How do the H G Wells Stories The Red Room, The Cone and the stolen bacillus create and maintain tension? By Harry Roper 10SR
The title "The Red Room" attracts the reader's attention straight away, as it is symbolic but leaves questions that you can not answer yourself such as, what is the red room. , why is it red? Red is sometimes thought of as fear and even danger. The title leaves a lot of curiosity to the reader, and may make them want to read it and answer their questions. The author has to make the reader keep reading the story and keep them interested. To do this, techniques such as tension should be used. The tension should sometimes be maintained throughout the whole story, so the reader wants to know what’s going to happen, but it can also stop for a while, and then be built up again to surprise the reader. By adding more tension, little by little, the story gets tenser but the reader is also reminded of the excitement as they are released from the tension sometimes. In a short story, the reader will be able to have a strong influence from the writer's first and last lines.
In the time of The Red Room (1896) Europe was in utter turmoil. The last century had brought more revolutions in a year than in the entire 20th century. In 1848 (the year of revolutions), revolts and uprisings happened in Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Milan, Venice, Palermo and (several revolutions in) Rome. It seemed that Great Britain was next; even those with work were poorly housed and inadequately fed. The Red Room plays on these fears of revolution and unrest. It does this by playing the science versus religion, and old versus young issues.
The genre builds up a mount of tension in the story where the characters description of the house gives the impression that it is old and derelict. The old woman states, `and eight and twenty years you have lived and never seen the likes of this house.' This illustrates that the house is historic and it could also be decaying.
At the beginning of the story, the character of the narrator is not open minded and sure of himself. He believes there are no ghosts. He is very cynical, which is shown when he refuses to believe what the three older characters tell him. The character says `I can assure you said I, that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me.' The author uses very expressive words in his writing and uses the adjective `tangible’; this means you can touch the ghost. You cannot touch ghosts and this is why the author uses the adjective, because the character believes ghosts are not real. The character feels unsure when the three older characters give the narrator unnerving feelings. He says the three older characters ‘…made me feel uncomfortable.' This explains that the character is not made to feel at ease. It also accentuates that the older characters are quite convincing. The three older characters try to frighten the character but he still remains cynical. He says `If I see anything tonight, I shall be much wiser.' This sounds fairly sarcastic and he disbelieves the old woman and the man with the withered arm. The structure of the story also creates and sustains suspense. In the opening of the story, the characters are vividly described, the old woman for example, `the old woman sat staring into the fire, her pale eyes wide open.' This shows there is fear in the old woman and she is creepy. The caretaker is described as `the man with the withered arm,' this hints the caretaker is highly disturbing. Another technique H G Wells uses to make the “grotesque custodians” more disturbing is how they are addressed. He calls them things like: “The man with the withered arm” or “the man with the cough” whereas in the stolen bacillus they are described by names or occupations: “the bacteriologist” and “the anarchist”. This is because during the Victorian times, people with deformities such as a withered arm would be treated as second class citizens and would normally live in workhouses. The Cone and The Stolen Bacillus have narration in the 3rd person whereas The Red Room has 1st person narrative, this is because the action revolves around more than one person in The Stolen Bacillus and The Cone, whereas there is only the arrogant man in the Red Room.
