The red room - review.

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Victoria jolly

The red room

The red room was written by HG Wells pre 20th century.   The story is about a room that is haunted by your own fear. Throughout the story the writer builds up suspense and tension, leaving the reader feeling tired after reading.

        The title "The Red Room" attracts the reader's attention because we don’t know what the red room is, this immediately makes the reader want to find out more about it, it could mean anything, this builds up tension because red is sometimes associated with danger. The title is very mysterious and forces the reader to read on.        

        The story starts in first person the writer has done this so that the reader can empathise with the man, at the times when the writer is building up tension, the reader can feel more involved with the story  

‘I can assure you’ said I that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me’ from this first line, the reader knows two pieces of information. Firstly that this story involves a ghost, and secondly that the character is a little bit cocky and arrogant, making the reader assume that is inevitable that he will be the one meeting with the ghost.  This increases the tension and stops the reader from putting the book down. Also it gets straight to the point.

We meet the second character, the reader doesn’t get told any names just that it is a man with a withered arm, this builds tension because we don’t know who this man is, it sets the scene because we immediately presume that the man is old.  He tells the man that ‘it is his own choosing,’ he doesn’t want anything to do with what this man wants to do, and he makes that clear, The old man is trying to warn the young man but at the same time he is leaving the 'decision' to him. It is as if the old man is ridding himself of the responsibility for the young man. This makes the reader think and anticipation builds up.

The third character is introduced, an old woman.  She warns the man that he has ‘never seen the likes of this house.’ The writer says this so that reader immediately thinks that the house must be haunted, and that a ghost will visit the young arrogant man, this builds anticipation, and the reader thinks they can predict what will happen next.

The repetition of ‘ it’s your own choosing’ shows the reader that the man is trying to protect the him from whatever lies in the red room, but it doesn’t work if anything it just makes him even more curious, and the writer maker the reader more anxious of what could be so terrible about the red room.

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In the last paragraph of the first page, the third character is introduced, the language used and the way in which he is described is different.  ‘more bent’, ‘more wrinkled’, ‘more aged.’ This man is worse than the other two characters because the writer describes him a lot more, all we know about the first character is that he has a withered arm. The depth in which he is described builds tension because the second old man is by far the worst, he is the total opposite to the young man, this builds drama and the drama builds tension.

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