We never get to know any names in ‘The Red Room’ either. This is one similarity between the two stories. The Red Room’ involves a young man who visits an old castle in hope of finding a ghost, the stories continues as he walks down a long, dark corridor and then finally reaches the red room. The man lights candles and sets them around the room evenly to light up every inch of it, but then one by one the candles go out and while they go out the man runs around the room trying to keep them alight. In the darkness, the man trip up and knocks himself unconscious but is then later found in the morning.
Both stories are written in first person. This has a great effect on the story and the reader's thoughts. Narration of a story can make the reader feel present in the story, as the narrator discusses the events unfolding therefore making the reader feel uneasy and fear the situation the narrator is in, especially in a horror genre. This can be far more effective and more exciting than reading the novel in the third person. The title "The Red Room immediately attracts the reader's attention. It makes the audience think what ‘The Red Room’ is and why it is ‘Red’, these are unanswered questions, thus creating mystery. Red is very symbolic colour, often associated and connected with fear and danger, since this is a horror story, the red could symbolize blood. In both stories, a reader would be influenced by the settings of the tense and suspenseful atmosphere.
As for the characters in ‘The Signalman’, there are two and they seem quite normal. The narrator in ‘The Signalman’ is a person in a high class and very educated. The narrator feels that the signalman is very lonely and that he is afraid. The narrator feels sorry for the signalman. It seems that he is a person who does not know what he is dealing with or what is happening to him. For the setting in ‘The Signalman’, it is in a railway cutting with a “gloomy, depressing” tunnel. There are steep sides with a zigzag path on it. Here everything just seems normal but you can feel that there is something suspicious about the place. It sounds as if it is lonely and too quiet.
The story does not start like a traditional story or even end like one, which is extremely different from the story of ‘The Red Room’. ‘The Red Room’ is in a castle which is dark and isolated. The spiral staircases, large windows, long corridors, door covers and statues make the place more dangerous and no one can help that there’s a sense of danger and trouble about the place. A spiral staircase shows that no-one would not know what is coming round the corner. Long corridors and a door covers shows that sound cannot travel a lot, so there is no escape. In Wells story the idea of the spiral staircases keeps you in suspense, it can give you sense of dizziness, so therefore you do not know what is going to happen.
The setting of the story has an effect on the reader's mind. In the Signalman the setting of the Signalman's house is situated in such a place and described in a very effective manner. The Signalman's house is outside of the railway tunnel. The place seems to be quiet and isolated. It's not a very comfortable place for the Signalman to be. The author uses many adjectives to make the setting imaginable for the reader. He uses words like 'angry sunset', 'solitary'. These adjectives describe the emotions of the signalman as being angry, ‘solitary’ for instance describes his loneliness as being like prison. All these words describe the setting of the area around the Signalman.
The Red Room on the other hand is set in a castle, a very typical setting for the horror genre. The red room itself is situated in a 'shadowy corner' and is veiled by darkness, 'shadowed'. The author often uses the word 'shadowed' when describing the red room, this is to make the reader feel like there is actually a presence in the red room and by doing so, gradually building up fear and tension in the heart of the reader.
In conclusion to this essay, it would seem that The Red Room engages the reader more than The Signalman, but they both do this quite well. Occasionally, the signalman would look at the bell and check the track as though it had rung. The second quote is used throughout the story to create tension and also engage the reader. “His figure was foreshortened and shadowed”, this shows that there is a lack of light as there are shadows. The language used in both stories is used in a way that will effectively portray a paranormal atmosphere. For example, in The Signalman, the language used to describe the tunnel situated at the Signalman's post creates the image of a dark cavern, 'gloomier, entrance to a black tunnel'.
The words that I would like to draw attention to are 'gloomier' and 'black'. The use of the simple word 'black' is a very powerful descriptive word because it suggests that the tunnel in not just dark, but a sort of deep blackness. It is a combination of these two words that creates the image that the tunnel is like the mouth of some sort of monster. The train being the actual monster is what kills the signalman in the end after all the warnings from the apparitions.
However The Red Room grips the attention of the reader in another way, In the beginning it grabs the attention of the reader but not too much just to keep the audience listening on, just to get them curious, when it comes to the part where he is on his way to the red room is where the tension and fear start to kick in and the climax of suspense is at its highest. Talking about the supernatural and ghosts would attract anyone’s attention as they are well known forms of fear, evil and death. In The Red Room, the language used to describe the appearance of the room proved to be quite effective in the creation of an eerie, fearful and negative atmosphere.
