The comparing, of the settings in the two stories, shows us that they aren’t at all alike. “The Red Room” being situated in an old castle, which is eerie and mysterious has a different one to “The Monkey’s Paw”, which has an ordinary, wholesome family. There is nothing peculiar in the setting of “The Monkey’s Paw”. Although both stories take place in the night, they seem to be unlike. In “The Red Room”, there is a very vivid description of the passageway. “The long drafty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty,” The reference to “subterranean” and the gothic style makes us think of these tunnels as graves. Everything seems to be excellently described to the last minute detail. In “The Monkey’s Paw” there is a family scene and this builds security in the reader. Happiness is also showed in this setting. It is only when the Monkey’s Paw is introduced that the atmosphere changed to fear and gloom. The author in “The Red Room” always stresses on the darkness to give us a feeling as if the man is being followed and watched. Hence this builds tension, fear and suspense in the readers mind. In “The Red Room” there is a unity of time and place and so the impact is stronger on the reader. As the time in which everything acted and throughout the place in which the character was in was kept unchanging.
In “The Monkey’s Paw”, we find four characters, three of which are introduced at the beginning of the story and one of which comes after some time. We find that these characters are ordinary except perhaps for the guest. We do not know much about him. We see him also being quite brief and very abrupt in his conversation with Mr. White. “Well, it’s just a bit of magic, perhaps, said the sergeant-major offhandedly.” The sergeant major over here seems to tell the family all the things they want to hear about the, “ordinary little paw, dried to a little mummy.” The mention of the word “little” is an understatement, as he seems to increase the family’s interest and curiosity. Thus the sergeant major seems to tempt them by making the paw an item of interest. We perceive Morris’ motives, (which is to tempt the family into taking the paw), when he tells the family of the history of the paw, and of its past owners. Also we find later that he wants to get rid of it and throws it into the fire. “Better let it burn”, he seems to be on the family’s side and seems confident that Mr. White will pick it back up. Hence we find, Sergeant Morris to be very cryptic and so mystery is invoked in the story with him.
In “The Red Room” we see the main character is a normal character, which varies to the characters of the other people in the story. He listens to what the three strange characters, the man with the withered arm, the old lady, and the second old man, say and believes instead that there are no ghosts or demonic beings in the specific room of the castle the three characters claim to know. After reading the story fully we come to think that the man was correct and they weren’t any ghosts or fictional characters present that knocked him unconscious. The man with the withered arm says in the beginning itself of the short story, “It is your own choosing.” Such an abrupt sentence raises the question of unanswered mystery as the character shows a quality of not being able to care and seems as if challenging the main character rather than warning it in a sympathetic way. It is almost as if he feels like making the main character believe in the ghost of the Red Room. The main character seems to think that the old people are quite eccentric and very ancient, that they probably made up the story of the room being haunted. Very lonely, silent and outdated people like these create tension. The author doesn’t give the names of the characters like the author did in “The Monkey’s paw”. It creates suspicion and tension in the readers mind. When we see that we aren’t given name for the three peculiar old people, we tend to lack control over them. We don’t feel as if we are secure over the person and what his genuine motives are. Thus we always have a doubt in our mind created in this way and also mystery; and the author weaves tension excellently together here. There is a contrast between the characters in the story as, there a three mysterious old people and one skeptic young narrator. The old people seem to hold confidence that something is present in “The Red Room”, and show disillusioning characteristics towards the narrator when he examines them. There is a secretive tone between the three people towards the young man, and we feel for some time that we are the listeners. The three old people seem to link with the sergeant major, from, “The Monkey’s Paw”. Hence, the characters used here develop a sense of mystery and suspense within the readers, in the two short stories’, “The Red Room”, and “The Monkey’s Paw”.
As you read through the stories and reach the end of the story you feel an escalation of intense activity. We find that in both the stories, the characters are running about and are in physical motion. We see and feel tension created in this way. Throughout the whole climax we see the adrenalin of the readers reaching high levels, you can feel the excitement, which the authors help to develop. The authors create such a mass of tension in this way and then drop it instantly or for a while, that this sudden decrease makes the reader wonder why this particular kind of technique was used by the author. Thus in this way suspense is also mounted onto the minds of the readers and it makes the readers even more curious and suspicious. In both the stories, “The Red Room” and “The Monkey’s Paw”, we find the intense climax full of tension and suspense. The characters physically harm themselves at times and this creates even more confusion and interest for the reader.
