Compare the ways in which the authors of 'The Red Room', 'The Black Cottage' and 'The Signalman' Create Fear and Suspense.

?Compare the ways in which the authors of ‘The Red Room’,

‘The Black Cottage’ and ‘The Signalman’

Create Fear and Suspense

In this essay I will be examining how the authors of ‘The Red Room’, ‘The Black Cottage’ and ‘The Signalman’, create fear and suspense in the reader.

The fear genre is a huge genre that has thousands of stories within it. The scariest are ones that can make the reader actually think he or she are in the story. They can make the reader feel the different emotions and feelings that occur in the story. The techniques that authors can use to create such an atmosphere are things like personification, similes, metaphors, first person narrative, etc, all these things makes the reader feel like their in the story rather than just reading it. Each story has a way of keeping the reader in suspense. ‘The red room’ keeps the reader thinking what could be making the candles go out? ‘The black cottage’ keeps the reader on the edge of their seat by making the thieves persevere at breaking into the cottage. ‘The signalman’ makes the reader think what could the signalman be haunted by? The endings in each of the stories aren’t that conclusive at all apart from ‘The black cottage’. ‘The red room’ reveals that fear itself was making the narrator to panic and finally pass out ‘Fear that will…in the room’. ‘The black cottage is the exception because the girl, Bessie, gets out and is saved by a young farmer which she then marries. ‘The signalman’ again has a very strange ending where the signalman dies because he thought the spectre was telling him to beware, ‘below there, look out’. He then comes to his death by being hit by a train. This is an example of dramatic irony. It then goes on to reveal that the train driver was saying, ‘below there, look out’ and that maybe it was just the signalman’s mind seeing things because he was so isolated in his signal box. Isolation is very important as it the main theme throughout all the stories and is responsible for the feeling of fear in the stories because it makes the reader feel as though he or she is alone by themselves.

All the three stories were written during the 1800’s. This was called the Victorian era. During this time there were new discoveries and breakthroughs throughout the world. ‘The signalman’ is a perfect example. At the time trains were first being used and people were unsure what to think of them and so to involve it with a supernatural occurrence meant that this would have been very frightening at the time. People at the time were broadening their minds to try and accept the theories that were being put forward. Also people were thinking about different bizarre ideas, that there could be ghosts and other different beings that have some supernatural elements. All the stories contain a supernatural element apart from ‘The black cottage’. ‘The red room’, has its room that is haunted by a ghost, ‘The signalman’ has a strange ghostlike individual that disturbs the signalman. ‘The black cottage’ is the only one that does not have a supernatural element in it but instead has another Victorian attribute, which is crime. Two thieves come to a house and try to steal a pocket book. All the stories also use gothic literature. Gothic literature is language to accelerate fear and tension in the reader: ‘The sombre reds and blacks of the room troubled me; even with seven candles the place was merely dim’.

The atmosphere in all the stories is by and large the same. There is an atmosphere of fear and suspense. ‘The red room’, creates tension in the start of the story when the narrator is confronted with custodians who warn him not to go into the red room; ‘It’s your own choosing’, is what they say to the man because they don’t want to be responsible if anything bad happens. There are a lot of grotesque adjectives in the story that give the sense of fear; ‘echoes, unnatural, blackness, etc’.

Throughout the story the feeling of darkness and horror ...

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Throughout the story the feeling of darkness and horror rises and rises until at the end when the man reveals what’s in the room and that is that its just; ‘fear’. ‘The signalman’ has a very similar atmosphere to ‘the red room’ as it to has supernatural elements that create the impression of dread and foreboding. The feeling is achieved by having a ghostly presence that constantly says; ‘below there, look out, look out, for god’s sake, clear the way’, only man himself senses it and he says that it haunts him whenever he sees it because it will lead to something bad happening. Again fear and suspense rises throughout the story as the signalman sees the ghost and witnesses different tragedies on the track. The tension comes to an end when a train kills the signalman after he goes to inspect the ghost. Finally ‘the black cottage’ has an atmosphere that is similar but doesn’t end with a shock revelation like the other two stories. ‘The black cottage’ is a more traditional story than the other two as it has a happy ending. The suspense rises throughout the story as two big, robust villains try to break into the house that a girl ‘Bessie’ is trying to protect. Throughout the story the pressure increases as the villains think of new ways to break in. But in the end the girl’s persistence resolves and she escapes with what the villains are after and comes across a young man that she falls in love with and then marries.

