Explain what makes a good mystery story, based on your understanding of 'The Red Room' by H.G. Wells The Red Room by H. G. Wells
Explain what makes a good mystery story, based on your understanding of 'The Red Room' by H.G. Wells
The Red Room by H. G. Wells
The title 'The Red Room' immediately attracts the reader's attention; it is symbolic but leaves unanswered questions. "What is the red room?" Is this room dangerous? Overall the title raises so much curiosity wanting us to read on and find answers to our questions. Red is a very strong colour and is generally associated with blood, danger, warning, hell, and above all, fear, the title also shows the setting of the story. It makes you wonder why the room is called the red room and if it is actually red.
The Red Room contains all the elements of a ghost story; the story is written to illustrate the nature of fear and is an insight into how it affects the human mind. This story contains all the features of a 19th century novel; it is set in an old derelict house, it involves moving through dark passages, and it involves a ghost/haunted room. It also contains all the features of a good short story. It has an effective opening, a realistic setting, a limited number of believable characters and has a plot with a clear conflict, a plot that builds suspense, excitement, and the plot has a twist at the end. The story is structured to create and sustain suspense, from the very beginning right through to the climax of the story where the man is overcome by total darkness.
The Red Room is based upon the myths concerning a haunted room within an old derelict castle.
The story is told in first person, which makes it very personal and allows the reader to feel as if he/she were there. It is about a young man who volunteers to go and stay overnight in the 'Red Room'. The room is known to be haunted and there are many myths and legends about death that are brought up during the story. The night chosen is a particularly bad night to go and stay there because it is the anniversary of the death of the Duke who had once tried to stay in the room.
"The great Red Room of Lorraine Castle, in which the young Duke had died."
The stories brought up have an effect on both the reader and the young man in the story. For the reader it reinforces the feeling that the man is doomed and for the young man himself, it shatters his nerves and makes him aware of all the possible dangers that could seal his fate if he enters the room.
There is only one main character in 'The Red Room', and three minor characters. The main character is not introduced to us in any way; all we learn is that he is a 28 year old and is at this castle to prove his manhood by staying overnight in a 'haunted room'. We do not know how he came to be at the house or whom he is trying to prove himself to. He is, at no point in the story given a name. This is done on purpose, to create a mysterious and uneasy atmosphere, but within the first few lines of dialogue we understand that he is a very confident and boastful man:
"It will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me."
However brave he says he is, he carries a gun with him. This shows that he is prepared for a possible emergency, although if there was a ghost, then generally you would be unable to shoot a ghost because the bullet would go straight through the ghost; it reinforces that he doesn't believe in ghosts.
He is rather curious and inquisitive and is always looking for an answer which is just like the reader:
"Show me this haunted room of yours"
This shows ...
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"It will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me."
However brave he says he is, he carries a gun with him. This shows that he is prepared for a possible emergency, although if there was a ghost, then generally you would be unable to shoot a ghost because the bullet would go straight through the ghost; it reinforces that he doesn't believe in ghosts.
He is rather curious and inquisitive and is always looking for an answer which is just like the reader:
"Show me this haunted room of yours"
This shows that he is very eager to find out the truth about the room and is very arrogant, feeling that he is not afraid of any ghosts. When he reveals at the end that he has been in contact with fear it shows that even the man who feels he is so strong can be scared. By the end of the story the man has much changed and the confident boastful man that we knew at the beginning has gone, again, this tells us that he had really experienced authentic fear.
The three other characters build up the suspense more than the young man because of the mystery surrounding them. The three characters are strangely described as:
"The man with the withered arm"
"The old woman staring into the fire"
"The man covered by the shade"
These characters all create a sense of uneasiness about them. One character is known all the way through as 'the man with the shade'. This adds mystery, fear and confusion to the reader. We do not know the names of any of these characters so that there are questions unanswered from the start. This again creates confusion and builds up the mysterious atmosphere. Tension and anxiety develops from uncertainties.
The old woman staring at the fire keeps repeating,
"This night of all nights"
This makes the reader speculate what happened on this night of all nights and why it is so special. This also haunts the narrator as well as the reader as if there is something in that room that will harm you. It brings a sense of alarm to the narrator and the reader knows that the narrator, although warned not to go will go. The man with the withered arm also creates mystery by making the reader wonder why he has this withered arm and whether it is anything to do with the red room. The man with the bad back is similar to the man with the withered arm by making the reader ask himself /herself how he got it and whether it was old age or due to the red room. All of these three characters seem to be so scared that they will not even walk with the young man to the room. This again brings up the question in the reader's mind, why are they so scared of the red room?
The narrator describes them in great detail because he feels them to be a key element in this story. They are all afraid of what the young man is about to do and do not take any responsibility for his actions. They repeat phrases like:
"It is of your own choosing" and ("This night of all nights")
Again they do not want any responsibility for anything that might happen to the young man. The elderly gentleman is saying this because he is giving the young man the option of not going into the Red Room. When the old woman says ("This night of all nights") it is in brackets in the text, this could suggest that she was thinking of this and not necessarily saying it aloud.
Each of the characters in 'The Red Room' is one dimensional. The young man is arrogant and curious, one man has a withered arm, another with a bad back and the woman just stares into the fire. This creates mystery as you wonder what the young man looks like. These attributes are chosen by the author to show a side of the character they only want you to see.
