Comparison between The Withered Arm, The Red Room and The Monkey’s Paw

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Comparison between The Withered Arm, The Red Room and The Monkey’s Paw 

  What links all three of these stories is what links all ghost stories, the haunting. Something, a ghost, spirit or whatever, which once lived in this world and comes back to affect the living. These stories feature elements of gothic literature, i.e. castles, large houses and sconces. An all-important aspect of any ghost story is the atmosphere. An atmospheric presence is key to move the reader, like in The Monkey’s Paw ‘The night was cold and wet…‘‘of all of the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way places to live in, this is the worst.’’’

 

  The Monkey’s Paw is introduced slowly, describing the isolated house in terrible weather, as if an omen of what’s to come, and the family going about their normal evening before the Sergeant Major arrives and mentions the paw. The Withered Arm is even slower to get going. It takes two chapters to introduce all the characters before the dream occurs. It takes many more chapters before anything but the withering of the arm happens. It is set in a completely non-threatening situation of milkmaids on a farm and you have to wait a while for anything abnormal to take place. The Red Room, however, launches you straight into the night when it all transpires, into an ancient house and its decrepit custodians. The whole story takes place in a night and the next morning. It is a few pages until we know who the main character is and we never find out his name. Immediately we find out there is a room where the Duke will spend the night and the others won’t go near. ‘But if you go tonight-’/(‘This night of all nights!’)/ ‘You go alone’. This borrows from gothic literature featuring characters that are physically deformed and could be otherworldly.

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  In The Withered Arm the problem of that ailed limb takes up most of the story and is where we learn all about the way the characters behave and interact with each other. In The Monkey’s Paw we learn about the old couples relationship in the problem. Mrs. White is assertive and has all the natural responses of a mother and a wife. Although he might not be as quick thinking as his wife ‘turning to her slower witted husband’, Mr. White is the only member of the family to realise the paw’s dark power. In The Red Room the ...

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