the merciless person she was, she did not want Jane to experience the feeling of hope or contentment. The author's use of Jane being locked in the red room, as a symbol of hell. Jane is being punished for her sins and her boorishness; meanwhile, in the room, Jane becomes hysterical when she thinks she sees her dead uncles ghost, which becomes a traumatic experience for her that leads to her being unconsciousness. The red room symbolizes the death of Mr.Reed and the promise Mrs. Reed vowed to keep to take care of Jane and that she be treated and
The Room itself represents the author’s unconscious protective cell that has encased her mind, represented by the woman, for a very long time. This cell is slowly deteriorating and losing control of her thoughts. I believe that this room is set up as a self-defense mechanism when the author herself is put into the asylum. She sets this false wall up to protect her from actually becoming insane and the longer she is in there the more the wall paper begins to deteriorate. This finally leads to her defense weakening until she is left with just madness and insanity. All of the characters throughout the story represent real life people with altered roles in her mind. While she is in the mental institute she blends reality with her subconscious, forming this story from events that are happening all around here in the real world.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe has a gothic horror story setting. Gothic means that the author emphasizes the mysterious, the horrible, the ghostly and the fear that can be aroused in the reader. Everyone knows that a gothic story or a ghost story will often have a setting that will be in an old, decaying mansion far out in a desolate countryside. The mansion will be filled with cobwebs, strange noises, bats, and an abundance of secret panels and corridors, in which people might be running and screaming in terror. The author uses every literary trick to give us an eerie sensation or to scare us if we hear an unexpected noise. The great descriptions of the mansion and the secret passageways are created for one reason and that is to give us a sense of the ghostly and the supernatural.
Tension and Suspense in The Red Room by H.G. Wells In H.G Wells’ The Red Room tension and suspense are created through the characters, the plot and the setting. The setting is typical of Gothic and Victorian ghost stories. In these times there was no electricity so use of candles for light created an eerie atmosphere. They had no modern technology like televisions for entertainment so they used books and story telling.
How does the writer create tension and suspense in The Red Room? The writer is able to create tension and suspense through various ways in the short story ‘The Red Room’. The opening sentence in the story immediately mentions the supernatural, which immediately tells us that this is a gothic story. The first sentence is dialogue, but we do not know who is speaking.
There is a similar treatment of space in the two works, with the larger, upstairs rooms at the summer lodging and at Thornfield Hall being associated with insanity and the smaller rooms below being safer and saner. Gilman's narrator expresses an early desire to move downstairs to a smaller, saner room, but her wish is ignored. Large rooms become haunted rooms in both stories as typified by the room with the yellow wallpaper, the Red Room, and the third floor room beyond which Bertha is confined.
'The Red Room' is a short story about a room which is believed to be
From time to time, the reader hears of a red light in the house of 124 Bluestone Road. Sethe is haunted by a life changing choice she made in her past. Her daughter's infant ghost haunts the house that Sethe and her daughter, Denver occupy. Sethe cannot move forward in her life because of a choice she made many years ago, which was to kill her baby girl. This decision was based upon the fact that Sethe did not want her daughter to be taken back into slavery. Sethe tries to repress the past, but cannot with this ghost haunting her. Paul D. proceeds to enters Sethe's life again, and as a result he causes more negative memories to resurface. He brings back the memories of Sweet Home, the plantation where they were slaves together. Sethe recalls Sweet Home and states, "Comes back whether we want it to or not" (Morrison 16). This statement reflects the meaning that no matter how hard someone tries, memories cannot be repressed forever, they will resurface at some point whether the person wants them to or not. When Paul D. arrives at her house, the memories from Sweet Home resurface, which in this instances is a very deconstructive matte...
A Comparison of The Story Of An Hour by K. Chopin and the Red Room by H.G. Wells
H.G. Wells wrote The Red Room in 1894. It is about a confident, arrogant, 28 year old man, that wants to stay the night in a haunted room in an old castle. H.G. Wells uses descriptive language to build suspense and convey fear. In the first line of the story "I can assure you, it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me", Wells grabs the readers attention and shows how arrogant the protagonist is. He uses the conversations between the protagonist and the elderly people to set the tone of the story, giving the reader a sense of mystery and suspense.
In the Dream of the Red Chamber a picture is painted of two worlds or two mindsets about living, and the reader is confronted with the task of contemplating what is real. The worlds that are introduced are of the contemplative person, which is represented by Great Void Illusion Land (GVIL), and that of education, working, and pleasure, which is represented by the Red Dust. The book alludes to an understanding that even though one way of life might be preferred to another, both are real, and that people will be exposed to both as they journey through their life. The challenge, as I see it, is to find a balance that will bring out the best in the person, for themselves and for society. This is where the book falls short because there is