How is the convention of gothic fiction used to build tension in "The Red Room" and "Monkey's Paw"

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Gothic Fiction - The Red Room and The Monkey's Paw

In these two stories, the Red Room and the Monkey's Paw, a convention of gothic fiction is used to build up tension to grab the reader's attention more to the story and also to create a frightening atmosphere. The cultural society of Victorian times in the United Kingdom influenced both these writers to create such frightening stories as then the idea of a ghost or haunting was an early idea at the time, people were more aware of the religious background of spirits and demons, even the fact that they could be in their very own homes! These ideas were taken in to make a good gothic fiction story by building up tension.

In the Red Room, the characters have an eerie and mysterious manner as we do not know their names, we are only given description labels of each character such as "the old woman" and we do not know the narrator's name throughout the story. This is cataphoric reference, as the narrator's name is not mentioned at all which first creates a mystery to the reader, as we would want to know his name from the