Mystery stories may contain an evil villain which may have recognisable features such as the rat with ‘baleful eyes’ in the Judge’s House by Bram Stoker. The evil villain may act alone or they may have accomplices like in Harry Potter where Voldermort is helped by his group of followers. There is also usually a victim, they may live alone, or be alone when the incidents happen as then they will have no support and are therefore helpless, they may believe they cant get hurt but in fact they could be putting themselves in a lot of danger. There maybe other characters in the story who try to warn the victim of the danger but if they are like Malcolm in the ‘Judges House’ by Bram Stoker, then they take no notice and go ahead anyway oblivious to the dangers they have been warned about.
Behind the mystery there could be many different things. Ghosts are popular as many people believe in them and they are usually associated with being evil. Nightmares and dreams give a very mysterious feeling, maybe because no one really understands them and anything is possible in a dream so they are good places for the ‘impossible’ to happen. Some sort of ‘presence’ can also be quite mysterious because, like dreams and nightmares, not everyone understands them and because they aren’t real in the story they can be made to do all sorts of horrific things which can be very chilling. In ‘Macbeth’ fortune telling was used at the beginning when the ‘weird sisters’ prophesised Macbeths future, this can create a good atmosphere from the start and leaves you wanting to know if it comes true or not.
Noises help to create the right atmosphere. By having an organ or piano playing it gives the impression that someone or something is present like in Steven Spielberg’s film ‘Poltergeist’. Other sounds such as footsteps, the rustling of leaves and crying like in the ‘Secret Garden’ all make the reader think and get their adrenaline going making them feel as if they are really there. Water dripping or a clock ticking gives the impression that time is going slowly and that you’re just waiting for something to happen. Light has a big affect on the atmosphere as well. Flickering candles and fires create dark shadows, the poor light can also mean its hard to see things and makes the victim more jumpy which transfers across to the reader. Light could also be used as a signal or a warning that something bad is going to happen. Mysteries stories are usually made up using many of the ingredients I have mentioned to give it a really mysterious feeling and keeping the reader on the edge of their set and making them want to read on to find out what happens next.
The Red Room is set in an old house in which some old people live. The fact that it is in an old house, gives the impression that it is isolated and away from help should anything go wrong, and of course it does. Old houses usually have a lot of history that goes with them so they are often haunted. There is a ‘queer old mirror at the end of the room’ and the furniture is ‘old fashioned’ .There is also a fire light which would cast shadows about the room which enhances the spookiness and gives a sense of evil.
The Signalman by Charles Dickens is set in an ‘extremely deep’ railway cutting by the mouth of a ‘black tunnel’. The sides of the cutting are steep, this gives the feeling of being trapped and isolated from the world. On either side there are ‘jagged’ walls with water dripping down them, these walls only allow one small strip of sky to be seen. Due to the lack of sunlight a ‘deadly smell’ fills the air. Musty and ‘forbidding’ smells and darkness are often associated with bad things. On the first day it is set under an ‘angry sunset’ and on the following evenings it’s already dark.
Both stories are set in very different settings although both settings are in isolated places. The Red Room, although it is in a house, you get the impression that it is rarely visited so in this respect they are similar because it is also set in the night and with the candles flickering and creating dark shadows, it has the same spooky feel. The setting in the ‘Red Room’ isn’t described in much detail and is left more to the reader to imagine the details whereas the Signalman’s setting was described in lots of detail to really set the scene.
There are two people main people in the Signalman, and one other main character which is super natural. The signalman is a ‘sallow’ man with ‘heavy eyebrows’ and a ‘dark beard’. The other is a visitor to the railway cutting, which is some what of a rarity. The visitor, who is the person telling the story, observes the signalman as having a ‘watchful’ attitude. The signalman spends ‘many long and lonely hours’ working in the ‘box’ by the tunnel where he works the lights and changes the signals for the trains. The is another character who plays a very important part, and that is a ghost which appears before something bad happens and in the end shows the signalman how he is going to die. By appearing when something bad is about to happen it is then associated with evil and is portrayed as a bad character.
The inhabitants of the house are ‘old people’ with ‘an intent expression on their ancient faces’. There is an old man with a ‘withered arm’ and an old lady who sat ‘staring in to fire, her pale eyes wide open’. The lady’s staring into the fire gives a hypnotic, creepy feel as if she has been hypnotised buy someone and that she no longer controls herself. The main character claims it would take a ‘very tangible ghost’ to frighten him and says that he doesn’t believe in ghosts because in the ‘eight-and-twenty years’ he has lived he has never seen a ghost. He comes across as a tough character and that little would scare him. When the ‘old people’ warn him, he chooses to ignore it and asks to be shown ‘this haunted room of yours’.
In both stories there is the normal, average person who in the case of the ‘Red Room’ becomes the victim. In the ‘Signalman’ there are in a sense two normal people, the visitor and the signalman although it is the signalman who is affected by the ghosts visits and therefore becomes the victim. All the people are well described in both stories and they are described in a way to portray them correctly for their role in the story. Overall both of the stories have very similar features like the isolated setting although in the cases of these stories one was an old house and the other was a railway cutting, and the victim. They also both put across good and evil and use description to help. I think both the stories concluded very well and are well written mystery stories which contain a lot of typical characteristics of this particular genre.
