The Red Room as a Typical Ghost Story

The Red Room as a Typical Ghost Story

A typical ghost story consists of various features to make it feel and

seem effective. It has a supernatural theme which is present through

much of the story, a mysterious setting to also give an eerie effect,

for example by setting it in the dark or in an old abandoned building,

some suspense and tension, victims and it is reasonably short. The

story of ' The Red Room' by H .G. Wells, written in 1896, is narrated

by a man who is determined to go to Lorraine Castle to test its

reputation as a supernatural place. He comes across three

multifarious, 'grotesque custodians' who try to persuade him not to go

into the supposedly haunted room. He does so, however, and experiences

tremendous shock, trepidation and qualms.

This essay will examine this to see how far it is a typical ghost

story and how far it is not typical by looking at such features as

setting, plot, characters and language.

' The Red Room' is set in Lorraine Castles in the early 19th centaury.

In this story, the setting is quite appropriate to the theme as it

quite gothic. The castle itself makes us feel uncomfortable. This is a

perfect setting for a ghost story, as Lorraine Castles is a Victorian

building, which is extremely large and old. The castle probably has

long corridors with a few turrets. It would have a North, East, South

and West wing and it is likely the ' The Red Room' is situated in a

remote part of one of these wings. As with most castles, the castle

itself would be situated alone and isolated from the modern world, in

th...

... middle of paper ...

...ot a typical

ghost story.

The Readers answer to this question about ' To what extent is " The

Red Room" a typical ghost story' but it is missing one main criterion,

which is a ghost. Despite the fact that there is no ghost in this

story, it still seems effective as all the other features like the old

furniture, the lack of electricity, the gloomy castle itself and the

tension created during his journey to and in ' The Red Room' clearly

set an atmosphere appropriate to a ghost story. So as a conclusion,

the reader may say that although in some regards, the story does not

seem like a typical ghost story, in other ways it has many of the

features associated with one and because of this, the reader will

certainly feel that they have read a ghost story even though the

horror is psychological rather than truly ghostly.