When the third pensioner enters, the main character (narrator) begins to get suspicious of all three of them. For example `A monstrous shadow of him crouched upon the wall and mocked his action as he poured his drink.' The adjective `monstrous' describes how the narrator gets this fear and shows he is a little scared. The narrator uses Victorian language, which suggests the atmosphere. This is shown when the narrator says `gaunt silences, their bent carriages, their evident unfriendliness towards one another.' `Gaunt silences', it gets across the idea that it’s awkward and unpredictable of what is happening. `Unfriendliness' shows that the three old pensioners don’t welcome the narrator into their haunted house. So the narrator is already experiencing fear when he meets the three old pensioners. The descriptive words used by the narrator are also very atmospheric as it gives you a picture of his twisted views and it sets an atmospheric setting. We cannot be sure why the three old pensioners make him feel uncomfortable, but the images like `gaunt’ and `bent carriages’ give a clear picture and therefore indicate a strong atmosphere.
When the narrator says he wants to be shown to the room, ‘the old man with the cough, jerked his head back so suddenly that it startled’ the narrator. This creates suspense; as you are attracted and want to read on to know why this made the man jump. The narrator deals with this fear by reminding himself that it is just his imagination. The narrator says `But with an effort I sent such thoughts to my right about.' This shows that he keeps thinking to be able to put it to one side as he thinks it’s just silly. The narrator comments on the three pensioners by saying `I half expected the old people were trying to enhance the spiritual terrors of the house.' This indicates that the narrator has a feeling that the pensioners are only trying to frighten him. `It is true that if somebody doubts beliefs, you can start to doubt them also. Therefore, they are placing imaginary thoughts in the narrator’s mind.
Repetitive language is shown when the man with the withered arm says `It is your own choosing.' This is repeated three times by him and it builds up tension. It gives the reader the impression that whatever has been chosen is horrifying. As the man gives him very specific directions, the reader realises that it is indeed a castle, not a house. It also exaggerates that the `red room' is situated a long way from the narrator. `A monstrous shadow of him crouched upon the wall' this is emphasised by the author using personification. This is possibly to make the reader feel that the shadows are alive. The shadows create darkness and darkness suggests that there is something mysterious. The man with the shade looks at the narrator `with that queer unnatural tilting of the face,' and says `Are you really going?' This seems very strange to the narrator and when he realises that he is actually going it starts to sink in to the old pensioners. Repetition occurs again when the old woman says `This night of all nights.' It is repeated twice by the old woman to hint a strange sense of mystery to the reader. As the narrator is moving towards the door, HG Wells describes the man with the shade, `moving closer to the others.' This suggests there is a building up of tension in the haunted house, and something frightening is going to happen, with the three old pensioners (who seem to dislike each other) trembling together in front of the fire. As the narrator is leaving to go to the room, he looks back and sees the old people, `and saw they were all close together, dark against the fire light, staring at me over their shoulders, with an impression of ancient faces.' This adds to the atmosphere and suspense as it gives a troubling image of fear although you want to read on, to discover what happens.
As the narrator leaves, it says that he `left and then shut them in' this illustrates that he is the one who is in charge of the situation, or so he thinks. The fact that he shuts the old pensioners in, it leads the reader to believe that he does not want to be near them. There is a passage, a spiral case and a very long corridor in the house. The passage is described by the anonymous narrator as a `chilling, echoing passage.' This illustrates the genre, and the tension builds up. The narrator refers to the passage as `The long, draughty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty.' `Subterranean' suggests darkness. As he continues to walk down the passage, it comments on the atmosphere, `the ornaments and conveniences of the room about them were ghostly'. This makes the atmosphere more ghostly as we move nearer to the `haunted' room. `A shadow came sweeping up after me, and one fled before me into the darkness overhead,' this creates great suspense. It improves the paragraph by making the reader wonder what the shadows are. The shadows show signs of darkness, of the passage to build up the atmosphere.
The narrator describes the pensioners dress sense as `fashions born in dead brains'. This is an example of personification, used by the author. It contributes to the imagery used in the story in addition. `Little tongue of light' he also uses poetic language, it is showing personification. `Ocean of mystery' and `like a ragged storm cloud sweeping out the stars' these quotes use a metaphor and simile. All of these descriptions of the house use imagery to reveal the darkness and fear in the red room. The darkness seems to be what the narrator is most fearful of.
The fear is created again by the sounds of the spiral staircase, `the echoes rang up the spiral staircase'. ‘Echoes’ makes the reader wonder if there is anything lurking about the spiral staircase, it also adds to the anxiety.
