In ‘The Red Room’, the setting is very important in establishing the atmosphere of the story. Firstly, ‘The Red Room’ is the appropriate name for this story. Red can symbolises blood, death, anger and rage. The story is set in a very old castle, which is typical of gothic stories from the nineteenth century or any age for that matter. A castle is an appropriate setting because it is typically full of haunted rooms, underground passages, secret stairways, spiral staircases and dungeons. ‘A spiral staircase, and halfway up that is a landing and another door covered in baize’. The path to the red room is complicated, confusing and you can easily get lost. The custodians are afraid of the red room and probably never go to that area of the castle. ‘This night of all nights!’ is repeated a few times by the old woman and ‘it’s your own choosing’, which is also repeated many times gives you the sense they dread and dare not to go to the red room. This also shows that most of the castle is uninhabited for a very long time. It is as if a dark mysterious creature is living in the black shadows and whoever goes to the red room awakens this creature.
If most of the castle is abandoned, then there must be a lot of dirt. ‘The long, draughty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty.’ This shows nobody has walked down this passage for a long time and it being cold sends a chill down your spine. The cold plays a role in most ghost stories of any age. The cold adds a sense of foreboding, giving you the feeling something bad could happen. The author also writes a form of personification, ‘the shadows cower and quiver.’ This gives you the image in your mind that the shadows are alive and sacred. This is also could give the image, that these are the shadows of the souls that died in the red room. On his way to the red room his mind starts to play tricks on him, either to comfort him or to scare him. ‘Listening to a rustling that I fancied I heard’, but there is, ‘absolute silence’. This shows his mind is playing tricks on him. He is hearing rustling when it is silent. There are more effects to the narrator’s state of mind. He thinks some objects are alive. ‘A bronze group...gave me the impression of someone crouching to waylay me.’ To him the bronze group is alive and wants to attack him in the darkness. The narrator is confident at the start of the story but has doubt building up in him, so he starts to examine the room. ‘I pulled up the blinds and examined the fastenings of the several windows’. This shows that the windows are fastened shut and you may not be able to get in or out. As he continues to arrange the room, the tension is allowed to fall giving the reader a certain release. As he becomes more aware of the shadows in the room the tension rises again.
In ‘The Judge’s House’, the setting plays a major role in establishing the mood and atmosphere in the story. The story is set in a very old house, which is something common in ghost stories. Nineteenth century ghost stories normally have old houses or castles which are more likely to be haunted than new houses. In ‘The Judge’s house’, the author first produces a fortress style setting. The house described as a, ‘heavily built house’, ‘windows unusually small’, and, ‘with a high brick wall massively built.’ The walls shows it is like a fortress, it is so massive nobody could look in or nobody could get in or out. The windows also give the same effect. It is as if the house was a prison like a fortress, a bunker in the war or even a mental institute. This contributes to a feeling or sense of foreboding. The house is also described by a powerful word, ‘desolation’. Desolation means to be isolated, but not wanting to be. Malcolmson on the other hand, does want isolation, but we know nobody wants desolation. This gives a sense of foreboding, if he is all alone, which makes him vulnerable, the spirits of the judge can kill him.
In nineteenth century ghost stories, they normally have three types of characters. The first two types are the believers and non-believers of the supernatural. The third type is the supernatural. ‘The Red Room’ is a good example of this. The custodians are the believers, the narrator being the non-believer and the spirits of the red room is the supernatural.
The inclusion of characters which believe and those that do not is for the benefit of the reader. The reader is able to relate to them. The character of the narrator is presented as rational in the opening paragraphs of ‘The Red Room’. He is a disbeliever in the supernatural and dismisses all the warnings. The narrator’s opening line is, ‘I can assure you that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me’. This makes him seem both proud and sceptical to the reader. The reader will also, knowing this is a ghost story, assume the narrator will change his attitude during the story because of a supernatural event. This change of perception in such a rational character will change the perception of a reader in a similar way. The descriptions of the custodians show that not only they believe in the red room, but the red room has affected them in such a way, that they are supernatural. To show that they believe in the supernatural, there is repetition of, ‘it’s your own choosing’, and, ‘this night of all nights’. This also gives a sense of foreboding. The old lady also says, ‘you go alone’. In a way they are trying to make him not go to the red room. But, when they realise they can’t stop him, the ‘man with the withered arm’ decides to give him a drink. This might help him not be afraid or make him more afraid of the red room. The focus on the eyes and their description makes you think they are supernatural. The eyes of the second old man are shown as, ‘small and bright and inflamed’, plus, ‘red eyes’. This gives the sense of you being watched. The references to, ‘monstrous shadow’, ‘grotesque custodians’, and, ‘the human qualities seem to drop from old people insensibly day by day’, shows that they aren’t like normal human beings and are out of this world.
‘The Judge’s House’ is a perfect example of the three types of characters. Malcolmson obviously being the non-believer, Mrs Witham, Mrs Dempster and Dr. Thornhill are the believers. While the Judge is the supernatural.
