Alex Lytton Monday, 26 January 2004, 2003
English Coursework
How do W W Jacobs and H G Wells build and sustain tension in the monkey’s paw and the Red Room
WW Jacobs and HG wells have both written in the pre twentieth century and based their stories on a haunted theme. The red room has been based on a haunted place, while Monkey’s paw is based on a haunted object being the monkey’s paw. Both stories build and sustain tension throughout. They use the same devices setting, characters and atmosphere. Being stories based on supernatural occurrences it is easier to create tension and sustain it, the difficulty comes with doing this in such short stories.
To create a sense of tension in the Monkey’s paw Jacobs uses a contrast between the outdoors and inside of the house, to show that evil being outside is so close to the house and soon it will be coming inside. “without the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly” This is great example of the contrast because it is cold and wet outside, a really dingy day while inside they have got a warm fire burning and they have almost tried to shut the evil out by closing the blinds but as we know the evil does get in when they open the door. Wells creates tension using setting a lot differently in Red Room he creates the tension by using very effective adjectives to describe everything that may be scary inside the house. “The spiritual terrors of their house” the word spiritual makes the terrors sound a lot worse because it has an air of the unknown about it, which can build tension. The difference between the two stories using tension is that Monkey’s paw is more subtle about using setting to create tension. Using the adjectives in Red Room is making it obvious that the author is trying to scare you by thorough description.
