How do pre-1914 writers create a sense of suspense, mystery and fear?
How do pre-1914 writers create a sense of suspense, mystery and fear?
Comparison of three short novels
The Red Room is a very good ghost story that was written by H.G Wells. The story was intended to be scary when it was written and it uses tension, atmosphere and a scary plot. Without these key features it would not succeed as a successful ghost story. The reason for this is to entice the reader by giving them small clues so it does not give the plot away, but you have to read on because it does not give enough away only small clues, so it is still a mystery.
The main thing that helps create the good atmosphere for a ghost story is that it is set in the old castle. It is occupied by the three old people. They're described as custodians.
The candles that are situated round the castle also helps create atmosphere because it shows that it is in the night and most ghost stories are set at night and it then in turn provides an eerie atmosphere.
At the beginning of the story the old people help add to the atmosphere by saying the things that had apparently happened there in the Red Room in the past. These things include; 'This night of all nights,' this makes it sound like it could be a type of anniversary of when something or someone had died or an event happened and this night is the worst night to go to the Red Room.
'In which the young Duke had died.' This shows you that something apparently had happened at the castle, a person had died in the Red Room which adds more evidence to there being a ghost being in the room. This then starts to make 'The Red Room' a better ghost story. 'And are you really going?' This shows that the man cannot believe that he is going to The Red Room.
Other things such as the journey also turn out to be a good way of building atmosphere in the story. The way to the room is deliberately a long journey because if it was just up the corridor then there would be no suspense about the room and what can happen on the way to the room.
The darkness of the journey also helps to create a ghostly atmosphere because it makes the littlest things look like the scariest things as in the dark things are not portrayed as what they really are.
'The ornaments and conveniences of the room about them were ghostly.'
The silence of the journey helps to create echoes which add also to the atmosphere of the story. 'The echoes ran up and down....'
The second of the main things that make a successful ghost story is tension. Tension through out the story is built up in different parts but the story does keep up a steady pace of tension to keep the reader interested in the story so they don't get bored.
The old people build the tension in 'The Red Room' by giving the warnings to the narrator and telling him about things that had supposedly happened in 'The Red Room.' Incidents such as the Duke dying and the countess. 'In which the young Duke had died.' On the way to the Red Room it is a point in the story that has quite a lot of tension because as the narrator walks through the long corridors of the abandoned castle he does not know what is round each corner. This then starts on his mind about whether there is something with him.
'Moonlight picked out everything in vivid black shadow and silvery
illumination. '....my candle flared... as the shadows cover and quiver.'
This shows that the narrator starts to think that the shadows are actually some sort of living thing that is following him. The candles going out in the Red Room when the narrator is actually in 'The Red Room' that is probably the biggest tension builder in the story.
'As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the two candles on the table. With a cry of terror, I dashed at the alcove.'
This shows panic in the narrators actions and then when these candles all start to go out then ...
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This shows that the narrator starts to think that the shadows are actually some sort of living thing that is following him. The candles going out in the Red Room when the narrator is actually in 'The Red Room' that is probably the biggest tension builder in the story.
'As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the two candles on the table. With a cry of terror, I dashed at the alcove.'
This shows panic in the narrators actions and then when these candles all start to go out then the narrator starts to maybe think that there is something there with him.
This then links back to the spiritual being which helps to make a successful ghost story. When the candles go out, they go out in succession these then make it sound like the Spiritual Being, if there is one, is playing games with the narrator. The candles going out makes the narrator feel paranoid and makes him more and more scared as the incident goes on. This makes the narrator feel disorientated and then think things that he wouldn't think usually as he starts to have irrational thoughts.
The last part of a successful ghost story is that it has to have a scary plot. It must have some kind of either of murders ghost. It must have things that are weird that you cannot recognise. The old people tell the narrator of the Duke that had died there in the Red Room and the countess that was not seen after she went into the Red Room. So the history of the room is successful in building up a scary plot for 'The Red Room.'
The noises are increasingly scarier than they would be due to it being dark. If he had heard these noises in the day it would not have scared him but with the tension of it being dark the narrator is increasingly more scared as he hears more noises.
'The echoes ran up and down the spiral staircase.'
Due to the long winding corridors when the noises are heard it is worse as you hear the echoes of them which makes it much more frightening for the narrator.
'The echoes ran up and down...'
