How H. G. Wells, Builds and sustains tension
In "The Red Room".
The title "The Red Room" immediately attracts the reader's attention; it is symbolic but leaves unanswered questions. "What is the red room?" "Why is it red?" We associate red with fear and danger. Is this room dangerous? Overall, the title raises so much curiosity that it has an overwhelming effect, wanting us to read on and find answers to our questions.
The short story writer has to attract the reader and keep their attention throughout. In order for any story to work, tension has to be built in the text, to keep it interesting. In a novel, the writer has to structure and create tension building it up and letting it drop and picking it up again. Too much fast-paced action in a film kills the essence of it and for the viewer, it can become almost funny to watch. For a short story, however, it is able to build tension and sustain it without completely dropping down to the original level. The best way of building tension is to increase the tension then drop down slightly but not as low as at the outset. In adding more drama, little by little, the story gains tension but the reader is also reminded of the excitement as he is released from the drama from time to time.
In a short story, the reader will be able to have a strong influence from the writer's first and last lines. This makes them very important and are well thought out. This is the first line:
"'I can assure you,' said I, 'that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me.'"
From this first line, the reader can assume two pieces of information. Firstly that this story involves a ghost, and secondly that the character is an educated and well-read man.
This peak of interest increases the tension and stops the reader from putting the book down. Also, as it is a short story it gets straight to the point.
The story in the first page introduces four characters. A young man, an old man and his wife, and another old man. We never know their names. The young man is skeptical about the red room being haunted. The three elder people believe that it is haunted and dare not even go there. Opposites build drama and drama builds tension. This is the perfect example of how opposites build tension. Firstly, we have the young against the old, which also symbolizes the inexperienced against the wise. There is also the conflict between 'skeptics' and the 'wise'. Although they may be wise, the older people have not ever dared to go to the red room. They have become wise as they have heard the stories about the room but none of them has ever had first hand experience of the room.
Repetition is also a device used by writers to build tension. One of the most obvious examples is on the first page.
"It's your own choosing."
The old man is trying to warn the young man but at the same time he is leaving the 'decision' to him. It is as if the three old people are ridding themselves of their responsibility of the young man. It is their duty, like guardians, to warn the man of what they believe is to be his death.
Another use of repetition is on page two where the old woman keeps on repeating, "this night of all nights." We never find out why that night is important but it gives the reader a 'red herring' question. Although we are going to find out when we read on; we want to have answers and this continues our interest into - "why was that night important?"
The location is critical to the short story. The writer needs to give his story a carefully considered and appropriate backdrop. A short story works through its location, characters, and setting in time and language. These are the ingredients that tie it together and make the mixture complete. In this story, the location is very important. The story is set in a castle. A ghost story in a castle is not a new idea and although it is a rather unoriginal location, it is very appropriate. The old people who inhabit the place cannot use most of it to live in because they are afraid of the 'red room'. This keeps them well away from that section of the castle. A castle is such an appropriate location and here what we do not know is far more frightening than what we do know. A castle is a perfect example of what we do not know! It is full of rooms, corridors and stairs. As the story continues, the young man explores the castle on his journey to the red room. On route to the red room, he comes across what looks like a figure in front of him only to find it was an ornament of a Chinaman on a buhl table. Then as he approaches the door to the red room, the tension builds and he enters very quickly closing the door behind him. He finds himself in a huge red walled room. As he continues to arrange the room, the tension is allowed to fall giving the reader a certain release. As he becomes more aware of the shadows in the room the tension rises again:
"The shadow in the alcove at the end in particular had that undefinable quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking, living thing, that comes so easily in silence and solitude."
Again, this shows us how darkness is far more frightening than being able to see and knowing what is there. Tension is built by how the young man expresses his feelings. To conquer his fear of the unknown the man places a candle in an alcove in the corner of the room:
"At last, to reassure myself, I walked with a candle into it, and satisfied myself that there was nothing tangible there. I stood that candle upon the floor of the alcove, and left it in that position."
Here he is referring to the opening line about having to find a very tangible ghost.
Tension mounts as her begins talking to himself, but after listening to the eerie echoes, he gets more frightened than before. The tension increases now all the time. He is getting more nervous and he feels the need for more candles. He has to get some from the corridor and he lights them and places them around the room. His spirits lift but there is also tension created through his black humour. He may be watching what he describes as "cheery and reassuring little streaming flames," but he is getting nervous and he jokes about how he should warn any ghost about tripping over a candle on the floor.
Then it happens. The first candle goes out, casting a black shadow on the wall. The second candle goes out and the tension in the story is boosted as there is uncertainty about why the candle went out. Although the man does not feel any draft, he claims that it was a draft that blew it out. He tries to reassure himself by lying to himself although he has a deeper feeling that he may not be alone. He has to dismiss this from his mind otherwise he would become the victim of his own fears. As he goes over to re-light the candle, it goes out, then another and another. Then one is extinguished in front of him while he is looking at it.
"Shadows seemed to take another step towards me"
The light symbolizes the truth. Without light, there is no truth. If the light goes out he has no way of finding out what is in the red room. The darkness creates the tension and fear. In light, we can see but when it is dark we cannot see and therefore tension and fear is everywhere. When the man says that the shadows take another step towards him, he is saying that fiction is closing in on him and as it does, he is been drawn away from the truth.
In the story, the man has a revolver. This symbolizes violence, which leads to conflict, and conflict builds tension. Fire symbolizes warmth and wards off evil. The old people with disabilities symbolize the fear inside him and how he would not like to end his life. However, at the end, he does become like them, talking in their style about what had happened.
Panic comes as the room plunges into shadows with him racing around trying to keep up with the candles as they go out. Approaching the epiphany, the tension is further highlighted, as the sentences become shorter. Clumsily he knocks his thigh against the table. His downfall begins. From here on he loses control. It is as if he is in sinking sand and the rope stopping him from sinking completely snaps. He loses his quest for the truth as he tries to light the fire with the last candle. He runs into something and knocks himself out. For me this is the epiphany.
Then there is a gap in time; tension starts to unwind slowly. He wakes up the next morning after being rescued at dawn by the old people. He personifies fear with the red room. The tension in the story is the unknown. Any passage relating to the unknown could build tension.
Language plays an important part and changes with characters. The old people have an old English vocabulary, whereas the young man is given a very upper class and stylish vocabulary. Around the epiphany of the story, the language relating to the young man's experience is described in very short sentences with a lot of punctuation.
The story has many meanings and has a certain theme:
To be denied of information as a reader is far more powerful than to know the truth.
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