How do the Authors of "The Monkey's Paw" and "The Red Room" create fear and tension in their short stories

                                        The Red Room is about a haunted house and The Monkey’s paw is about an object that has supernatural powers. The Monkey’s paw is situated in a far off place we know this by “that’s the worst of living so far out.” This creates tension because it is saying if they were in trouble they would be no one to help them.” In The Red Room it is set in an old castle where Wells mentions ’for the moon light coming in’ this helps the reader to imagine the scenery better. Both stories use imagery to create a better understanding of the scenery and to set out the atmosphere better. For example ‘pulsating shadows on the ceilings’ meaning that these shadows kept moving round the room. Both authors use candlelight and creaking doors which is mentioned in many horror stories.

 In the Red Room it starts of with 3 old characters that are only referred to them as they age and do not have any names. These three people are the house keepers of the castle. When the characters are introduced it implies that the castle is not an ordinary place, ‘the man with the withered arm,’ ‘the old woman is made to appear slightly mad because she swayed her head slowly from side to side, this makes us the readers think about why she is this way is it naturally she is like this or has the castle made her be like this, the three old characters are mocked by the main character ‘their very existence was spectral.’ The main character starts off the story as ‘it will take a tangible ghost to frighten me’ how ever during the story the narrator gets more anxious, afraid and nervous, we know this because when the narrator starts to think about the person that went into the room before he gets sacred ‘the memory of that story gave me a sudden twinge of apprehension.’ Near the end he is totally terrified because ‘with a cry of terror, I dashed at the alcove.’ This is because the candles all kept going out as fast as he can light them.

                        In The Monkeys Paw when Major Morris enters this is a big tension to the story because of how he is described into coming into the story ‘as the gate banged too loudly and heavy footsteps came towards the door.’ This is tension because the family were enjoying a quiet family evening together but he interrupts it. When it says heavy it means that something bad might happen. When he introduces the monkeys paw he doesn’t want to talk about it when he says ‘leastways nothing worth hearing’ this shows he is trying to change the topic of discussion. Jacobs creates more tension by adding a character called Herbert White this person sort of sets a premonition because this person sits in the darkness watching the fire and seeing faces. This shows the danger and excitement of fear this is suspense to the story.

                                        The way in which each story is structured is different because in the Monkey’s Paw the there are three wishes and then it stops ‘the knocking ceased suddenly’ to leave a feeling of relief,’ this is different to the Red Room because that is to a certain point at the end saying what has happened for example the story was about fear rather than what was in the room. In the short story the Monkey’s Paw it has some bits of tension going on when ‘the gate banged too loudly’ and ‘heavy footsteps came towards the door.’ The way in which tension and fear is built up is important to a horror short story to get the attention of the reader for that short period of time. In both these short stories there are little words which describe the tension as well as setting fear with words like ‘frightened’ ‘withered’ and ‘terrors’ where in the first couple of lines of the Red Room. In the opening of the Monkey’s Paw words like ‘grimly’ violence’ and ‘beastly’. In the Red Room the best bit of tension added were the old people that lived in the castle. Near the end of the Monkey’s Paw we are left to feel sympathy for both the parents for the loss of there only son. The Red Room had set out a point towards people which was even the bravest of people had to show fear at times. But the Monkey’s Paw was better than the Red Room due to the fact of how Jacobs had described the characters and setting and so Monkey’s Paw was successful to me also this had affected me because of the parents losing they only child.