Discuss how each of the authors create tension in the stories ‘The Red Room’ and, ‘Farthing House. Which do you think is the more successful ghost story?

   In ‘The Red Room’ there are only four characters and one main one who is the narrator. This helps the tension because you see the events through his eyes. Know what he is feeling and following every movement of his ordeal. He also sets up an expectation of his downfall and the terror he will face by saying, ‘I can assure you, that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me.’ The old people add to the tension with the warnings and hints that something will happen by saying, ‘It’s your own choosing’ and ‘This night of all nights’. In ‘Farthing House’ the tension is built differently. At the start of the story tension is created straight away by saying ,’I have never told you any of this before-I have never told anyone, and indeed, writing it and sealing it up in an envelope to be read at some future date may still not count as telling. But I shall feel better for it’. In saying this, the narrator, who is also the main character, has set up an interesting story to come, thus building tension. She seems to be the only character in the story that actually creates any tension where as in ‘The Red Room’ four characters play vital roles in building up the tension in the beginning of the story.

  In ‘The Red Room’ the tension rises as the narrator draws nearer to the room and just before he enters it he feels the need to clutch his revolver as if expecting something sinister to be around the corner. And when he enters the room the tension drops as it is a totally normal room with nothing odd in it. Later, in the room, after it was filled with light more tension was aroused as some candles unexpectedly went out in consecutively and when the narrator says, ‘The flame vanished, as if the wicks had been suddenly nipped between a finger and thumb’ as if suggesting that a ghost or a person had done it. As he concluded the part in the room he gives the suggestion that he could’ve been struck by saying ‘ and was either struck or struck myself against some other bulky furniture’ this creates tension as we are still left wondering whether there was someone or something in the room or nothing at all. In ‘Farthing House’ the tension rises and falls. The first hint of something apart from the opening lines is when she arrives at the door of the residential home and something made her hesitate before ringing the bell it then says ‘I am being very careful now, it would be too easy to claim that I had sensed something sinister, that I was shrouded at once in the atmosphere of a haunted house’. This suggests that something unnatural and ghostly will happen later in the story. Once in the house she makes small hints of things not being right such as ‘it was quiet, too, there was no rattling of trolleys or buzzing of bells. And the matron did not call herself one’ ‘something else was not as I had expected’ this sets up an expectation of something unexpected and helps to build up the tension with small effective sentences. Tension is then created when the narrator claims hearing the unmistakable sound of a baby crying which is odd seeing as they are in a Residential home. Then comes the first suggestion of something being in her room before she awoke, ‘I had the absolutely clear sense that someone else had been in my room’. Tension is then created with the first confrontation with the ghost and the sentence ‘Now, I saw her’ builds up so much tension and makes people quicken their reading pace to find out who the ‘her’ is and what was making the sobbing noises. The conclusion then brings understanding, completion and sympathy for the sympathy for the woman because of the concluding sentence, ‘But I imagine she has gone, now that she has what she was looking for.

   The conclusion of the stories are both very different from each other as one is very clear and the other takes a bit of thought to understand but when you do it explains the story as does the other. For example ‘There is fear in that room of hers – black Fear, and there will be- so long as this house of sin endures.’ This suggests that there was no ghost in the room at all and was only haunted by the fear. The final sentence in ‘Farthing House’ is ‘But I imagine that she has gone, now that she has what she was looking for. This ending concludes the story on a happy note and explains that the lady wandering and sobbing in the house was sobbing and wandering because she was looking for her baby.  

The main differences between the two stories apart from the centuries in which they were written are that ‘Farthing House’ contains a real ghost where as ‘The Red Room’ only has a suggestion of one, the tension built in ‘The Red Room’ is much more obvious and more effective in my opinion than in the other story and there are more prominent characters in ‘The Red Room’ which is why I have come to the conclusion that ‘The Red Room’ is a much more successful horror story than ‘Farthing House’.