The atmosphere of mystery and suspense is always present in a gothic story.
Often the plot itself is based around mystery. For instance, in The Old Nurse’s Story, the east wing is strictly out of bounds, creating an element of animosity which makes the reader wonder why it is off limits. Also, when the picture of Miss Grace is mysteriously turned around to hide it, ‘I helped Dorothy to turn a great picture, that leaned with its face towards the wall, and was not hung up as the others were,’ said Hester. Mystery and suspense is also present in The Red Room with respect to it being haunted. Someone had died there, and is supposedly still present in an unearthly form. Dickens also creates the atmosphere of mystery. The man the narrator is shouting to below looks round to face the tunnel, he ‘looks down the line,’ instead of looking upwards at the man. Any normal person would look upwards in response to the shouting. The unexplainable builds up suspense. At this point we do not know who either of the men are.
Dickens makes you ask yourself questions, leading you to anticipate what is to come next. When Dickens goes on to describe the signalman he once again creates a sense of mystery, which is effective in creating overall suspense in the story. It begins as Dickens describes him, ‘There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so’.
All gothic stories incorporate a supernatural element whether it is a spirit, monster or another strange phenomenon.
This is typical to create an element of fear. In The Red Room this is integrated into the story through the supernatural element. In The Old Nurse’s Story, ‘The east door gave way with a thundering crash, as if torn open in a violent passion.’ This is where the ‘phantoms’ arrive. In The Signalman there is a ghost, described by the signalman as a man with the left arm across the face, and the right arm ‘violently waved’. Here the supernatural element is also present.
The timing and duration of suspense is also a technique used by the writers in these Gothic stories.
The title ‘The Red Room’ immediately attracts the reader's attention; we usually associate red with fear and danger. Is this room dangerous? The title raises curiosity and causes us to read on and find answers to our questions. A tense mood is almost created immediately. In The Signalman the story opens with the quote ‘Halloa! Below there!’ This short but effective line becomes very crucial as the story unfolds. We don’t know who is shouting it and so it also creates a feeling of apprehension. In comparison to the other two stories, the tension in The Old Nurse’s Story builds up midway through the story, with the mysterious organ playing, rather than at the beginning. A reader might find this story quite boring in the first half where Miss Rosamond’s family tree, and the events leading up to the Manor castle are explained. This is an aspect I think story lacked. It is written in a novel form, which I do not think is a good idea for a short gothic story as the reader can easily lose interest.
In The Signalman, the story is only spread over a couple of days. Further more, the story only takes place within one setting which is the cutting. The Red Room takes place over just about two days. I believe this is so that the suspense is retained. In contrast to the others, The Old Nurse’s Story takes place over a couple of months.
An eccentric description and personality of characters in Gothic stories play a major role in developing the mood.
In The Red Room, the story introduces four characters whose names we don’t know. You soon begin to become suspicious of them. The young man is doubtful about the red room being haunted, while the three elder people believe that it is haunted and wouldn’t dare to go in. Opposite views build drama and drama builds atmosphere. This is a technique the writer uses to build tension. Firstly we have the young man who is sceptical against the old and wise. It can be noted that although they may be wise, they have never actually dared to go to the red room.
The description of people in The Red Room contributes to creating an apprehensive atmosphere, as it uses words like, ‘monstrous shadow’, ‘pale eyes’ and ‘withered arm.’ Words that describe the people in such depth leaves the reader feeling uneasy just trying to picture it.
The manner in which tension is built in the story is also an important aspect.
In The Red Room while H.G. Wells is making his way to the haunted room silence and growing darkness fills the corridor. He is alert, jumpy and he becomes easily scared. ‘I was about to advance, and stopped abruptly. A bronze group stood upon the landing, hidden from me by the corner of the wall, but its shadow fell…gave me the impression of someone crouching…’ You begin to imagine his fear. He becomes terrified as the candles go out one after the other. ‘My hands trembled so much I missed the rough paper of the matchbox.’ This leads up to the climax of the story where the room is black and still. ‘I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderous blackness away from me… screamed with all my might – once, twice, thrice.’