Unidentified noises that you hear in other ghost stories are those of owl's, wolfs and dogs but 'The Red Room' uses to the wind and occasional banging as their choice of noises.
H.G Wells has created a successful ghost story by using the three main aspects of atmosphere, tension and a scary plot. H.G Wells uses them so when you read it you see images of what it is like and draw your own conclusions of situations in the story. H.G Wells twists the story and it becomes something different which gives it a mysterious plot as well as a scary plot. It is a good portrayed ghost story, which you have to follow closely to see how it is scary and why.
The Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the drama and suspense begins immediately, and the reader is given almost a idea of what he or she is in store for. This places the reader in a confused state of mind, so already the reader's attention has been grabbed, and throughout the story, like a detective the reader will see to each detail of the story.
A strong, suspenseful story unravels when Holmes disturbs Watson from his sleep at a improper time in the morning, according to Watson. It brings tension to the story once again so early on, we realize that to be up at an early a time in the morning, would only be for a special case.
When the detectives interview the woman at their office, we are told of her state, she is shivering, and is said to have pre-maturely grey hair. This alone does not bring suspense to the reader, but when we are told that she shivers not from the cold, but from her fear, it begins to become a lot clearer.
We also find out that the woman is quite young, but has grey hairs, the only reason I thought of for a woman to have grey hairs early, was because of stress of some kind. This creates tension by making us want to find out what was so stressful to cause her early greyness, so we ask ourselves what might've caused this.
Shortly afterwards we learn that Helen's cause for the distress she has been put through is her step father, who is described to have quite a evil attitude at times. We find out that Helen is due to marry just like her sister was before her murder, and that the Stepfather could once again pull off another appalling stunt to earn himself some more money.
Once Helen had left, Dr. Roylott appears to us for the first time in Holmes' doorway. 'So tall was he that the top of his hat actually brushed the cross bar of the doorway, and his breadth seemed to span across it from side to side.'
He is described as having 'A large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow from the sun, and marked with every evil passion' he is also said to have 'deep, bile shot eyes' and a 'high, thin fleshless nose' which resembled 'a fierce old bird of prey.' From this and an earlier description of him by his stepdaughter, from which we learn that he has killed two people already we realise that he has particularly violent past.
Watson and Holmes, interested by the case that Helen has given them, soon find their way to the house of Dr. Roylott to examine Julia's room, where Helen was presently sleeping. This brings tension to the story immediately, because Helen is sleeping in the room where her Sister was murdered, at a time so close to her wedding.
There were also items in the room that led to no use, a bell rope that led to nowhere, and a ventilator that does not ventilate, it simply led from Dr. Roylott's room, to Julia's. As readers we study the evidence ourselves, and bring all our suspicion to Dr Roylott, raising suspense in the story.
Holmes and Watson's only way to solve the Mystery was to travel at night to the Manor, and climb through one of the windows into Julia's room. During their walk across the land, we are very tense even without anything happening, because we know that Dr. Roylott keeps the strangest of animals, a baboon and a cheetah.
The atmosphere rises, knowing that it is not only us who are held in this tension, but realizing that Holmes and Watson are scared.
We know that Holmes as a detective is always ahead of everyone else. He had already noticed the ventilator connecting the two rooms and the bell rope that hung over the bed, and the fact that the bed was bolted into place and could not be moved. All these pieces of evidence link, and by now we all know that something is bound to happen.
Knowing that the ventilator is the only possible way of Roylott connecting himself between the two rooms, it is obvious that it has something to do with the murder of Julia. When the snake drops through the ventilator, under the darkness we cannot see anything, this makes us feel like were in the darkness, the dark itself is tense enough, but to be attacked by a creature in the dark, is a very restless moment in the story, and it is where the tension climax's.
I believe that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has created tension very well in his story, and by making the evidence slot together piece by piece it also allows the reader to interact with the story itself, trying to guess the conclusion before you reach the end of the story.
The Signalman by Charles Dickens has created this short story by building tension from the start to the end - One of his many ways of building tension is through his descriptive sentences.
There is a very good opening as the narrator shouts "Halloa! Below there!", which are key words throughout this chilling short story. The exclamation marks at once gives an alarming feeling of suspense and raises tension as the reader cannot understand who is speaking. This introduction leaves the reader with suspicious thoughts about both characters as they haven't given much information about each other.
