‘Ah stew, there’s nothing I like better than a nice stew!’
Even though the couple were not the richest of people, and they ate stew almost every night, Loisel managed to stay happy and pretend that their dinner was not becoming tiresome after having it so often. Loisel’s character is an extraordinary one, as he keeps the readers engaged into the story, wondering as to whether his kindly temperament will turnaround as the tale progresses.
In The Necklace, Loisel’s character is portrayed to be caring and he always puts his wife’s needs before his own.
‘Loisel had eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He would have to borrow the rest.’
Loisel had had to spend the eighteen thousand francs and borrow money to try and buy another necklace for his wife’s friend. It was Madame Loisel who got herself into the situation where she had to replace the lost item, however he stayed calm and willingly used all of his savings and a loan to help out his wife even thought he knew he would most likely never be able to repay it. This adds to the tension of the story by leaving the reader guessing if Madame Loisel’s friend will notice the replaced necklace as if she did, the borrowed money would have been a waste of time.
The story of the Red Room has a more eerie or slightly alarming quality to it and the characters are to some extent similar to their surroundings.
The narrator in The Red Room believes that ghosts are not real, as he has never seen one.
‘Eight and twenty… and never a ghost I have seen as yet.’
The narrator seems to be quite sure that he will return from the room having seen nothing and therefore proving his point that the Red Room is not haunted, however he does not appear to consider that he is only twenty eight years old and just because he has seen no ghosts yet, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. From this piece of text, the reader is wondering whether he will actually see a ghost in the room, which is effectively adding suspense to the story.
The narrator thinks that the ‘old custodians’ are set in their old beliefs and thinks that they believe in ghosts because they are from a different age.
‘They seemed to belong in another age… when omens and witches were credible, and ghosts beyond denying.’
It is obvious that the narrator of this story thinks that the old people are slightly warped and old fashioned to believe that such an illogical thing as a ghost is present in the castle. He most likely thinks that because they are so much older than him, they have been lead by old tales from back then, when such things as witches and ghost were more conceivable.
The ‘Old custodians’, especially, are alike to the unnerving feel of the castle by the description given by the author.
One of the ‘old custodians’ in The Red Room, the old woman, regards the narrator as an unquestionably naïve young man.
‘Eight and twenty years you have lived and never seen the likes of this house…many things to see when one’s eight and twenty.’
From the language the old woman uses in this quote, it is evident that the she is confident that the man has much to experience yet as he is still very early into his life. She is convinced that he will have a swift change of mind when he has witnessed the demoniac phantoms within the room. This idea that the woman is portraying is building on the suspense of the story by hinting at the reader that the main character may be in for an unpleasant surprise.
The man with the ‘withered arm’ is a peculiar character within the story, who takes the young man for a fool for willingly going into the room.
‘If you go into the Red Room tonight… you go alone.’
The man with the ‘withered arm’s first impression of the narrator is that he knows little about what he is letting himself into and should be warned prior to exploring the notoriously haunted Red Room. By warning the man that it ‘is his own choosing’ and that he will be unaccompanied whilst exploring the castle, the man with the ‘withered arm’ gives an obvious indication that everybody is terrified of what lies in the room, creating suspense in which way the tale will turn.
In Desiree’s Baby, the main character, Desiree comes across as a harmless young lady, who is perhaps sometimes oblivious to the real world.
‘This is not the baby!’…..’I knew you would be astonished at the way he has grown!’
In actual fact, Desiree’s mother was not confounded about the rate at which the child had grown; she was shocked at how dark the baby had got since when she had previously seen him. However Desiree was so blissfully ecstatic at how immaculate her new life was, she had somehow not acknowledged the mysterious change in the young child’s complexion. With this curious trait of Desiree’s in mind, the reader cant help but wonder what else she will fail to notice and if it will become an important part of the storyline.
The author, Kate Choplin characterizes Desiree so she is intensely overjoyed at her current status in life and nothing could dampen her mood.
‘Oh mamma, I’m so happy; it frightens me…. [What Desiree said was true]’
At this point in the tale, Desiree is shown to be floating in a ‘cloud of happiness’ with her home, baby, husband and life in general. However it is common for there to be an unfortunate twist in the tale in most stories, so already suspense is waiting along the story as to whether the author will bestow the woman with an unfavourable turn in her fate, or whether all will end well.
Desiree’s husband, Armand seems to be a man that could be quite unpredictable and could potentially change the storyline immensely.
‘He hasn’t punished one of them since baby is born. Even Negrillion, who pretended to have burnt his leg.’
From this quote alone, Armand appears to be an innocent, genuinely happy man, but earlier on in the text, it is written that he uses a firm hand with his ‘negroes’ and this sudden change of character suggests maybe that there is more to come from this man. Armand could be considered a suspicious character and whilst reading, one naturally views him as untrustworthy, adding tension to this already gripping plot as to whether he will continue to be the loving man he has transformed into, or his dubious character will develop.
Armand has had yet another unexplained and bizarre change in his behaviour, mostly towards his wife.
