To compare the signalman and The red room.

To compare the signalman and

The red room

I am going to compare the ways the authors of the ‘signalman’ written by Charles Dickens and the ‘Red room’ by H.G.Wells’, have created tension and atmosphere. I will look at the way the setting and the characters are different and how this has created a good story.

‘The signalman’ starts in the evening ‘angry sunset’. The narrator goes down a very ‘precipitous’ zigzag path and the ground is ‘clammy’ and ‘oozier’ because it is cold, dark and quite damp. He sees the tunnel. The writer shows that it is ‘dark’, ‘depressing’ this shows it is spooky ‘forbidding air’. So this makes the atmosphere scary.

The ‘red room’ on the other hand wastes no time grabbing your attention. He sees a distorted mirror ‘queer old mirror’ this gives a weird feel to the story and makes you want to read on. Like the mirror a creaking door is used to make the same effect ‘the door creaked’ this is classic horror. The writer creates tension-using shadows ‘monstrous shadow’. H.G.Wells also mentions ‘the haunted room’ very early to get the attention of the reader.

The ‘signalman’ also uses shadows for an effect ‘lower shadows’ this gives the ...

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The ‘signalman’ also uses shadows for an effect ‘lower shadows’ this gives the effect of a cold and eerie setting ‘damp air’. Charles Dickens continues to describe the air ‘unhealthy damp’. The most important part of the ‘signalman’ is the tunnel. The narrator tries to show how scary and weird this place is ‘blackness of the tunnel’, ‘dismal mouth’. Inside the tunnel it is very wet ‘wet stains’, ‘trickling’ and ‘wet stone walls’. He sees the ‘danger light’ the tension is increasing and the light is mentioned again ‘red light’.

The ‘red room’ is still creating tension but stronger this time ‘this night of all nights’. This shows there is something different about this night. He heads towards the red room down a ‘chilling passage’. He describes it as a ‘long subterranean’ this is like a cave, very cold and sinister. This is a typical gothic story; this is reminded with the use of ‘moonlight’. When he reaches the red room he assumes it to be dusty but it is clean ‘deserted on the yesterday instead of eighteen months ago’. This is an anticlimax. The tension starts to build again ‘shadowy corner’ and again the author uses shadows to create tension.

Now he reveals that people have died in the red room he mentions this later in the story to grab the reader’s attention again. By using good descriptions of the dark ‘sombre’ and ‘germinating darkness’ the writer can show the narrators fear of the dark ‘lurking living thing’. The narrator lights some candles that go out one by one for no reason. This is better than all the candles going out at once because it creates tension.

The red room is now dark and has many shadows because of the fire ‘red reflections’ and the walls look like blood. Then the fire goes out and there is complete darkness as the narrator panics. Until daylight arrives in the morning and like in the ‘signalman’ the trauma is over. I think that ‘the red room’ sets the scene much better than the ‘signalman’ has.