Dickens creates a lot of suspense throughout the story with the opening words and as the narrator descends the cutting, and looking at the signalman whose actions are very weird. The suspense is created as the signalman tells the gentleman of the weird happenings recently. The tension is maintained throughout the story. ‘But I expressly intend to make you another visit.’ The two men meet both times at the bottom of the cutting at night. ‘I will come at eleven.’ This mood is kept due to darkness, as it would be lost if they were to meet on a sunny afternoon. When they retreat to the signal box, the signalman looks outside towards the tunnel more than once. This creates expectancy of what is going to happen. The signalman reveals he is troubled.
Dickens nearly has you convinced that the signalman is a ghost. As when they do meet, he ‘looks towards the red light’. He seems very mysterious and unpredictable. You begin to feel edgy but then the signalman shows fear. A ghost or spirit is not expected to feel this way. The tension you felt begins to fade. After their conversation the man leaves and the signalman tells him not to call out the words, “Halloa! Below there!” One becomes curious about what the words may mean to the signalman and why he is scared of them.
Tension is created through horror and ambiguity. Normally a good suspense story should have them.
In The Signalman you are trying to figure out where and when the ghost comes in and so you become hooked. The description of the signalman’s weird behaviour and actions leads you to think he is supernatural. Typically the scene is set in the dark creating a mood within a deep cutting at twilight. Due to the darkness the two men don’t see each other properly until they are face to face, which is too late if one man was to kill the other. ‘I was near enough to have touched him.’ Therefore tension builds up more and more as they get closer to one another.
In The Old Nurse’s Story ambiguity is built gradually with the ghost of the Old Lord playing on the organ only at night. Bessy, a servant assures Hester that it plays ‘…most of all on winter nights, and before storms.’ Then tension builds up as Hester went to open the organ. She says, ‘…it was all broken and destroyed inside…my flesh began to creep a little, and I shut it up, and ran away pretty quickly…’ While reading the story you ask yourself questions such as, ‘Why does the Old Lord’s spirit remain playing the organ, and why only on winter nights?’ ‘Who is the little girl “…crying, and beating against the windowpanes…” to get in?’ Asking and wondering at questions such as these builds anxiety.
A sense of horror is also present. Hester admits that she is scared. ‘…the great organ peeled out so loud and thundering, it fairly made me tremble…’ this tense atmosphere in the story remains until the end where the crying of the girl comes back even more louder and clearer. The climax reaches when, ‘All at once the east door gave way with a thundering crash, as if torn open in a violent passion…’ The phantoms of ‘a tall old man…a stern beautiful woman, with a little child clinging to her dress’ enter the hall.
All three stories use different techniques to contribute to tension.
The Signalman takes place around a railway. The tunnel and railway running through signifies danger. Dickens ability to bring mystery, unexplainable, and first person narrative add up to make suspense. Dickens uses the colour red in his story. He sees the ghost ‘standing by the red light near the tunnel.’ Red is an emotive colour, which presents a warning or danger of some kind and makes you wonder why the ghost is there as well as by the red light enticing you to read on. Dickens uses a lot of effective adjectives like, ‘violent pulsation’, which captures the senses.
The use of dark imagery, and brutal language adds to the gothic scenery. The Old Nurse’s Story contains a sense of brutal imagery with the spectre child’s gruesome end. A lot of things take place at once: The holding on to Miss Rosamond, Miss Furnivall’s guilt eating away at her, Hester recalling the fire blazing in the vast hearth-place and the wind blowing hard.
The room in The Red Room is not red at all, it is just dark. Red is a strong colour and is associated with danger or warning. You wonder how the red room got its name and if there is any danger in the room. The reason it may be referred to as the red room by the old people may be to warn the others not to go in there. By calling it the ‘red’ room, it stands out much more than just saying the ‘dark’ room.