‘Do you want me to go?’…’Yes I want you to go.’
The way this curious man has changed his attitude towards his wife for no apparent reason has furthermore brought out his uncanny personality, not only contributing to the vivid plot, but intensifying the tension to a climax. What is Armand up to now and why does he wish for his wife to leave their family home, is a question being arisen. The reader is yet to discover why he wants Desiree to leave him and if she will actually go, adding anxiety to the atmosphere.
Moving onto setting in 19th century stories, The Necklace contains exemplary detail to setting which I will be scrutinizing throughout the upcoming paragraphs.
A good setting is extremely necessary, in this story in particular, because the main scenario is unravelled around the idea of the contrast between different classes
‘The run down apartment they lived in, the peeling walls, the battered chairs and the ugly curtains.’
This is quite an impressive quote, as it becomes quite clear that the surroundings the Loisels live in are not exactly as Madame Loisel sees them to be. This idea of an unsightly home, as how she regards it are a compelling way to begin the story as the reader later learns that the ungrateful Madame Loisel’s standard of life can decrease quite alarmingly by one much-deserved mistake.
There is a vast contrast in settings between the previous story and the Red Room which will be unveiled in my next explanation.
.In the Red Room, the atmosphere is shown to be dark, dingy and mysterious to an extent to the description of the setting has to effectively reflect this aspect for the story to become successful.
‘The long, draughty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty, and my candle flared and made the shadows cower and quiver.’
I have chosen this as an example from the text because the writer has successfully captured the mood and feeling of the whole building by conveying how the narrator was panic-stricken by the view around him and how he is made fearful from something as natural as a shadow. Tension is created in this piece by letting the reader take in the visionary description of the setting and wonder what he will encounter as he continues his journey to the Red Room.
The setting provided in The Necklace is somewhat familiar to some extent at the beginning, to that in the Red Room.
The author of Desiree’s Baby wanted the feel of the tale to be a little mystifying and has included a very illustrative description to accentuate this.
‘Steep and black like a cowl reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the yellow stuccoed house.’
The setting, I think, mirrors what is underlying within the storyline, which is later to be discovered and is creative enough to provide a well illustrated image to the reader which is a quality that a good setting should possess.
Whilst reading through the 19th century short stories, the use of language through similes, metaphors and generally high standard wording is apparent from the start of all three, to not only make the story enjoyable for the audience but to enhance and stimulate the tale by making it more entertaining.
The author of The Necklace, Guy de Maupassant, uses animal references to reinforce and adorn his story.
‘And received with Sphinx-like smiles over the pink flesh of a trout or the wings of a hazel hen.’
This interesting use of a simile, which the author uses excellently to enhance the language, ideally captures how the main character in The Necklace fantasises her life to be. When a simile is incorporated within a novel or text, it can effectively reflect the characters thoughts, feelings or appearance by giving a comparison to something else for instance an animal. This adds suspense to the story as it transforms the reader’s idea of an ordinary description of something into an object much more colourful, making The Necklace furthermore exciting.
The Red Room, being an intense yet sensational saga, requires much attention to the language to ensure the idea of the story is read as it was intended to be, which is with great mystery and tension.
The language that can be seen in the Red Room demonstrates the fear that the narrator must be experiencing as he stands solitary in the allegedly haunted room.
‘As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the two candles on the table.’
The quote above is a successful achievement of language, and it also indicates how the human mind transfigures an occurrence into something much more sinister in a frightening situation. A metaphor is appropriate in this instance as the story has already unravelled the fact that a ghost may reside in Lorraine Castle, so a hand ‘sweeping out’ the candles is a hint from the author that there is possibly a presence with the man in the room. This intensifies the current point in the plot, adding tension, leaving the reader waiting to discover if the rumours are true about the castle.
Desiree’s Baby, starting from the beginning has a more upbeat mood and Kate Choplin uses language to visage the love and passion felt by a character.
‘He saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over obstacles.’
To show Armand’s enchantment by the young lady, Desiree, the writer has compared him to a ‘prairie fire’ as he felt as if he were being ‘swept along like an avalanche’, he was so in love with her. The reader can then understand the emotion inside the Armand and realise how strong he feels for her at the first sight of her. Adding suspense to the story, this clever use of language leads the audience to marvel at his infatuation and wonder if the feeling will be mutual between the two characters.
After reading and analyzing all three 19th century stories, I have come to a conclusion of believing that The Necklace uses the vastest range of language, description and overall excitement within the tale due to the slightly humorous twist at the end and characters with individual and interesting personality traits. I also think that The Necklace generates the most suspense and tension because the main character and her husband went through an unnecessary ordeal for years of their lives to overcome an event that could have been a minor occurrence had they been more observant.
When I had read the stories which all had outstanding ways of conveying suspense and tension, I have come to a decision that the most effective and evidently successful way of achieving this is to invent entertaining characters within a story, as they can add emotion suspense, tension, and excitement to any tale by leaving the audience entranced by an unusual or amusing character.
