“The Red Room” is set in an old derelict house, which makes you immediately associate it with an old haunted house. The name “The Red Room” engages the reader because if it were just called “room” it wouldn’t be as noticeable, as you associate red with blood, danger and death. It is a very strong colour and has associations with fear. Red Room makes you think there is something dangerous or something bad has happened within an enclosed space in a room. Suspense is created in “The Red Room” firstly by no one being addressed by a name just by description such as “The man with the withered arm” or “the man with the shade”. This immediately creates suspense because if they were given
a name it loses the atmosphere of mystery and becomes quite mundane. H
G Wells also creates suspense in the opening scene by the repetition of “its your own choosing” by the man with the withered arm, this makes you question what is his own choosing? It makes you want to read on and find out. When the narrator says “abbreviated and broadened to an impossible sturdiness, in the queer old mirror” it makes you immediately think that an item like this would only be an old queer house. It also makes the readers ask themselves why does the mirror distort what the narrator sees? This is another good way the writer has built suspense.
In “Farthing House” the main similarities between this and “The Red Room” is that it is also set in a house but you don’t know from the start, from the title or otherwise whether it is haunted or not. Susan Hill also starts, like in “The Red Room”, the story like you are joining in while she is in the middle of a conversation. In “The Red Room” it starts “I can assure you,” said I” and in “Farthing House” it begins “I have never told you any of this before”. It is like we are old friends, catching up, it is very informal, the writers achieve this by using colloquial language. The author builds suspense similarly to H G Wells, she leaves unanswered questions, which make us, want to read on and find out what the answers are. “When the newspaper report appeared, a week later”, this leaves many unanswered questions like what newspaper report? Is it important? These kind of questions make you feel like you have to read on to find out the answers. Also, similarly to “The Red Room”, Susan Hill controls the pace of the story by putting in longer and shorter sentences, when the story gets more exciting, longer more descriptive sentences are used. When the author is trying to make you think he slows the pace down, when he doesn’t want you to ask questions he puts in short sentences like “I was there, all over again”.
The context of “The Red Room” follows the gothic fiction genre. A gothic story is a kind of romantic fiction, which became more popular in the latter half of the 18th century. The traditional romantic or horror fiction originated in England and there are five main parts to the story. The setting of a gothic story was usually a ruined gothic castle or abbey. The gothic story emphasized mostly on mystery or horror and was full of rooms haunted by ghosts, underground passageways and hidden stairways. In gothic novels the victim or the main character in the story are usually alone and are knowingly aware of the evil presence of a ghost or some kind of an evil monster. “The Red Room” follows many of these conventions, for example, a haunted room, in an old derelict house, a
spiral staircase leading to the Red Room and passages. The setting of
“The Red Room” is typical of a gothic novel and a Victorian ghost story. The fear lives on the minds of the readers and audience not necessarily on the script. If you can’t see or hear anything that is when you start to imagine things and that is when you start to imagine things and that is when the fear starts to creep in. The narrator of “The Red Room” has warned many times before he entered the red room by the man with the withered arm and he kept repeating the same few words “Its your own choosing”, as if he doesn’t want to be blamed for it if anything goes wrong and he dies, perhaps like the duke did. You get the impression that the duke just fell down the stairs, he was just jesting with his wife, and we don’t know how she died. “This night of all nights” was also said repetitively, as if she is also warning him, indirectly to the narrator and it leaves you guessing as to why this night is worse than any other one. As readers, we also question what happened on this night and so the writer successfully creates suspense.
I think that “The Red Room” is an effective ghost story because it was written almost a century before “Farthing House” yet it still shows many of the same techniques and it is still as popular with a modern day audience.
The context of “Farthing House” is more cynical and sceptical, Susan Hill voices the opinions and reservations of her readers, which makes it more realistic. The author also constantly throughout the story lulls you into a false sense of security so that when something does happen it will make us more shocked. An example of this is the sign “FARTHING HOUSE. It was a neat, elegantly lettered sign” this is not scary at all, it is the exact
opposite it makes you feel like maybe it is just a normal residential home. We know that Farthing House has some kind of ghost but it is hard to put your finger on exactly what is wrong with the seemingly normal residential home other than the “faint smell of hospital antiseptic”
Susan Hill uses pathetic fallacy to heighten the suspense, she writes it was “dripping fog and low cloud” outside when she felt enveloped with sadness and foreboding. Hill uses pathetic fallacy throughout the story so that when she is feeling unhappy the readers will be to because when its bad weather it puts you in a bad mood. The setting for the story is Farthing House, which used to be an old home for illegitimate babies, which relates to the baby crying in the narrator’s room, and an old military convalescent home after that. When you think that the story is over there is a twist and it leaves many unanswered questions that certainly makes you think about it and talk about it for a while afterwards.
One main difference between the two stories is that in ‘The Red Room’ no names are used, as this is a technique used so that you ask more questions’ why does the man have a withered arm? And how did he get it?’ In ‘Farthing House’ names are used again to lead you in to a false sense of security, with nice names like aunt Addy, it makes you think of happy thoughts rather than unhappy ones, this is a theme that runs throughout the entire story. Both stories are in first person narration, which is a similarity, this makes it more personal. The author hasn’t put a barrier between the narrator and us, which makes it more personal and you are more likely to care what happens to the character in the end, and also more likely to believe in what they are saying.
The language of both stories were typical of the time of which they were written in “The Red Room” a typical example of Victorian language is “Eight and twenty years”, said I”. This kind of language is used throughout “The Red Room”. In “Farthing House” it is more modern and a sign of the times “and a few of them were swirling down as I raked and piled”. Some language techniques are used in both stories I think to the same affect, like the suspense of leaving unanswered questions. Personification is used throughout “The Red Room” “a monstrous shadow of him mocked his action as he poured and drank”. A monster is associated with scary and gothic fiction and you can imagine from the description a monster shadowing over the man. Also it says, “mock” this shows that the writer is trying to make fun of what he is doing and you associate “mocking” with playing and jesting.
The main ways that the author’s try and create suspense is by using certain techniques. The author’s both leave unanswered questions, which not only builds suspense but also makes you want to read on and find the answers to the questions. In “The Red Room” personification, which gives life to dead things, this is effective because it makes it more scary and real. There is use of similes in both stories “it closed upon me like the shutting of an eye” this is effective because you have more fearful in the dark than you are in the daylight and if he had his eyes shut he would be in the dark.
In my opinion I thought that the ending in “The Red Room” was an anti climax because after you have built yourself up so much while the narrator is in the red room to suddenly come round in daylight to find the three people that you previously found quite scary before, now caring for the wounded narrator it makes you think is that all it has been building up for, fear. My opinion for “Farthing House” is one of utter confusion because it changes tenses, from past to present, and you are not quite sure of what happens. I think that the ending of “Farthing House” was better compared to “The Red Room” because “Farthing House” leaves you confused so that you can think about it for a while whereas at the end of “The Red Room” you know the answers to all the important questions.