Similes, metaphors, and personification of darkness and fear are used also to build up atmosphere in The Red Room. Phrases like 'little tongue of light', meaning that there is a small glimpse of light in a very large room creates atmosphere, as well a metaphor such as 'ocean of mystery' and simile 'like a ragged storm cloud sweeping out the stars' is used. H.G. Wells uses a lot of emotive language to retain the atmosphere, ‘I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderous blackness away from me…’
The Red Room, The Signalman, and The Old Nurse’s Story are written in the first person so it feels like it is actually happening in the present. The quote, ‘You look as if you dread me’, makes this evident in The Signalman. He relates and describes as events are happening which adds suspense.
Repetition is a device used by the writers to build up atmosphere.
One of the most obvious examples is on the first page of the story where the old man repeats ‘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 up 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 were going to find out when we read on, we want to have answers and this continues our interest into – ‘why was that night important?’ In The Signalman the words ‘Halloa! Below there!’ are repeated at the beginning of the story to get the signalman’s attention. It seems as though the writer is trying to make you remember these words, because at the end it is these very words that leads to the signalman’s death. You find out that the story exists only because of those words.
A technique used by all three writers is sudden revelation.
All three stories keep the reader guessing right up to the end. In all three, the answers are not particularly clear, and do not provide the reader with the final conclusive answer. In this way, anxiety is maintained throughout the stories, as you have no definite answers to your questions. In The Red Room, ‘There is no ghost at all; but worse, far worse…Fear!’ It is the fear of your mind. Nothing is actually in the room except what one believes is there. H.G. Wells said, ‘It followed me through the corridor, it fought against me in the room.’ In The Signalman, it is revealed that the signalman had seen his own fate and had been warned by the ghost how it would occur. In The Old Nurse’s Story it is rapidly revealed why the phantoms of the little girl and her mother existed outside, and most importantly why Miss. Rosamond is so cold – hearted and bitter. She says at the very end. ‘What is done in youth can never be undone in age!’
After examining the settings and atmosphere in the three short gothic stories, I can say that their settings effectively develop suspense. The writers increase the sense of tension, and builds up mood and atmosphere so that the stories can be enjoyed to the full extent.
I enjoyed The Old Nurse’s Story because it has an important moral to it, which is to be careful of your actions in the present, so as not to regret them in the future. Comparing it with the other two stories, the tension takes long to build up and is quite boring until it does. I feel this is the only bad point of the story, making it not as good as the others.
I enjoyed The Red Room because there was no actual ghost in the room. The man was scared of ‘fear’, which he himself created in the first place. It is an unexpected ending which makes it a good story. H.G. Wells builds up tension excellently prior to entering the red room, and mostly in the red room itself. I feel, however, that the story was too straightforward and short. It does have a great ending but there is no storyline. More could have been said about the characters and why the young man travelled to the castle to stay in the haunted room. Creating the unknown does create tension but omitting too much makes the story too short and basic.
The Signalman is my favourite compared to the other two stories. I definitely did not expect that ending. The story is based around just a couple of words. It began because of the words “Halloa! Below there!” Without those words there is no story. The similar words ‘below there, look out,’ are the most decisive words of the story. Dickens manages to prove this evidently and makes it quite thrilling. The sense of tension was also created right from the beginning.
In the end it is the gentleman’s fault that the signalman dies because if he hadn’t called down to him in the first place, the signalman would have looked up as the train came down the tunnel. You start to wonder, could it have been fate? No matter what happened between the start of the story and his death, it couldn’t have been prevented. He obviously feels responsible for his death and you feel that if he hadn’t associated himself with the man none of this would have happened for he says, ‘The words which I myself – not he - had attached.’ This is quite a mysterious and even scary thought. The fact that this lingers with you until after you have read it, I believe, makes it an excellent story. The storyline is great and while reading it I was kept at the edge of my seat. The superb, yet sad, ending left me in awe!