Wells continues to build an atmosphere that is gradually becoming more and more uncomfortable as he gives a spine chilling description of the third housekeeper. ‘As the second old man entered, more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first. He supported himself by a single crutch, his eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth.’ A very striking description of the senile of man, who seems to have lost all his faculties, and is literally very close to death, this introduces the idea of uncertainty and fear. The narrator takes a momentary glimpse at his eyes ‘small and bright and inflamed’. The reader immediately feels a sense of dislike towards him, as he is depicted as evil and devilish.
To introduce even more fear, the writer describes the shadow of the old man. ‘A monstrous shadow crouched upon the walls’. The reader is given an insight into young man’s mind as he confesses, ‘ the three old people, made me feel uncomfortable’. The three weird people are almost like witches. It could remind us of the witches in Macbeth. The word ‘red’ could also emphasise fear, as it is associated with, hell, blood, devil and evil.
The young man tries to show he is not put of by their warnings, as he uses irony in his request to see the red room, ‘show me to this haunted red room of yours’. After repeating his request the old man with the withered arm replies, ‘there’s a candle on the slab outside the door’. ‘This night of all nights’ repeated the old woman twice, as the old man spoke. This starts to create suspense for the reader. H.G. Wells further mounts up the growing uneasy atmosphere, as the old man looked at the young man’s ‘feet’ while addressing him. This suggests he is suffering from the manifestation of his guilt, as he is sending him to his death.
While on his quest to the red room, early clues illustrate he is not the fearless man he thinks he is. This is proved evident as he clutches onto his candle, which symbolizes a child fearful of the dark. ‘I left the door open until the candle was well alight’.
Wells writes this story in the first person, which enables him to share with the reader the man’s thought and feelings. It’s very evident that the unease begins to unnerve him, as he talks about the oddness of the three old pensioners. The writer uses phrases stereotypical of gothic horror stories. ‘The sound of the chilly, dusty echoing passage’ rang up and down the spiral staircase’.
The young man is illustrated slowly walking down the dark passage rather like a ghost buster, observing every corner. When suddenly a ghostly shadow of the ‘bronze group’, which makes him think somebody is about to ‘way lay’ him. He takes out his revolver and continues forward. H. G. Wells shows the transformation of a confident young man now being frightened by a shadow.
Once in the red room the young man remembers the tragic story of his predecessor a ‘young duke’ who had died whilst falling down the stairs. He is cautious and locks the door behind him, to rule out the possibility of any intruders. Here H. G. Wells uses a metaphor to describe the darkness of the red room ‘my candle was a little tongue of light in its vastness’.
The young man lit all the candles in the room and the fireplace, but the ‘echoing of the stair and the crackling of the fire’ increased his nervous tension. Wells adds suspense by describing how the ‘sombre reds and blacks’ troubled the narrator who rushed out to get more candles from the passage. ‘Even with that, however, the brooding expectation of the vigil weighed heavily upon me. It was after midnight that the candle in the alcove suddenly went out, and the black shadow sprang back to its place’. Here the narrator starts to experience real fear. The details of ‘after midnight’ the candles suddenly going out begin to create fear. The black shadows are again stereotypical of a gothic horror tale. The young man tries to put on a brave face. ‘By Jove’ he said, that’s draughts a strange one’. The next thing is that the matches don’t strike and the candles burn out on their own.
He starts to be unnerved, ‘while I stood gaping, the candle at the foot of the bed went out, and the shadows seemed to take another step towards me’. H. G. Wells uses the repetition of shadows to emphasise fear and to play with our imagination. ‘An invisible hand seemed to sweep out the other two candles on the table. With a cry of terror, I dashed at the alcove’. The man became almost frantic with his terror of the darkness as the candles continued to go out. Finally they were all out, but the fire was still on. He rushed over to relight his candle, but the flames vanished. Wells steps up the tempo of the story and with imagery he creates a real life sinario in the readers mind. ‘The candle fell from my hand. I flung out my arms and…. screamed with all my might once, twice, thrice’. The man is now griped with uncontrollable terror. He staggers around the room in a desperate attempt to escape and crashes into a corner of the bed and knocks himself out.
When he gains consciousness. The three pensioners are leaning over him, questioning him about the ghost. He no longer disbelieves, and is a changed man. His reply is ‘the worst of all things that haunts poor mortal man is…. fear’! He has been transformed by his experience. The old man with the shade agrees ‘that it is ….a power of darkness…. there is fear in that room…. black fear’!
H. G. Wells is suggesting in this gothic tale that there is always fear in people’s minds. We are open to the power of suggestion, no matter how confident we might make ourselves out to be. Supernatural things do exist, no matter how we try to disbelieve in them. Was ‘The Red Room’ haunted by ghost?