Now I will analyse the setting of the three stories. The setting for the ‘red room’ is an old Victorian castle shrouded with rumours of it being haunted. The castle is depicted as a dank, unearthly, harrowing place; ‘spiritual terrors of their house’. The author implies that the castle is isolated in the middle of nowhere. The subterranean passage is where the journey begins to the red room. The gothic literature in the story helps to create the suspense, ‘light and dark, candles, fire places’. As the narrator sees himself in a mirror its as if it’s distorted; ‘and caught a glimpse…of the room’. The Victorian man is very complacent, arrogant, over-confident and sceptical. This is the stereotype for a man to be in the Victorian time period. The setting for the signalman is a signal box on the side of a railway, which leads into a railway tunnel close by. The signal box is secluded from any form of human contact. The box stands solitary with the signalman inside. The man is a lonely, socially deprived man. Another man comes and visits the signalman and from there on the story unfolds. Victorian man is very complacent; ‘resisting the slow…the telegraph wires’, this shows the reader how rational the man is. I think that because the signalman lives in such a dark place twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week without having any contact with other people that he goes mad and imagines that the there is a man by the tunnel that calls out for him. The setting for ‘the black cottage’ is again like ‘the signalman’ is a secluded, dark farmhouse that is in the middle of a cold, dingy moor. The author tells the reader that the house is secluded by describing the area; ‘where a strip of fertile land stretched out into the waste like a tongue’, and using words such as, ‘solitary’. In ‘the black cottage’ there appears to be pathetic fallacy, the nature of the surroundings seem to be in tune with the ominous event that is about to occur.

Next I will compare the characters of the three stories. In ‘the red room’ the main character is a man that wants to explore the legend of the haunted Lorraine castle. The man is very sceptical. In the opening of the story it shows the man to be very arrogant; ‘You will show me to this haunted room of yours’ I will make myself comfortable there’. The arrogance that the man shows is soon altered into doubting and then respect for the room when he enters and realises that there is a ghostly occurrence in the room. Throughout the story even though there are these ghostly happenings he stays very rational. When the man is going through the subterranean passage and he sees shadows on the walls; ‘the long, draughty…the darkness overhead’. The shadows are personified to give life to the shadows and this makes the reader uneasy but it doesn’t disturb the narrator. The main character in ‘the signalman’ is again the narrator like in ‘the red room’. Again the man is very complacent, trying to think of reasonable explanations for everything. When the signalman explains to him what he has been seeing he thinks and says; ‘Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger…and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires’. This tells the reader that the narrator is a very rational man, quite common for that era. In ‘the black cottage’ the main character is Bessie who is a girl. This is very different from the usual selection for the main character, which is usually a man. The other main characters are the two villains, ‘Shifty Dick’ and ‘Jerry’. These are two characters that are different from the two previous stories. They are vile, ruthless thugs that have no resemblance to any of the other characters.