“Germinating darkness”, we see the climax being slowly driven up to by the description of the room. Hence here we feel the light and darkness linked and how the darkness is slowly engulfing the light. The use of onomatopoeic words like, “crackling of fire,” emphasizes the contrast with the silence of the room. So every sound seems to be magnified for the narrator and us. “A cramped struggle”, gives us a feeling that something is there, present with him. The climax leaves us with a mystery so we don’t know what happened to him. Images of darkness reinforced this feeling of mystery and terror, because darkness indicates the unknown, and the unknown is what scares us. Earlier also when in the corridor, he uses images of darkness, “but its shadow fell and gave me the impression of someone crouching to waylay me.” Many words seem to convey the man’s terror and panic, “His hands trembled”, “My wild crying and a horrible sensation of falling that lasted an age”. A simile is used to show the intensity and quick paced darkness overwhelming him, as he says, “Like a rabbit storm cloud sweeping up the sky”, “horror of coming darkness”. Hence we find that the words increase due to the intensity of his panic. “Battering myself thus to and fro”, “I had forgotten the exact position of the door and instead struck myself heavily against some other bulky furniture”. In, “The Red Room”, the climax of the story, from which these quotes were taken, is a very action-packed paragraph that fills us full of tension and suspense as he abruptly stops the scene. Throughout the climax the suspense and curiosity of the reader functions at an intense pace. Also during the climax we see that the author revolves all this around the very theme of the story, which is fear as due to the overwhelming fear present on the main character’s mind, he could not think straight anymore but instead made a wild dash for an exit. Thus we see that the whole climax is driven by the theme of the story itself. The description and imagery also coincides with the climax as the images of darkness and violence and the contrast between light and dark, conveys the mood in which the climax functions.
We can compare this to the short story crafted by W. W. Jacobs, by saying that the climax present in this story was full, also, with an amazing amount of tension and suspense, but mostly of slow paced action and one of which is more horrifying as we are confronted by the unknown. Here though it does not relate to the theme of the story that much, but mostly fear and suspense at what lies behind the door.
We see the theme of the story, that is greed, expressed by Mrs. White as she wants her son back more than anything and also breaks free and runs from her husband and his warnings in the end just to try and let her son in. “No, she cried triumphantly; we’ll have one more. Go down and get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again.”
We seem to recognize the mothers’ desperation, anxiety and also sorrow when her son dies. We perceive here also her greed building up, when she asks for the last wish, even when the first one had brought out such fate for her son.
“The paw, she cried wildly,” “Get it, she panted”, “Go and get it and wish, said his wife, quivering with excitement.” These few quotes emphasize on the mothers mood all of a sudden. Now the tension is mounting as well as the mystery, as now the mother’s frenzy confuses the reader. The mother is very passionate too when she says, “Do you think I fear the child whom I have nursed”, when the husband warns her about the state in which the boy would be in.
But we also see Mr. White motivated by fear, as his son had been dead for ten whole days and was in a mutilated condition when he died. We see mixed emotions running throughout this climax and this I believe helps the reader to feel a superior feeling of tension and suspense
“For God’s sake don’t let it in, cried the old man, trembling”, “The old woman with a sudden wrench broke free and ran from the room”, Then the old woman’s voice strained and panting, “Come down I can’t reach it.” But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw. Hence in the climax of “The Monkey’s Paw”, we find a lot of fear and suspense.
In both stories, we find an unsolved mystery at the end, which leaves us without a certain ending. It could be anything that the reader perceives from analyzing the story and its course before it ended. In “The Monkey’s Paw”, I believe that it was mainly the imagination of the old people. It could also be the tension and fear, which could have caused them to act in such different ways but indeed hear the knocks on the door, which they believed was their son come back from the dead. They are other various possibilities like the wind or even weather outside, hence we aren’t quite sure. But we cannot take the fact that the mutilated son of the old people could return as it is scientifically not possible for such a thing to occur. We also should consider that people who have just lost a loved one could imagine things quite out of the ordinary. Hence, also a coincidence of the “sounds” of the repeated knocks ceasing, the moment the last wish was uttered by the man. The same goes for, “The Red Room”, in which the author writes, “either struck or struck myself”. We do not know for sure whether or not there was something supernatural with the young man in the room. However in my opinion, it was the man’s fear. The lights seemed to give him a feeling of security, and with its absence he grew anxious. We should also keep in mind that all throughout the man’s struggle with himself he was in the dark, so how can we even be sure if there was anything there with him. Being panic stricken and insecure the man may have over reacted and in this case, knocked himself unconscious.
I enjoyed the two stories though they are very dissimilar. “The Red Room” is written almost like a traditional ghost story, with a lot of gothic elements, while “The Monkey’s Paw” was less scary. Every aspect of the two stories were brilliantly constructed and molded together and this made the stories of “The Red Room” and “The Monkey’s Paw” a fantastic read, and brilliant stories of tension and suspense.
