19th Century Short Stories Coursework
Simran Lotay 19th Centaury Short Stories Coursework In the short stories the Signal man and Red room, fear and suspense are built in a variety of ways. Some ways the authors achieve fear and suspense are through the environment, character description and linguistic devices. In Red Room, one of the methods used to create fear and suspense is the description of the elderly inhabitants of the house. Wells manages to make the reader fearful and suspicious of the elderly man, by describing him as having a ‘withered arm’. Those with disabilities, at the time the story was written, were seen as inferior, and were feared. By giving the elderly man a disability the author creates an air of suspense and mystery around the character. By making the inhabitants of the supposedly haunted house old, the author could be trying to create a ghostly atmosphere. Wells describes them in a ghostly manner ‘The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide open’ and ‘His lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink for his decaying yellow teeth’. The word decaying has connotations of death, which relates to the main idea of a ghost. The protagonist also describes them as being ‘spectral’; this could be suggesting the elderly people are the ghosts. Old women are commonly associated with witches, which relates to the supernatural. This builds fear and suspense for the reader.As the protagonist sets off for the red room, the elderly woman repeats ‘This night of all nights?’ The use of this device heightens the sense of suspense felt by the reader, is also encourages the reader to empathise with the protagonist and fear the ‘red room’. As the protagonist leaves the room filled with the elderly inhabitants of the house, he left ‘the door wide open, until the candle was well alight’. This suggests the protagonist is fearful of the ‘red room’, although he does not admit to it. Because the story is written in the first person perspective, this makes the reader empathise with the
protagonist and fear the ‘red room’ as the protagonist does. This is because the reader is constantly reading that it is 'I' doing the action, and this therefore makes the reader believe that they are the protagonists.The author also describes the house to have haunting features such as ‘echoing passages’, and ‘old fashioned furniture’ this helps to create an eerie environment, which encourages the reader to believe in the ghosts. The passage to the ‘red room’ is described as ‘subterranean’ this means underground. This has connotations of hell and could be a metaphor for the passage to hell.The ‘steps’ and ...
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protagonist and fear the ‘red room’ as the protagonist does. This is because the reader is constantly reading that it is 'I' doing the action, and this therefore makes the reader believe that they are the protagonists.The author also describes the house to have haunting features such as ‘echoing passages’, and ‘old fashioned furniture’ this helps to create an eerie environment, which encourages the reader to believe in the ghosts. The passage to the ‘red room’ is described as ‘subterranean’ this means underground. This has connotations of hell and could be a metaphor for the passage to hell.The ‘steps’ and ‘door to the red room’ are in a shadowy corner. This shadowy cloud over this part of the house differentiates it from the rest of the house. People often fear things they are not familiar with and therefore, this builds fear and suspense for the ‘red room’. The protagonists ‘candle’ ‘failed to pierce’ the darkness ‘of the opposite end of the room’ this created ‘an ocean of mystery’. The protagonist can’t see into the other side of the room, and therefore cannot see what is or is not there. This creates fear and suspense as to what is in the room. The protagonist ‘resolves to make a systematic inspection’ of the room. This is an example of the idea of rationalism. This was a theory popular in the 19th century. It stated that everything could be explained through rational thought, and science. Great philosophers such as Eleatics, Pythagoreans, and Plato practised the ideal. The protagonist notices an ‘indefinable quality of a presence’ in corner of the room. This suggests that there is something supernatural about the room, this builds fear and suspense as there is quite obviously something out of the ordinary about the room. This also contrasts with the idea of rationalism because it is an ‘indefinable quality’ that he notices, which cannot be explained by science or rational thought. The protagonist reassures himself ‘that nothing supernatural could happen’. This tells that he is a fearful frame of mind, and in turn, forces the reader into a fearful state of mind.Wells uses the contrast of light and dark to build fear. Darkness has connotations of evil and death and should therefore be feared, whilst light represents rational thought and safety to the protagonist.The protagonist comes to the conclusion that the room is fear personified; this could be the author suggesting that the greatest evil is fear itself.The signalman also uses many different methods to create fear and suspense, some of which are the same as in the red room and some which differ.When the signalman hears the call ‘Hallo, down there’ from the protagonist, he ‘looked down the line’ as opposed to where the voice is coming from, above him. This makes the reader suspicious