Looking Closely At The Nineteenth Century Short Stories: The Adventure Of The Speckled Band, The Signalman And The Red Room, Compare How Suspense And Tension Is Built Up In Each Story.

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Looking Closely At The Nineteenth Century Short Stories: The Adventure Of The Speckled Band, The Signalman And The Red Room, Compare How Suspense And Tension Is Built Up In Each Story.         The three stories I am comparing are The Red Room by H. G Wells, The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and The Signalman by Charles Dickens. I will be comparing how the tension is created by the writer in each story, as they are all based on the mystery/horror genre. In these types of stories it should have suspense, horror, and ambiguity to keep the readers interest.                                 The Red Room, by H.G Wells was a nineteenth century story. During this time supernatural powers were believable, so someone reading it at the time would feel tenser. It is about a man (narrator) who seeks spirits in a castle. He has heard about “The Red Room” and wants to find out, however, the three old people try to warn him but still he goes ahead in search for the room, completely oblivious to what awaits him.                 The Signalman was also nineteenth century story. This is about a man who sees ghosts. He also has a premonition of his own death.                                                The Adventure of the Speckled Band was written in the pre-20th century. It was based on a murder mystery where Dr Roylott (main character) aimed to kill his two daughters to gain their property. When he kills the eldest, the younger sibling gets suspicious and turns to Sherlock Holmes to determine whether her sister’s death was a
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murder.        The Red Room was set in a castle. It was an unoriginal setting for a ghost story, but is good for the tension and suspense. The Red Room sounds mysterious, as straight away we can associate red with blood, fear and danger, so we know that this will be a horror story. Most of the time the writer describes the darkness, “vivid black shadow,” and this creates the sense of fear, of not knowing your surroundings. The language in this story is well developed, and so makes you want to read on because of the interesting words.         “It will ...

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