Next I will examine how the writers of the stories use language and imagery to create fear and suspense in the stories. ‘The red room’ and the signalman are very similar when they’re describing something and making it out to be dreadful. They use words such as; ‘barbarous, depressing, deadly, cower, spectral, etc’. All of these words strike the feeling of fear in the reader and this makes the reader feel uneasy. Personification is a major part of ‘the red room’. It is used in a way to make shadows and other inanimate objects seem alive to make the narrator feel as though there is other beings in the room with him making him and the reader feel scared; ‘the shadows and penumbra perpetually shifting and stirring’. Another poetic device used in ‘the red room’ is metaphors. They are used to envelope and overpower the narrator and show him losing rationality; ‘legends that had sprouted…end of the room’. Contrast is used in this story. It is used to create suspense in the reader by going from one extreme to another; ‘vivid black shadow or silvery illumination’. Also short, fast sentences are used to raise the tension; ‘no, it is not…but worse, far worse’. In ‘the signalman’ language and imagery also help create fear and suspense. There is personification in this story; ‘glow of an angry sunset’, this implies that the sunset is alive and very angry making the reader feel uneasy. Alliteration is used to achieve the effect of fear in the reader; ‘vague vibration, violent pulsation’. The language used is very gothic making the reader feel afraid when reading the story; ‘grave dark regards, fire’. Finally, ‘the black cottage’. There is irony in the first page of the story; ‘no thieves had ever come near us’, this is used to reassure the reader but also give him or her a small view of what’s to come further in the story. Similes emphasise isolation; ‘where a strip of fertile land stretched out into the waste like a tongue’. There is a comparison to ‘the red room’; ‘I rushed into the kitchen…I had plenty of light’, it relates to the darkness and the contrast of light that is created by the candles, this makes the reader feel anxious.

In the next paragraph I shall discuss the narrative techniques used in the stories. ‘The red room’ is written in first person narrative just like all the other stories. The climax of the story I believe is when the narrator enters the red room. This is because it is when he first engages with the ‘fear’. The twist in the story is at the end when the narrator is out of the room and tells the custodians what is in the room. He reveals that, ‘fear itself’, is what haunts the room not what the reader thinks, which is ghosts or ghouls. This leaves the reader wondering at the end as to what the man means. It leaves you thinking. ‘The signalman’ is written as before in first parson narrative, this is because it makes the reader feel in tune with what’s happening in the story. There are several high-tension points in this story. They all occur when the signalman recalls what’s happened when he’s seen the ghost at the railway tunnel. This story contains the biggest twist out of all and it comes at the end and has full effect on the reader. The signalman has seen the ghost again and as usual it says; ‘look out, look out, danger, clear the way’. The signalman goes to inspect and, in turn stands on the railway where he is knocked over by a train. The twist comes when the narrator asks the driver of the train, ‘didn’t you see him’ and the reply back is ‘yes, I shouted look out, look out, danger, clear the way’. This comes as a shock to the narrator and the reader as maybe the ghost isn’t real at all and that the signalman was seeing things and losing his rationality. This is because of the signalman being alienated from any humans for such along time that has gone mad? ‘The black cottage’ is also written in first person narrative. The climaxes occur when the villains in the story; ‘Shifty Dick’ and ‘Jerry’, attempt new ways of trying to break in the house to try and steal the pocketbook. There are no really big twists in this story apart from when ‘Bessie’ escapes the house and runs away with the pocketbook and then comes across another farm where she meets a man that she falls in love with and then marries. This is very different from the other stories where they leave you wondering what’s actually happened in the ending.

In my conclusion I think that the authors of ‘The Red Room’, ‘The Black Cottage’ and ‘The Signalman’ have created fear and suspense in the reader. To gain the full impact of the stories you have to think of the times that these stories were written in the Victorian era, where as I’ve said before they were trying to understand supernatural occurrences and advanced technology. A prime example would be ‘the signalman’. In the Victorian era trains were a new thing and for a writer to write about trains that incorporated the supernatural was a very frightening thing for readers in that time to read and it made a lot of people aware of trains and dangers. What the writers set out to do was to scare people with their stories of the supernatural and I think that is what they did. Personally I think the scariest story out of the three is ‘the signalman’. This is because it involves a ghost that appears to warn the signalman of a tragedy that will occur on the railway line but leaves him in a state of confusion of what to think and then a disaster does occur making you think that this ghost is incredibly strange and this adds to the feeling of fear.