The story begins in the 'old people's room' and the main plot is brought up straight away, which immediately engages the interest of the reader. This room, like much of the castle, is very dark and dreary, not very welcoming and everything is very old. It is typical of a 19th century room; it has a mirror at one end of the room and a fire near to the table. The setting of each room is described extremely acutely so as to make the reader think that they are actually there.
When the young man leaves the room they all huddle together and none of them look him in the eye. This could be because they know that he is doomed and do not want him to think that they are responsible for him. Lastly it could be a sign to him that he is on his own. Whenever any one of the three old people speaks they leave sentences unfinished and open to interpretation. Everything about the old people is depressing, dismal and dreary.
As he leaves the company of the other three, H. G. Wells describes the journey that he takes in a lot of depth:
The gentleman says:
"You go alone the passage for a bit... until you come to a door and through that door is a spiral staircase and half way up the landing is another door covered with baize. Go through that and down the long corridor to the end and the red room is on the left up the stairs"
Although this is a very long quote taken form the text, I feel that it builds up tension and creates a slightly scary atmosphere, because of the 'spiral staircase', and the 'door covered with baize', this gives the reader the impression that the Red Room is very far away from the elderly people. This may be because they are too scared to go anywhere the room, because they see something frightening. 'The spiral staircase' makes the reader think that it may go on forever. This setting is typical of a 19th century story. This also gives H. G. Wells the opportunity to develop the journey to the Red Room and he can go on describing other happening along the way.
The young man finds the old people who look after the castle, frightening and depressing. We know this because he refers to them as 'grotesque custodians'.
The word 'grotesque' suggests something that is disgusting and horrible. Possibly he could be referring to them in this way because he feels awkward with them.
Once he has left the room he describes his feelings when he was in the company of the old people. He calls them odd and the surroundings were 'ghostly'. He then banishes all thoughts of ghosts from his mind so as not to distract him from the long walk through the 'chilly, echoing passage'.
This 'chilly, echoing passage' is a common factor in a ghost story for it is dark, damp cold and dusty. The narrator mentions the 'echoes', this shows that the corridors are forever going. It is dimly lit, any sound can be heard and any movement made casts greatly magnified shadows onto the surrounding walls. When walking through the passage you would probably not be able to see to the other end, which means there could be anything lurking there. The passage has a great effect on both the reader and probably, the young man. It creates fear and suspense and is a tension builder; this is contributing to the growing fear that the young man experiences.
Then he moves onto the corridor in which the 'Red Room' is situated. The first thing noted about this corridor is the shock it gave him to see moonlight streaming through a window, illuminating everything and making it look black and silvery, which is almost unreal because it is only imaginable in a scary movie. He then notices that it looks untouched and there are thick layers of dust to prove that no one has been there for a long time. As he begins to move around he notices a shadow of what, to him looked like a figure 'crouching to waylay him'. He is very paranoid and is becoming extremely nervous.
When he arrives at the door of 'The Red room' he remembers that it was just outside the door that the young Duke had begun to die. Once inside 'The Red Room' he carries out many acts to make himself feel secure and to reassure himself. As he enters the room he begins to feel a strange presence and starts to check the room 'systematically'. He examines everything in order to makes sure that he does not miss anything out, this shows that he has a lot of anxiety. The 'recesses' and 'alcoves' are used to create tension because they may have secrets hidden within them which add the mystery to the surrounding of the Red Room. The 'candles' are mentioned as the 'light' and the 'ocean of mystery' as the 'dark'. The author talks about the candle being so small that it was not able to 'pierce the opposite end of the room', this shows that he is curious to see what is in that area and likes to be in control of the situation, the fact that he is not scares him making his mind run with wild, mysterious thoughts. The young man is alert but not calm. The word 'pierce' creates tension because it feels like something is stopping the light from getting to the end of the room; it also creates a sense of unwelcoming.
After midnight he said that 'the candle in the alcove suddenly went out'. The fact that it was midnight could have contributed to this, because lots of scary things occur at midnight, so he could have been thinking about something happening and possibly his mind was playing tricks on him. He then says that:
'A black shadow sprung back to its place'
This is personification that adds effect to the action of the candle. This could have easily been mistaken for a movement that he did, because the shadow could have moved when he moved with the candle. He tries to relight the candle by strolling 'leisurely' over to it; he is doing this so that he doesn't panic. Then two candles go out behind him; again he tries to fid a rational explanation for it and blames it on his 'absentmindedness' When the next one goes out he begins to worry, and says that the flame definitely vanished. Again he uses personification when he says that:
'The shadows seemed to take another step towards me'
Here he could be mystified, and looking for possible solutions for why the shadows appear to be moving towards him. This could suggest that he was in a slight state of panic.
The paragraph from when the candle goes out gradually builds in tension and suspense. They involve a lot of short sentences, this is to increase and sustain the tension and suspense. You get a good sense of this increasing paranoia when he tries to give explanations for the extinguishing candles and his panic starting to creep into his actions when he is trying to relight the candles. Finally the suspense reaches the climax when his fear has taken his sense of reasoning and he tries to leave the room and accidently knocks him out. When he finally wakes up the next morning he realises that there was nothing supernatural about the room but only peoples fear of the unknown.
The story keeps the reader guessing right up to the end of the story. The answer is not particularly clear and does not provide the reader with a final, conclusive answer. This keeps the reader wondering about the story after he/she has read it. The story reveals that there is no ghost in the room, just one man's battle with fear:
"There is no ghost at all; but worse, far worse...Fear!"
This makes you question whether he would have injured himself if he had not been told about the ghost story at all by the old people. This still gives a sense of mystery about the room after the answer has been given.
