Throughout Part 1 the setting stays relaxed until Jem and Wilfred’s conversation. The narrator builds up an idea of the main characters and the pace is slow “there was a long silence”. When Carr attempts to blackmail Jem, the latter gets very agitated and “raised him from the table in his powerful hands, apparently with the intention of dashing his head against it”. After this conversation Jem comes back much later and Mrs Benson asks him where Wilfred has gone. Jem replies that he has left and when asked if he was too hard upon him Jem said that he got “no more than he deserved”. This conversation hints at murder on the part of Jem because of his earlier aggression towards Wilfred.
In Part 2 W.W Jacobs builds up more horror in the slow unravelling of the secret of Carr’s suggested murder. The setting also moves to the well, as the title becomes relevant and more horror is created as the well is described, “hidden in the thick tangle of undergrowth”, “the full light of the sun never reached it”. Jem’s uneasiness about the place also adds to the horror because of his aversion to the well and his attempts to take Olive away from it. W.W Jacobs now uses irony to give the reader a better idea of what had happened to Wilfred. Olive suggests that Wilfred will send a letter to Jem saying “dear Jem, help me out” and she also says that he would have “gone under long ago I suppose” without Jem’s help. Both these quotes by Olive unwittingly imply that Wilfred is down the well and successfully create a sense of irony.
Besides irony W.W Jacobs employs two other ways to create horror in this section. These are his use of contrast and of pace. The contrast is mainly shown in Jem and Olive’s different thoughts on the well. Jem gets more violent around it, associates it with death and describes it as a “wilderness”. Olive on the other hand stays as usual and thinks of it as “the best part of the park”. These differing ideas create tension as the reader wonders why Jem is like this.
Varying paces are also used to gradually build the tension. At the beginning time passes slowly “a long silence” and long sentences are used. This suggests to the reader that something is about to happen. The pace gets faster and faster until lines such as “breathlessly” and “springing up” are used. Short sentences and exclamation marks are also employed to increase the pace. This compares with “The Monkey’s Paw” where more quick sentences and strong, demanding language “Wish!” are utilised. The use of a sound of knocking is also employed well in the Monkey’s Paw to create a faster pace.
A pathetic fallacy is now used to create horror and a sense of helplessness. Olive loses her diamond bracelet and Jem starts to repeat the words “your bracelet” over and over again as if he’s trying to realise what’s happened. Jem now says that she can have the bracelet back as long as she doesn’t tell anyone about it. This suggests that Jem is hiding something down the Well and creates more horror. More irony is now created when Olive describes how horrible it would be to be down the well “fancy going round and round like a mouse in a pail, clutching at the slimy sides, with the water filling your mouth, and looking up to the little patch of sky above”. The way in which Jem replies “very quietly” adds to the suspicion that he has something down the well. This whole escapade has obviously troubled Jem greatly as late at night he tries to fish the bracelet out of the well, continuing for “an hour or more” until his line gets stuck. Part 2 is generally used by W.W Jacobs to increase suspense and tension. The reader is shown more hints that Jem has murdered Wilfred and put him down the well. More hints are shown in the suggestion that Jem is started to feel guilty about the matter.
Part 3 immediately starts by creating a sense of horror in the setting. Phrases such as “the dining-room into which he looked struck chill and cheerless in the dark yellow light” and “everything seemed ghastly and unreal; the very chairs standing as their occupants had left them the night before seemed to be indulging in some dark communication of ideas”. These phrases suggest that something is going to happen and so create tension. Soon after this Jem goes to meet George so they can go down the well and find the bracelet. The conversation between them shows that George is wary of Jem and better shows how the other characters perceive Jem. If George tries to say something opposite to what Jem thinks, “you ain’t fit to go down, sir, I’ve never seen you look so before”, then he is quickly told to be quiet or something of that nature “mind your business”. Jem insists that he must go down the Well even though he feels awful. This, coupled with the fact that he knows that George must “pay out three yards more quickly so that I can get to the bottom”, suggests again that Jem is hiding something down the Well that he doesn’t want anyone else to see.
Inside the well Jem suddenly starts to tug on the rope indicating that he wants to be pulled up. This starts a quick change of pace (“relaxed grasp” to “terrific exertions” in the space of a few sentences) and creates a great deal of horror. Language is also used well to create a faster pace. As they slowly pulled him up the well “a scream of unutterable horror” is heard which shows that Jem has found something awful down the well. As Jem is pulled to the top the first thing that the men see is “the face of a dead man with mud in his eyes and nostrils”. Jem is seen behind him but it is too late. One of the men drop the rope and Jem falls to the depths, killed by his own victim. But there is still the question of whether Jem is really dead as at the end “his voice re-echoed down the shaft, but all else was silence”. This silence is an echo of all the other tense silences in the story and reminds the reader of Jem.
Overall W.W Jacobs creates a sense of horror in a lot of different ways in his story “The Well”. One of these ways is in his use of an omniscient narrator throughout the story, but only allowing the reader to see a limited perspective. In addition he distances us from the story and this creates tension because information is withheld. In contrast “The Red Room” is written in the first person. Both ways work well: a story written in the third person shows the wide scale of things so that you have more knowledge of the goings on; while a story written in the first person illustrates what happens to one person and their thoughts on it. The other ways he creates horror are in his good use of characters, setting, structure and language. He slowly builds up horror throughout the story until a climax at the end, revealing more hints and clues as to what is really happening as the story progresses. His use of an extremely complex protagonist with more than one side to him also creates horror, as does his good use of pace to build up tension. On the whole, horror is created well and without any unnecessary revealing of knowledge in every aspect of the story.
