An Essay comparing three short stories, The Red Room", "The Club Footed Grocer" and "The Signalman"
An Essay comparing three short stories,
"The Red Room", "The Club Footed Grocer" and "The Signalman"
I will be examining how tension and suspense are created in three short stories. I will analyze the use of language, setting, and characters and plot to see where tension has been created for the reader. We are studying three stories, 'The Signalman', which is a pre-1900 Charles Dickens story, 'The Red Room', by H. C. Wells and "The Club Footed Grocer" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Charles Dickens would have written 'The Signalman' for a Victorian audience who were very interested in science and mystical events. So Dickens wrote the story with a supernatural mood and with the upper most intent to create fear for the reader. He has also written the story in a railway setting, which was central to Victorian life. This small setting goes in the same basis for the other two stories as they date back to the same period and stories in pre-nineteenth century were written like this. What this means is that the stories were similar in the way they where presented, as they were built around a small story setting. In the "Red Room" the enclosed location is the big house, and we do not have any contact with the outside world. This does not let the story expand much at all. However in "The club footed Grocer", there was a relatively large setting in which the story I developed.
The meaning of tension is to be in a state of being tense, a strained state or condition. There is also mental or emotional strain; this is the type of tension I will be looking at. Suspense is a state of feeling excited or anxious uncertainly about what may happen. Also there is a hormone change when under this state, causing faster heart beats. But readers like to witness this thrill as it is keeps them on the edge of their seats, willing to find out about the rest of the story, which is a really good way of attracting readers.
All three authors, Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H. C. Wells, wrote in the first person so that the reader can experience what the narrator was feeling, which allows tension to be created in various points in the short stories. Also the reader would experiences what the narrator is feeling; once again the tension within the stories was causing readers to be attracted, helping the stories to become popular.
'The Signalman' is set in a strange and unknown location and we are not really told where it is, which adds to the tension. "Down in the deep trench". Even the sunset hints at tragedy. Dickens' use of vocabulary creates a sense of danger or violence. Dickens describes the place with many menacing phrases. "Great dungeon". "Barbarous, depressing and forbidding air". "Earthy deadly smell". "Solitary and dismal place". Dickens makes the setting come alive and turns it into a place where something terrible could happen. This creates tension for the reader as they can sense something cruel could ...
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'The Signalman' is set in a strange and unknown location and we are not really told where it is, which adds to the tension. "Down in the deep trench". Even the sunset hints at tragedy. Dickens' use of vocabulary creates a sense of danger or violence. Dickens describes the place with many menacing phrases. "Great dungeon". "Barbarous, depressing and forbidding air". "Earthy deadly smell". "Solitary and dismal place". Dickens makes the setting come alive and turns it into a place where something terrible could happen. This creates tension for the reader as they can sense something cruel could happen. You get the feeling that he is getting drawn into the cutting but he has reluctance as he feels there is something strange about the place and the Signalman. Due to the narrator being in the first person the readership will also experience reluctance about the cutting.
'The Red Room' is set in a gloomy castle with secret rooms and passages, ruled over by an owner tortured by a guilty secret. The castle's location is not told but, this makes the reader think into the possibilities of its location. Also the castle is extremely huge judging by the directions given to the location of that haunted room, '...go along passage for a bit', 'until you come to a door', and through that is a spiral staircase, and half-way up that is a landing..' and so on until you arrive at the room, almost "a hour later".
In 'The Club Footed Grocer' the location is firstly London, where the narrator of the story lived. Then the action moves to the north of the England and the only way to get to it is by train. The name of the location is Congleton. The use of real places in the stories gives a sense of authentacy. Also we are introduced to the family, in which the father has died and we only have the narrator (the son) and mother.
Another very effective part of the "Signalman" was that the ghost could be standing by the red light to be warning the signalman of danger. This makes the reader curious of what that danger will be and whether the signalman will survive it. The ghost is also, "waving as I just showed you" and so you speculate why the ghost is waving but you will never know unless you read on to find out the answer. Also this creates tension at that point as the reader had to find out what happened next, hence has to read on.