of the signalman because of his strange behaviour. As this the first event in the story, it encourages the reader to assume it holds some significance to the conclusion of the story. In the 19th century these mystery stories were enormously popular and wee often published episodically in the newspapers. To encourage the readers to buy the next issue, there are many cliffhangers throughout out the story to try and inspire people to read on. The strange reaction to the call ‘Hallo, down there’, could have been the end of the first episode, and as the signalman's reaction was suspicions, it would inspire readers to but the next issue. The signalman also does other things, which are seemingly unexplainable to the protagonist such as hearing a bell ring twice, without the protagonist being able to hear. This inexplicable behaviour builds suspense and fear for the reader because if people do not understand something, they are fearful of it.The signalman tells the protagonist “It is very difficult to speak of. If you ever make me another visit I will try to tell you.” This suggests to us that there is a reason for the signalman’s inexplicable behaviour, and it is a very troubling one if he cannot bring himself to explain it to the protagonist. This suggests to the read that the reason for the signalman's behavior is one to be fearedThe signalman is portrayed as a ‘dark sallow man’. The author uses descriptive words to build suspense and fear around the characters, just as in Red room. When the protagonist leaves the signalman he warns him ‘when you are at the top, don’t call out’ this is a suspicious direction, and builds fear and suspense because it is out of the ordinary.The signalman also introduces the idea of the supernatural; ‘You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any supernatural way’. The mention of the supernatural makes the reader fearful that it is the supernatural. The same technique is used in the red room.When the signalman explains to the protagonist why he behaves in such a strange way, he tells him of a spectre he sees accompanied by a passing train, and when the spectre is seen, a passenger on the train dies. The spectre calls to him ‘Below there, look out!’, which explains his strange reaction to the call form the protagonist. When he describes the spectre he cannot describe the face, this is because ‘I never saw the face’ This creates an air of mystery, fear and suspense around the story, as people are often fearful of things they cannot see. This is similar to the theme of darkness used in the Red room.There is a sense of irony at the end of the signalman. His death is caused by the haunting call ‘Below there, look out!’ Similarly, The Pit and the pendulum also employs the first person device, which enables the reader to be immersed in the story, and also relies heavily on the fear of darkness, as the protagonist is ‘encompassed’ by the ‘blackness of the eternal light’, when he found himself in the ‘pit’. The perpetual darkness the protagonist experiences in the dungeon he is imprisoned in almost sends him insane as he cannot differentiate between consciousness or sleep, or day or night. Because of this he often fainted or is sent into a state of ‘insensibility’. The darkness he is left in itself is a torture. The author seems have designed the tortures to attack the protagonist’s primal and most basic commodities, such as sight, as well as interaction with others, as he is left isolated throughout the duration of the story. The protagonist is forced to explore his cell using only his sense of touch, as he cannot see due to the darkness. The fact the protagonist ‘examines’ the room and the realization of the pit, is another example of the ideal of rationalism; this is similar to the actions of the protagonist in the Red Room. As in Red Room and The Signalman, the author uses the supporting characters to create an air of something supernatural, which in turn builds suspense for the reader. In the pit and the Pendulum the ‘black robed’ judges which were ‘whiter than the sheet upon which I trace’, are employed to build an aura of the supernatural in a similar way to the elderly inhabitants of the house in which the Red Room dwelled. The author also uses the fear of the expectation of death to build suspense. As we are told by initially, the protagonist is sentenced to death. This is mentioned so early in the story because it prompts the reader to be expecting his death, and as the story draws nearer and nearer to an end, the tension is built in the reader, as they are expecting the inevitable death. Fear and suspense is also built when the most horrific of choice to either plunge to his death by jumping into the pit, or to be gruesomely sliced in two by the swinging pendulum. The author’s description of the ominous ‘destroying crescent’ at the climax of the story encourages fear and suspense in the reader as the protagonist is left helpless awaiting the ever swinging pendulum. Fear and suspense are built up throughout both stories and the authors rely on people’s fearful and irrational nature in order to keep them interested. For example, the slightest mention or suggestion of the supernatural convinces the reader that there is a supernatural presence. This device is used in both stories. Darkness is also a recurring theme that relies on people’s fear of the unknown. This is still true today, as mankind is always wary of things that are unknown, or in ‘darkness’.
