'The Red Room'.

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THE RED ROOM

People have always enjoyed ghost stories, when you read a ghost story it makes you feel the fear and tension the character is going through. The title ‘The Red Room’ immediately attracts the reader’s attention, “what is it?” “Why red?” When something is red it makes us think of something sinister and dangerous. The title alone makes you curious and want to read on.

A short story has to attract the reader by building up tension to keep it interesting. If all the action is at once or happens too quickly, the reader soon loses interest. The writer has to build up tension and then calm it down, then raising it a little so that the reader stays interested.

The first lines in a book are always very important; they give us an idea of the story and grasp the reader’s attention.

“ I can assure you, that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me”.

From the first line we know the story has a ghost theme and that the character is quite educated and arrogantly thinks he’s better than most. The writer does this to get the ball rolling straight away as it is a short story and it needs something to make the reader want to read it.

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The first page introduces us to the characters in the story, a young man, an old man, an old woman and another old man. This creates a sense of fear because of images like, “his lower lip …..hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth” and “withered arm” conjure up ideas of monsters or ghouls. Also the fact that the old people are closer to death and therefore have nothing to lose, whereas the young man going to the red room has life ahead of him and tension is created about what’s going to happen to him.

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