This speech sets off the plot, as later on it is shown that there is a lot more meaning to that sentence. It is only half way through the first paragraph when Dickens says this short story is written from a first person point of view.
The Signal man has shown that he is a partially well educated man, who has attempted to teach himself. The Narrator does not approve of the "gloomier entrance" of the "black tunnel". "Vague vibrations in the earth and the air", are felt by the Signal man, which is one of the many ways that Dickens hints something is wrong.
The Narrator is afraid and senses an something bad is to happen leaving him and the reader in suspense. The Signal man strikes him as "a spirit, not a man", although he shortly believes there may have been "infection in his mind". Dickens does not give too much away on the anonymous Narrator and focuses mostly on the Signal man. It is not told why the Narrator has come to this "dungeon", and Dickens builds up the climax slowly as the Signal man does not answer the narrators questions', but instead remains silent.
This is when the reader begins to feel that there is something unbalanced about the mysterious man.
Charles Dickens describes the Signalman as a "dark sallow man" with "heavy eyebrows" and "a dark beard". This presents the Signalman as a very grim and dark man. He works in his "solitary" and "dismal" station away from people, he is seen as a loner. The Narrator tells us that the Signalman is a, once educated, person that "never rose" from the valleys' walls. This builds up tension as the Signalman seems to appear stranger and stranger by the second, causing the narrator, to fear of what may happen. Dickens may be implying that the Signal man is a villain in this short story as the title is based on him, which is very misleading.
Dickens pities the signal man as there was not much that he could do, this supernatural event that he got himself involved in led him to his death. "..Misused his opportunities, gone down and never risen again", Dickens says, as the Signal man fails to take the opportunity given to him as a warning, and doesn't understand it and loses his chance at life.
The Signalman acted in strange and odd ways, you could say that he was disturbed in the mind due to the things that he often sees. The oddness of the Signal man seems to decrease after every visit from the narrator, although the climax increases and unfinished information is given, making the reader wanting to read the next visit.
The Signal mans' descriptive position's of the ghost were awkward, "He had his left hand at his chin and that left elbow rested on his right hand crossed his breast", which is not a usual or normal stance. Some may say that the Signal man is so confused in and he has spent too much time alone, shut away. This could be the reason for not recognising that dangers that lie ahead. At the beginning, when the Narrator calls out the Signalman "looked at the danger light" near the tunnel, rather than looking in the direction of the Narrator himself, the reader may find this peculiar.
As the Narrator slowly approaches the Signalman down the "wet and oozy slope", he states that there was a "cold chill" that stuck to him as though he had left the "natural world".
This is a sign from him saying that he knows that something is supernatural about the place that he was in a abnormal world, that he clearly isn't heaven, as he is descending which could mean he is walking into hell. The 'wet' and 'oozy' slope give an uneasy feeling to the reader, as if to say that in the top of the valley there is firm normal ground, but at the bottom it is slippery and could cause an accident.
His visions of the ghost at-once fools the Narrator into thinking that he is mad and he is hallucinating.
The 'dark, sallow man' says that the ghost regularly 'gesticulates' his arm with "passion and vehemence", bowing his head down and covers his face with his arms. He also says that the ghost shouted the very words that the Narrator had said at the beginning of the short story, 'Halloa below there'.
At the end the twist shows that the Signalman had many warnings of the coming events. The words "Halloa! Below there!" had been from the train driver trying to warn the Signalman to get out of the way. The ghosts' actions had been because after the crash the train driver had been in the same position. 'Gesticulating' of the arms was supposed to mean "Get out of the way!".
Charles Dickens' fine examination of the signal man ends in a climax in which the clues have been given in a cautious but clear manner.
All three of these stories have suspense, fear, tension, mystery and a very extraordinary climax to each of them. They have all been written by great writers who know how to make the reader interact with the story and wanting them to grab on. This is a very good use of devices which make us want to read on.
My favourite which I read a couple of times was the Signalman, it was extremely bizarre plot but, keeps you guessing and surprised after every turn of the page. It then unravels into a terrible tragedy and cannot help feeling sorry for the Signalman.
The Red Room had enormous amounts of suspense throughout the whole story, which I could feel. This was done using many devices, such as he sinister darkness.
The Speckled Band is the clever one, which has little links to every part, resulting in them finding the sinister crime being found.
