Question: What are the ingredients of a successful ghost story?

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Question: What are the ingredients of a successful ghost story?

In this essay I will be writing about the ghost story genre. The ghost story is different to other types of story because it gives you a unique feeling at the end of the story. It can frighten you but on the other hand you might enjoy it. It is your perspective. The stories I will be looking at were written in pre 19th Century and were created originally to scare and build intense atmospheres. I will be looking at three short ghost stories and they are The Red Room, The Signal Man and The Old Nurse’s Story.

The Signalman' was first published in 1865, written by Charles Dickens, The Red Room' by H.G. Wells was published in 1894 and The Old Nurse’s Story by Elizabeth Gaskell was published in 1852. These are three stories, which create tense atmospheres. The Signalman and The Old Nurse’s Story were written nearly thirty years before the red room.

The Signalman was about a train crash. At that time trains were a new invention so everyone had never heard about a train crash before. But for us it seems very old fashioned as we are used to modern trains and it running on electrical power rather than coal.

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The Red Room was set in a one room in a massive house. This already seems scary as there is a big house but one room which is very weird and strange. And the only 3 people who live there, does not want anything to do with the red room.

The man in the story is given a long list of directions to reach the red room, which involves going "going down the long corridor", which already gives you a scary feeling. This always happens when someone has to go somewhere dark and they are always alone.

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