The setting of the Red Room shares many of the themes which are expressed by the Gothic/Victorian genre. For example if we look at the setting we find that Wells made use of a deserted house in which one room has particular meaning, this reflects the tendency of writers of this style to make use of rundown, dilapidated houses. The structure of the story is again based on tension being created. The discomfort of the narrator has played a vital role in thrilling out the story. When the candles going out panic builds up to the final paragraph of story.
The atmosphere of the story gets very uncomfortable as the story goes on. It is filled with tension and linguistic devices have been used to convey the feelings. For example H.G. Wells have used words such as; pale eyes, monstrous shadow, door creaked, etc. Similes, Personification and Metaphors have also been used in the context, for example: fashions born in dead brains', 'little tongue of light', 'ocean of mystery', 'like a ragged storm cloud sweeping out the stars'.
On the other hand the signal man is a story about a man who lived in a very lonesome place and believes in supernatural illusions, but there weren’t any. Supernatural in both the stories said to be about ghosts and scary illusions. Again in this story linguistic devices have heavily been used
In The Signal Man the signal man believes in supernatural illusions and doubts every one. He has also experienced a number of incidents in his life of being a signal man. Once he saw a ghost, which disappeared and left fear on his face, the next time a girl died in the rail while it was passing through the signal station. So this can be an illusion, because he has never been touched or beaten by supernatural and has no proof. But in The Red Room the ghost is actually harmful and injured the main character, which proofs that The Red Room is haunted. When the narrator yelled at the signal man from the high above, he thought that it is some ghost or sprit who is calling out his name. The place is actually not haunted but just because of a girl and the ghost incident he thinks it’s haunted or cursed.
The atmosphere of the story starts off relatively uncomfortable. And this uncomfortable feeling comes only because of the linguistic devices used. Tension builds up during the story as both the characters have different feelings about the supernatural aspects.
