The Red Room

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The Red Room

In this essay, I am going to discuss whether atmosphere and suspense enhance the power of the narrative in the ‘Red Room’. H.G. Wells wrote the story in 1896. This was a time when Britain was an empire. Some people say that on one level it symbolised fear of the unknown, an attack from outside and eventual decay of the empire.

By atmosphere, I mean; how has the mood been set? How have words been used to create a vivid picture? By suspense I mean how has the writer used words to create the effect that makes you want to read on?

        The story can be split into four sections, the first being where the narrator is in a room with three old people who are in the house that he is staying in. The ‘old people’ are talking to him about the ‘Red Room’. The narrator says he wants to spend the night in the room. They try to talk him out of it by saying, ‘It’s your own choosing’, but he still wants to go. In the second section the narrator is making his way to the ‘Red Room’. He leaves the ‘old people’ behind and makes his way to the room. The third section is set in the room. He lights many candles because of the vast darkness of the room, but they start to go out. He keeps relighting them but they keep blowing out. The room is being haunted. The narrator fails to relight all of the candles as they are being put out too fast. He is left in darkness and is petrified. He wants to get out of the room but cannot find the door. In all his fear, he ends up knocking himself out before he manages to find an escape. Section four, the last section, is where the narrator wakes up the next morning. He describes what it was like in the ‘Red Room’ and how it is not haunted by spirits but by the fear of those who had died in there.

        I have now told you the basic outline of the story. I have used no atmosphere or suspense so it is obvious that the use of them enhance the story. Without them, the story is dull and lifeless, with no depth or meaning.

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        Suspense is built up in section one through repeated phrases. One being, ‘It is your own choosing’. This builds suspense as it makes you wonder, what is his own choosing? It gives you the impression that whatever has been chosen, is bad. The phrase is repeated three times in this section. The atmosphere is built up through description. A good use of atmospheric description is, ‘The old woman sat staring into the fire, her pale eyes wide open.’ This shows that there is fear in her. So something bad is associated with the ‘Red Room’. The first line of this story has ...

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