"In 'The Red Room', how does H.G Wells explore the nature of fear?'

Authors Avatar

Amit Singh Bhopal 10B

30/04/06

Novel Coursework – ‘The Red Room’ by H.G Wells

“In ‘The Red Room’, how does H.G Wells explore the nature of fear?’

        Wells was born in the year ‘The Signalman’ was written. Like Dickens, he was of poor parents. He went to night school to better himself to be trained as a teacher. He was lectured by T.H Huxley, the famous Darwinist (The belief in the theory of evolution) and developed a life long interest in science. He was drawn to socialism and believed that the only hope for society to improve was to build it on rational principles. He is well known for novels such as ‘The Invisible Man’, ‘The First Men in the Moon’, ‘The Island of Dr Moreau’ & ‘The War of the Worlds’ (although the modern day film version is, unfortunately, not as good!)

        H.G Wells begins the story with an array of clichés. It is not that he is a bad writer, but rather he is mocking the other horror stories that were out at his time (and there were many of them). H.G Wells was sceptical of ghosts, and so he made the narrator the same with the aim to prove the non-existence of ghosts. Although he is mocking other stories with clichés, we see that even clichés can be scary; old people being one of these clichés. They have all been given abnormalities. (The man with the withered arm, the lady who sways her head from side to side and the man with major face deformities). These things give us an impression of eeriness and mystery since something must have happened to them in the past. Since they have a ‘haunted room’ in their house, it is easy for the reader to jump to conclusions.

        Also, the entrance of the old man with the walking stick is quite dramatic. We hear him before we see him it seems he makes a lot of noise coming in which suggests that it takes a lot of effort from him. When we actually see him, it is evident that the narrator is slightly unnerved by this. He describes all there of the old people as ‘Grotesque custodians’.

        The old man notably repeats the words ‘it’s your own choosing!’ This, itself is a cliché as the old man is not accepting any responsibility for whatever might happen to the narrator. This is a cliché as this means that the narrator will be alone in his experiment. He even says ‘If you go to the red room tonight, you go alone’.

        Continuing with the abnormality of the old people, the aged woman, who sways her head from side to side, repeatedly yells ‘Tonight of all nights!’ as if to say that the supernatural threat is worse on that particular night than any other night. Again, Wells does not explain why and piles on the suspense.

        The actual setting of ‘The Red Room’ is in a huge mansion – again another cliché. The mansion is often a symbol of horror as mansions are typically found in the countryside and therefore away from the civilisation of cities and towns. The gothic mansion is the setting for many horror films and stories.

Join now!

        The old man gives a long set of instructions to the red room. This suggests that the old people have positioned themselves as far away from the red room as possible. It also means that when the narrator reaches the red room, he won’t be able to reach help.

        On the way to the red room, Wells uses many things to purposely scare the reader. He builds on the gothic horror trend. The narrator himself admits to being slightly unnerved or ‘affected’ even though he is trying to keep things as ‘matter as fact’ as possible. The mansion is ...

This is a preview of the whole essay