As the narrator enters the corridor, he describes the window, `vivid black shadow or silvery illumination.' This is strangely unusual because everything else is described as shadowy and black. It helps to create an unnatural atmosphere once again. As the narrator is moving towards the door, he comes across what looks like a figure in front of him, only to find it is an ornament on a buhl table. This indicates that although he is pretending to be blank, he is actually afraid. This adds to the tension building up. The narrator enters the door to the red room very quickly, closing the door behind him. `Shadowy corner' emphasises the darkness again and increases the atmosphere. The narrator inspects the room immediately and creates a form of wall in front of the fire which suggests that he is planning to fight whatever may disturb him tonight. `The shadow in the alcove at the end in particular had that indefinable quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking, living thing.' This shows HG Wells use of language. He is conveying the different types of fear by close detail. It illustrates to the reader how darkness is far more frightening than being able to picture and know what is there. HG Wells is also trying to say that the character is jumping to conclusions and he thinks there is a terrifying presence. The narrator is becoming suspicious so he checks to see is there is something there by lighting the candles. `I walked with a candlestick into it and satisfied myself that there was nothing there.' The adjective `tangible' reveals how afraid the narrator is. It also brings us back to the beginning line about him having to have a very `tangible' ghost to frighten him. It is obvious that the tension is clearly growing. But he deals with his fear by calmly stringing together some rhymes, `I began to string some rhymes together'. Despite the fact that the narrator may have strung rhymes to give him an illusion that he is not isolated, there is clearly a nervous tension growing in him and he is becoming more frightened of his fears.
To overcome his fear, he relights some candles from the corridor as he is getting increasingly nervous. His disturbing state rises, but he is still a bit edgy. The narrator might be inspecting but what he describes as `cheery and reassuring little streaming flames', he is becoming more anxious and tries to joke about warning any ghost to trip over a candle. The narrator has to relight many candles because of the huge darkness, `two candles on the little table by the fire place were extinguished.' The candles are going out so quickly that he fails to relight all of them. Even though there is no draft in the red room, he says that the candles were blown out by the draft, `that draughts a strong one!' This shows that the narrator is trying to reassure himself that there are no ghosts. He relights the candle but it blows out again repeatedly, `I walked back, relit one'. This builds up the structure to create fear and suspense. One candle suddenly extinguishes in front of him as he is looking at it, `The shadows seemed to take another step towards me.' If the light disappears, he has no way of finding out what is in the red room. The light is also there to protect him from the darkness and evil. It’s the darkness that creates the tension and fear in the red room. Everything is shown in the light but the dark hides what’s there, because of the darkness we cannot see as the tension and fear is surrounded by him. More candles were starting to vanish, which builds up the tension in the character, `my hands trembled', this suggests he is in a panic and he is loosing control of the whole thing.
The character sees an invisible hand and H.G Wells gives a good reason to how he reacts of the fear. He is extremely panicky and in a state, `I was now almost frantic with horror of coming darkness.' `Frantic', this adjective makes the reader think that there is a ghost in the room; it also describes his state of mind. As the author is indicating how the narrator is experiencing more fears, the character is becoming so confused that he trips up. `I staggered back, turned, and was either struck or struck myself against some other bulky furniture.' The adverb `staggered' indicates that he must not have known where he was going. The tension is further built up, as the sentences become shorter. The narrator awkwardly knocks his thigh against the table, `I bruised myself on the thigh against the table.' From then on, he is really beginning to loose control. Many people deal with fear by speaking loudly. The narrator speaks loudly `By Jove!' Speaking loudly could suggest he is pretending he is not alone in the room and has a friend with him. This makes him feel more safe and secure. The tension drops when the narrator wakes up and we realise it is day time, `I opened my eyes in the daylight.' The light reveals everything and the old pensioners’ awkwardness reduce, as the light shines on them.
It was the invisible hand that really had the narrator, as he thought he saw a real ghost. After seeing the hand, there was nothing he could do to bring back his confidence.
At the end of the story, the character is changed by realising that it was his mind playing tricks on him. It is his own fears that make him believe the room is haunted. He imagined the most terrifying things that weren’t true, which led to the panicking reaction. He says `fear that will not have light or sound that will not bear with reason that deafens and darkens and overwhelms. It followed me through the corridor; it fought against me in the room.' This is how the character describes what fear really is and shows that he realises the fear of his own fears. The character becomes aware of how powerful the mind is and what imagination can do to you, it can play tricks on one another.
Fear gets across really well throughout the plot, characterisation, and the language to describe the shadows, the genre and the setting. I personally quite enjoyed this story and I certainly think it had a lot of suspense in it, because it definitely made me jump! It could be said that darkness is the most important part of the red room, as darkness seems to be what the narrator is most afraid of, `closed upon me like the shutting of an eye,' `wrapped about me in a stiffing embrace.' and `sealed my vision'. I have to say though; the author does grab people’s attention quite easily, and I was amazed how I kept in focus wanting to read on more and more.
BY SHAHID…
