Andrew Gidney
Comparing the ways H.G.Wells Creates
Suspense in ‘The Red Room’ and ‘The Stolen Bacillus’
‘The Red Room’ by H.G.Wells is a horror or ghost story, which was written purely to scare the readers by producing suspense all the way through. Where as ‘The Stolen Bacillus’ was written scare the readers and secondly to make the readers smile or laugh, in places. ‘The Stolen Bacillus’s genre is
Horror \ Humour which is a strange mix of genres. Both of these stories were written by H.G.Wells but into totally different settings, ‘The Red Room’ being set in an old spooky castle and ‘The Stolen Bacillus’ in the middle of busy old London. ‘The Red Room’ is placed in an old castle so that the reader almost expects the story’s going to try and scare them. The general story line is that in “ Lorraine Castle ” there is a ghost that no-one has ever seen, but they have seen its consequences, one of which being a young duke had died, “Or, rather, in which he had begun his dying, for he had opened the door and fallen down the steps”. For this reason his air, a young man of “Eight-and-twenty years” has proposed, to the extremely old caretakers of the castle, that he would have a stakeout to prove that there is no ghost in the red room. ‘The Stolen Bacillus’ also begins with a young man but this time he is being told about bacteria in the vague attempt to steal some cholera and introduce it into the water supplies of London. To prove a point not just because he’s an “anarchist” but to get back at “All those people who had sneered at him, neglected him, preferred other people to him, found his company undesirable, should consider him at last”.
As soon as ‘The Red Room’ begins H.G.Wells puts in suspense. Firstly by entering in the middle of a conversation, secondly by mentioning the word “ghost” in the first sentence and thirdly by making you wonder; who’s speaking? The narrator says, “it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten” him. By this he means that I’m not scared of anything and that he thinks that he’s mentally tough and strong. The author then creates more suspense by describing three very old, strange and decrepit people. One of which keeps on repeating “this night of all nights” another repeats “it’s your own choosing” the author is “trying to enhance the spiritual terrors of” the “house” or castle “by their droning insistence”. These old people make it very clear that they wouldn’t go into the red room, the haunted room, even on a normal night. The narrator wants to have the stake on this exact night because this was when his predecessor died, whilst running out of the room he fell down the stairs and died. The old people are described to be so ugly and hateful towards each other and the narrator that it almost seems as if they were the castle’s ghosts. The “grotesque” people seem to enhance the frightening quality of the story without them it would not have quite the same effect. There is one man with a “withered arm” a woman who continually stares into the fire and another man, who enters later wearing a shade. There is a detailed description of “the man with the shade”, “his eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth. I’m really not surprised by the narrator’s reaction towards them saying “I must confess I had scarce expected these grotesque custodians. There is to my mind something inhuman in senility,” “ the human qualities seem to drop from old people day by day.” Behind the man with the shade a “monstrous shadow of him crouched upon the wall and mocked” his every action. They are there simply to put fear into the heart of the reader. Another thing that I have noticed is that there are three of them this is intentional because in most stories that are set out to scare they include the number three in somewhere in the story. The three old people won’t even show the narrator to the red room. The long directions given help to increase tension by making it seem that the old people want to be as far away as they can manage from the red room. When the narrator goes out of the room containing these strange creatures he looks behind him and sees them black against the fire this gives the reader the impressing that they are spirits or demons. As he leaves he lights a candle and starts on his reasonably long journey to the red room it is on the first part of this trek that H.G.Wells is personifying the shadows to spirits fleeing the light and then sneaking back up behind him again. About half way along the corridor the narrator comes across a shadow that looks like someone or something waiting to “waylay” him, so he grabs his “revolver”. This proves that he must have been pretty scared in the first place to be carrying a revolver and now when he is gripping it ready to fire if something jumps out at him. As it turns out it is just a statue of an eagle. Now he walks up the stairs in order to get to the red room he opens the door and walks in, starting to examine the room and light some more candles with his little candle, that doesn’t even reach from one end of the room to the other, when he finds nothing he pulls up a chair and sits down ready to begin his “stake out”. Suddenly two of the candles go out, the narrator thinks not a lot of it a first until more start to disappear. Again H.G.Wells compares the shadows to living objects. It is at that point H.G.Wells picks up the pace of the story he does this by writing longer sentences, which are made up with lots of small clauses and shorter words. Then the perfect climax is ready to begin picture a full-grown man running around in the dark lighting candles hither and tither bumping into tables and beds or you can picture a man being chased by a invisible ghost pushing and hitting him until the point of unconsciousness. Following this I think is the best part of the story and the most tense: when he awakes your wondering what actually happened but instead of getting a flat out reply you get the old people asking whether it was “ ghost of earl” or “ghost of countess in that room”. The narrator replied by saying that it was neither, it was something that had “followed” him “through the corridor” and “it fought against” him “in the room”. It was fear. No ghost was present in that room but the “fear” of what you can not see, and what you can think but know is not possible, was. In a way ‘The Red Room’ ends in a slightly humorous way with “the man with the shade” agreeing with the narrator but not really knowing what was said.
