The Kit-Bag is about a man called Johnson who has just dealt with a major murder inquiry.
Johnson, a young man of about twenty-six, had a delicate face like a girls. As he was leaving the office, after hard day’s worked, he turned and said to his employer “I knew there was something to ask you, would you mind if I could use one of your kit-bags?” His boss replied “Of course, I’ll send Harry over with it”
Once Johnson had the Kit-Bag, he packed it straight away as he was going on holiday the very next day. While he was packing, he heard loud footsteps on the stairs below him. He thought it must be Mrs. Monk with his post, but the footsteps ceased. Ten minutes passed and the footsteps were getting louder and closer. Johnson decided to check what was going on. While he was there, he saw a strange figure dash into his room. Johnson could not believe what had just happened. When he was walking back into his room, the Kit-Bag made a sudden move for the door and John Turk, the murderer appeared. Johnson’s heart was pounding. John Turk was looking at Johnson as if wanted something from him .He said, “It’s my bag and I want it now”. Johnson then collapsed and lay unconscious for a long time. After he had woken up, Mrs. Monk came into his room. She told him that someone was down stairs and needed to see him before he left. It was Henry with a nice clean Kit-Bag. He told Johnson that he gave him the wrong Kit-Bag. Henry had given him the bag from the murder scene and he told him the news that John Turk had killed himself last night in his cell at ten o’clock.
Bram Stoker’s writing involves a lot of Gothicism. He wrote many novels and short stories and amongst them The Judges House.
Already two paragraphs into the story Bram Stoker is doing what he does best, being gothic, it says “it was an old rambling, heavy built house of the Jacobean style, with heavy gables and windows, unusually small, and over higher than was customary in such houses, and was surrounded with a high brick wall massively built,’ so already we can imagine that there is this huge eighteenth century house that hasn’t been touched for decades and is suitable for some strange going’s on.
Near the end of the short story Malcomson gets back from a day of studying and finds that in the centre of the picture was a great irregular patch of brown canvas, as fresh as when it was stretched on the frame. The background was as before, with chair and chimney-corner and rope, but the figure had disappeared.
Clearly Malcomson is feeling rather tense now because of the disappearance of the figure that sat in the great chair.
As Malcomson turns round ‘there, on the great high-backed carved oak chair sat the judge in his robes of scarlet of ermine, with his baleful eyes glaring vindictively, and a smile of triumph on the resolute cruel mouth’. So obviously some supernatural being had happened here because the judge had recently been sitting in his great chair.
Algeron Blackwood is not as well known for Gothicism as Bram Stoker but was in very good contention with Bram with this excellent piece of work.
In The Kit-Bag there are a few examples of being typically gothic. It starts on page eight when Johnson came back in his room ‘the kit-bag lay close in front of him, several feet nearer to the door than he had left it’ so it has obviously moved. The Kit-Bag on page nine ‘distinctly was jerking along the floor to the door’ to try and get out. While that was going on Johnson heard some deep breathing and out stepped John Turk the murderer from the court case, he only said one thing “it’s my bag I want it” so I think that’s typically gothic because it’s all in his head. Johnson was hallucinating.
Typically gothic is a very difficult thing to describe because it’s so many things. It’s either something playing with your mind or its some supernatural happening.
During these two short stories there were some extortionate moments of horror.
In the Kit-Bag at the very beginning Johnson notices that his boss has not given him a very nice bag, not one he appreciates anyway.
Johnson could hear some constant walking about downstairs so he thought he would check it out ‘but the sound ceased; there was no one visible on the stairs.’ Malcomson came to the conclusion that it was Mrs. Monk with other lodger’s letters.
Johnson was starting to realise that he felt oddly-nervous. He knew it was there but didn’t want to look at the signs. Once again these footsteps were heard as he walked out of his room but as he did a strange shadow past him and entered his room, shivers went down his back. Johnson now believes that it was not Mrs. Monk on the stairs but someone else and that they entered his room. Johnson quietly slid it back into his room, suspicious someone was in there. ‘Not three feet from stood the man, the fringe of black hair marked plainly against his forehead’. At the same moment the kit-bag gave a faint but unmistakable lunge towards to the door. Then John Turk spoke ‘Its my bag, I want it,’ This whole story has been building up to the moment were Johnson finds out who has been stalking around the house. Then Johnson realises that its John Turk the murderer from the case, he’s so scared he faints.
So to sum that paragraph up, basically being alone represents the gothic idea.
In the Judges House Malcomson is looking around and sees these rather extortionate weird looking paintings but as he was doing that he caught a small glimmer in the corner of the room. It was a rat who was sitting there looking at him with his gleaming, huge eyes. It then disappeared at a huge speed. So here we notice that Stoker has already given us a huge clue in that we could be possibly be seeing that rat again.
On page 1073 the doctor predicts that the great alarm bell will be rung the next day, but why is this? Only the next day Malcomson is in the dining room when ‘there, on the great old high-backed carved oak chair beside the fireplace sat the same enormous rat, steadily glaring at him wit his baleful eyes,’ In this extract there is only one question to ask yourself, why is the rat in the judges chair?
Now the story is beginning to excite everyone, it’s stepping up a gear, it’s getting to the point where the horror is about to happen. But what is it?
When Malcomson took another look at the pictures he realised that one of them was the great dining room, he was standing in that room, ‘but in the centre of the picture was a great irregular patch of brown canvas, as fresh as when it was stretched on the frame. The picture was the same but the judge had disappeared Malcomson, almost in a chill of horror, turned slowly round. ‘There, on the great high-backed carved oak chair sat the judge in his robes of scarlet and ermine.’ In this out-take some supernatural occurrings have taken place.
In Malcomson’s mind everything has exploded because he can’t believe that the judge is just sitting there.
As the doctor predicted they heard the great alarm bell, Malcomson had hung himself or was it the judge?
Stoker has produced a great horror moment there because he has made the reader think ‘who’s done the killing’.
Johnson and Malcomson are both victims of terrible trauma because they both suffer something they shouldn’t have to. Johnson is still alive but will always have to ask himself, was John Turk in my room or not, was he really in jail? Malcomson really spent the last few days of his life confused because he kept seeing this rat and ended up dead. Did he kill himself or not?
I think Johnson does not deserve our sympathy because he imagined all this upon himself, but as for Malcomson someone should have warned him a serial killer judge had lived there, so he deserves some sympathy.
The judge I think was successful because he got another victim on his list and there was a supernatural side to him as well.
John Turk was in Johnson’s mind but I think it was the Kit-Bag he wanted back, so that’s fair.
John Turk and the Judge were very powerful creations by Algeron Blackwood and Bram Stoker. They are very similar in a way because they both played with the subconscious feelings and the minds of their victims.
The Judges House and The Kit-Bag are two of the greatest gothic horror story’s I have read. The one I would rather read again is The Judges House because of the fine detail Bram Stoker has put into it.
Fraser Smith