The opening few lines in “The Red Room” prove to be very important as it shows to the reader that the main character is boastful and full of arrogance as he stands before the fire with a glass in his hand saying that only a “very tangible” ghost will frighten him which conjures up, in my mind the sight of an overconfident maybe naive person. These lines also indicate to the reader that he is educated, this possibly being the source of his arrogance .The line also indicates that the story may contain a ghost, this building a little suspense and in turn this is tension.
The four characters in the story include; a young rather sceptical man who dismisses what ever is unusual about the red room, the other three are all old people who are the caretakers of the house or castle. These three as we learn later only have speculations as to what hides in the room and through legend have never dared enter it. The differences between the characters such as the younger mans characteristics such as being a young and sceptical, this contrasts his character with the older people as they are wiser and have more experience of life. I think such differences have an effect that produces tension.
““It’s your own choosing,” said the man with the withered arm”
Repetition is used massively in the story. It brings tension to the story quite well it could be said that the old man is hounding him about this as he feels he must protect any other person from falling fate to the room. The man ignores his cautions and as he does the older man does not look at the sceptic’s face but talks to his feet as if now knowing that something will happen to this person. The fact that he is only ever described as the man with the withered arm makes him sound mysterious and ghostly that the withered is almost more important than the man is. The repetition also gives it a scary ominous feel.
Imagery is used a lot to produce tension. The darkness is somehow alive and is evil. It is also implied that the darkness is contagious and is spreading to old people making them lose their human qualities “insensibly day by day”. He keeps personifying the shadows as he infers that one seems too be “crouching” to “waylay” him. As if maybe there to stop him from entering this room. Shadows and darkness were everywhere as the red room is covered in it as there are many recesses that would confuse him as he cannot see anything there and this darkness proves too “stimulating” for his mind as darkness could contain anything. He then explores these recesses, plants candles so there is no darkness to be unsure of. Even the fact that the three caretakers are huddled in one spot, around the fire staring hard into it concentrating on the light as far as possible from the red room adds to the idea that the darkness is “bad”. Other imagery is used as there is a spiralled staircase leading to the red room as if this symbolises the twisted path to hell that is the red room.
The man is constantly unsure of the room and the tales behind it as he locks the door behind him and even puts up a barricade while keeping his gun close to hand. He goes onto argue with himself and tries to prove that the existence of ghosts is not possible. I think this insecurity of the character makes tension rise as he becomes worried and the reader thinks that something must happen soon as the tension builds.
In conclusion I believe that all the factors I have mentioned about imagery and characterisation all contribute greatly to the overall controlling of tension.
Farthing house is similar but I believe is less scary and tormenting to the main character, the person who falls foul to what the supernatural world. But tension is used well to intrigue the reader.
Diction choice is used cleverly to make tension rise or fall in places. In a single paragraph tension has been lowered by the use of “pleasant” words such as; “settled”, “serene”, “fresh”, “excellent” and there are many more of such words contained in this paragraph. The same tactic is used to make tension rise as well.
Near the beginning tension is produced as the writer draws attention to how important what she is about to say is as she says she must not “let it go” and so raises a question as to why she feels it is so important that she must give the story to another person and so maybe keep the story alive.
Senses are used in the story to when something eerie happens. Such as when she finds out that a person occupied her room before had died she describes her feeling of melancholy that “sweeps” over her. The senses that she first uses is her sense of smell as she is first reminded of the event at farthing house. When she first awakens in the night to a baby crying that after investigating is not there at all. Again spooky questions arise. Also in this time she first awakens she is sure that someone has been in her room but she has no way of telling and so the character will feel uneasy and the first-person viewpoint of the story amplifies the uneasiness, which produces tension.
Also as she first remembers what has happened as everything floods back to her she later reads a story in the newspaper concerning her experience, she said her eyes were drew to that particular story as if when primarily remembered she did so only because of the story happening. Again on her way to Farthing house in her story she was drawn to the graveyard was a young mother and child had died. These happenings are quite ghostly and hard to believe but far believable than that of the “The Red Room” and gives a more modern look on ghosts as not just being scary.
I think the idea of her being drawn to places and things works particularly well for producing tension as like other things in the story it creates mystery in the story and makes it harder to rationally dismiss it as pure science-fiction as it sounds believable.
