The Signalman however has a very different sort of opening. It begins with a man shouting “Halloa! Below there!” The first sentence draws the reader in because you want to find out who’s talking and what’s taking place. It says, “…there was something remarkable in his manner in doing so…”. I think the writer used the word remarkable because it is a very strong word and much stronger the something like strange. The narrator talks about how the signalman looks “foreshortened and shadowed” in the sunlight, which is unpleasant and describes in a horrible way as if he is disfigured. The “angry sunset” gives a negative impression and use of juxta positioning of words. The personification describes the sunset as if it is alive and has emotions
The settings in all three stories are very similar; they are all dark and secluded in a very typical horror story genre. In The Signalman it talks about the path as “…rough zigzag descending path notched out” an accumulation of adjectives. The effects of these adjectives gives the reader a better picture of how terrible the place is. The narrator describes, as a metaphor, the cutting as a “great dungeon” and that it has a “barbarous, depressing and forbidding air”. The effect of this shows how the man is trapped and how awful this cutting is.
The setting in The Monkey’s Paw is in a big house out in the middle of nowhere. It says that it is wet and cold but inside it’s warm and the fire burned brightly, which if you think about pathetic fallacy it may seem that this is going to be a nice story. In The Monkey’s Paw it only talks about the location at the beginning of the story.
There are very different types of characters in these stories, some are portrayed as creepy but some seem quite different. In The Monkey’s Paw Mr and Mrs White are depicted as very nice people and you don’t expect anything bad to happen to them. However later in the story they have a very nasty accident. Mrs White turns out to become a very crazy person after her son dies. You can see this change in The Red Room in character also when the man at the beginning starts out very brash and full of himself but after spending the night in the red room he acts very differently. The same happens with the old people talking to the man at the beginning of The Red Room; at first they seem very uncomfortable but at the end of the story they seem very welcoming and kind.
At the start of The Signalman there is a very uncomfortable atmosphere between the signalman and the visitor. The signalman seems to acting very strange. At first when the visitor shouts “Halloa! Below there!” it seems quite unusual because instead of the signalman looking up to where the visitor was obviously calling from he looks up and down the line which seems quite odd. The signalman in the story seems worried when the visitor first arrives and he acts like he has seen him before. The signalman acts oddly when he asks the man whether, when he said “Halloa! Below There!”, if it had been conveyed to him in a supernatural way, which seems quite strange. But later on the story you realise why he said that as he talks about the things that he has been seeing.
The Victorians in those days were very scared of the supernatural. In all three stories the supernatural is mentioned. In The Signalman there is talk about a spectre warning the signalman. He tells the visitors of things that have happened and accidents. The signalman tells the visitor of a man who has been appearing over by the red light, the left arm over the face and the right arm waving. Later on a train crashes in the tunnel. Was it just a coincidence or was it supernatural. Also the same thing happens again but this time a woman dies on the train after her wedding. These events refer to the supernatural and the Victorian type of horror story. In The Red Room the writer makes the dark into a living being as it puts out the candles, this makes it seem more dangerous. All of these stories use pathetic fallacy, to make the setting sound more frightening. In The Red Room it talks about the darkness outside the room, through the window. This has quite a chilling effect on the reader, how the writer describes the chimney and the oak panelling in detail. The most scary thing in The Red Room is your own imagination.
Tension and suspense is vital in a horror story. The Red Room creates tension with the candles and the darkness. The candles in the story are taken up by darkness. The candles in the story are taken up by darkness as if the shadows are alive, personification use here. I think the write chose to do this because it makes the dark seem a lot scarier when things are alive, . “The candle in the alcove suddenly went out, and the black shadow sprang back, as if the wicks had been suddenly nipped between a finger and thumb”. I think the write r used the word extinctions to make it sound as thought the candles are dying instead them just going out the use of personification again. The extinctions of the candles makes it sound as though they are dying and it scares the reader because it sounds as though they are being killed. The writer describes the lights “vanishing in a volley”, which is used in war as a volley of arrows and it seems as though there is a war between the man and the darkness. As the man is walking along the corridor to the red room the man “…was about to advance and then stopped abruptly, but I advanced, only to discover a Ganymede and Eagle” which brings the story to an anti climax. The tension in The Red Room builds and builds unti the end where he gets knocked out.
The fear in a story is what makes the reader scared. In The Monkey’s Paw the writer’ use of fear is very effective. After Herbert dies in the story Mrs White decides to use the second wish on bringing Herbert back to life after he dies in the use of the first wish. Mr White reluctantly made the wish. As Mr and Mrs White lay in bed, Mrs White heard a knock at the door this starts getting the reader scared because you don’t know what it is. As Mrs White goes to open the door, thinking that it’s Herbert, Mr White stops her. The reader never gets to actually see Herbert, but that is what scared the Victorian audiences, the unknown.
The endings in these three stories leave you with questions. In The Red Room it never tells you if there is a ghost or not. These stories aren’t my favourite but they aren’t the worst. My favourite out of the three would be The Signalman. I like the clever ending and you understand what happens at the end without too many questions.
