How do the authors make these experiences seem strange and frightening to the reader? Stories:1. 'The red room' H.G. wells.(1896), 2. 'Confession found in a prison'. Charles Dickens.(1842), and 3. 'The Superstitious man's story'. Thomas Hardy.(1891)

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Assignment 2

   These stories describe individuals at the mercy of forces beyond their control.

 Choose three such characters from different stories. Compare their experiences.

 How do the authors make these experiences seem strange and frightening to the reader?

Stories:

  1. ‘The red room’ H.G. wells.(1896)
  2. ‘Confession found in a prison’. Charles Dickens.(1842)
  3. ‘The Superstitious man’s story’. Thomas Hardy.(1891)

         The forces involved in story one is fear of entering the red room and the darkness in the room. Also the candles and haunting’s in the story are the forces which make the story effective. The ‘grotesque custodians’ also bring strangeness to this story. The forces involved in story two are the possessions of evil which the narrator has and how he seems to think his counter parts have to. He is mad, deranged and not able to control himself and it simply greed for money and revenge. ‘The evil eye’ is also a force which the narrator believes is his brother’s wife and son possesses. The forces in the story show how the super natural can play an important role in ordinary people’s lives showing warnings of peoples deaths.

        The experiences of the narrator in story one is that he’s not afraid of meeting a ghost, but the fear of entering the room. The narrator experiences dislike by the servants with their ‘gaunt silences’ and their ‘unfriendliness’ to him and one another. For example, the old woman took no notice of his arrival and remained with her eyes fixed steadily on the fire. The narrator has lots of courage when one of the servants say’s to him, “your going to the room tonight”. Trying to scare him saying bad things will happen. On the way to the room the narrator experiences fear when he has to walk through a passage which was chilly and dusty and a statue that unsettles him. The narrator began to think things where happening like a ghost shadow following him up the stairs. Also his candle flared and made the shadows ‘cower and quiver’ and the echoes rang up and down the staircase. In the red room when he first enters it, it is really dark red and black. He then began to look around to see if there was anything in the room, but because of the dark he lights candles around to see clearly. By now he begins to feel safe until the lights blow out at the same time. Even the fire which the old woman put on goes out. By now the narrator begins to feel fear and begins to believe something really exists in the room because all the candles went out at the same time and left no smoke.

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        The narrator experiences a troubled childhood about which he states “I will set down the naked truth without disguise. I was never a brave man, and had always been my childhood of a secret sullen distrustful nature”. The narrator experiences a period of time in the army. He served abroad in the campaigns of 1677 and 1678 before retiring from East London. Soon after he returned to England, he experiences the loss of his brother about which he fells no pain, as he explains “my only brother was seized with mortal illness .this circumstance gave me slight or no pain”. ...

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