Dickens describes the Signalman as a mysterious man, which adds to the tension. We sense that the narrator is scared of the signalman. "Something in the man that daunted me". There is one main character in the shot story which was the signalman himself. The signalman's character is a very interesting one. The narrator found out that the signalman, "Had run wild, missed his opportunities, gone down and never risen again." This could be trying to show us is that the signalman's character was successful in his education; however he did not use his academic skills wisely had hence 'Missed his opportunities.'
In 'The Red Room', the characters, warnings about the red room "the likes of this house" and "this night of all nights!" tells the reader that there is something unusual about the house and that the red room is more than just a typical room. Also as there are only four characters this makes the book stay within the house and not much room to expand, kept concise. This is also kept concise by using dark and low light colours to describe the rooms. This does not give the reader any chance to expand his thoughts of the room, and just accept that it is a dark room. But by adding a long and lots of pathways to the "Red Room" the house is made bigger then what it could be. In the 'Red Room' there are fewer characters. There are only the three old people who the narrator meets when he enters the castle. The narrator describes these old people as being like ghosts which intensifies the fear, 'I have suspected the old people were trying to enhance the spiritual terrors of their house by their droning insistence.' They seam ancient, unfriendly and inhuman.
Lastly 'The Club footed grocer', has a few more characters but still keeps to the short story convention of having only a small amount of characters. The main character I think has to be the uncle who is also known as the club footed grocer, because of his foot. This makes the club footed grocer the focal point of the story.
In 'The Signalman' the narrator visits for the first time then decides to come back the next day which builds tension, as the reader knows that something is going to happen when he comes back. The Signalman sees three visions. The first we are not told the details about, the second is when the woman is found dead in the carriage and the third is when he is killed. When the Signalman first of all looks into the tunnel he stands on the track, which echoes the ending, when he is killed. He gets a warning and then the accident happens with the time in between shortening, therefore building tension.
The atmosphere of 'The Red room' is suggested by structure and action but especially by the author's choice of language. The language and imagery used, has a great effect in creating the atmosphere, and this is shown when the author is describing people with words such as "withered arm", "pale eyes" and "monstrous shadow". In the 'Red Room' the language is more ghostly and spiritual as he the narrator uses words to describe the fear and peril he is experiencing of seeing a ghost or presence. this is shown in the following quotes, 'An age when things spiritual were different from this of ours' and 'It was like a ragged storm cloud sweeping out the stars.' This shows how he was scared of the darkness, as he talks about storm clouds which hide away the star light.
The language the authors have used in these stories is the main feature of what creates fear and tension. They have used plain language to describe the terror and fear of the coming danger. The author of 'The Club Footed Grocer,' Sir Arthur Doyle, has used language of fear and worry, which is seen in most of the characters behaviour. On the nephew's journey, when he first experiences fear, he briefly describes his feeling, 'The vague, inexplicable sense of danger in the midst of the loneliness...'
'The Signalman' ends in an extremely unexpected way. As we, the readers are expecting a death; we were not expecting it to be either the narrator or another, not an unknown person. When first reading the short story, we are totally shocked by the fact that this death is in fact the Signalman.
The short story 'The Red Room' also had an unexpected ending. We find out towards the end that there was no ghost at all, but something far worse. We also are not told what the person experiences which led him into believing in ghosts. This gives a sense of suspense to the story as that is the point where the story is ended, n makes the reader continue to think of what the narrator could have seen in 'The Red Room'
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ended 'The Club Footed Grocer' in a very positive form. The author ended with a conclusive paragraph which revelled some secrets that we, the readers, where not aware of while reading the short story. This is a very good way to end a story as it does not keep the reader hanging off the edge.
To conclude, I think that all three pre-nineteenth century stories were very successful. I also believe that to make a story full of suspense you need to create tension because tension in the present creates suspense in the future. You must not reveal everything to the reader and leave them to figure it out for themselves. It should keep the reader guessing right till the end of the story. I believe that all three stories achieve this remarkably well.
Hardik Patel