In the red room, its first setting scene is set in the living room of a haunted house. There were dialogues about whether the man should enter the red room. In the text, it described the furniture are all ‘Old fashioned’ making it sound more gothic. On the other hand the fire place, warmers and lightens the room which made it cosier. The tense and frightening scene is set in the red room. It is scary because the author described the corners as black corners; the effect it gives the reader is that it makes you feel trapped. The candles in the room were strangely blew out by someone or something; When the main character lights it up again, as someone struck for the second time, the candle went out. “It was after midnight that the candle in the alcove suddenly went out.” This shows the room is intimidating and dangerous.
I think the reason that the red room is successful as a short story is mainly because of the characters, they give so much suspension that we always want to carry on reading, the image of three elderly people warning someone not to enter the room, it has created a spooky image in our minds. The main characters are: a young man, an elder couple and another old man. The Characters have an eerie and mysterious manner. “This night of all nights, said the woman”. The characters create tension, as you never know fully what they are talking about, we don’t even know their or the narrators name. The author did not give the characters name because he wants to create a mysterious scene. One of the old man is described as “His eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth.” This makes us creates an image of his as old and holding a single crutch as he stands up. The man with the withered arm always says “It’s your own choosing.” This showed him that he doesn’t care about the young man going to the red room. The second man did not say a word; he only stared with his eyes fixed steadily on the burning fire.
The young man in the story was quite brave because he was the only one who dared to enter the red room. And he conquered his fears at the very end. The old woman in the story was worried about the young man going to the room, she said “There are many things to see and sorrow for.” The man with the withered arm tells what has happened in the red room.
The language used in the story has lots of different effect. The writer keeps uses ‘then’ in the story this suggests that the breathless rush of what the narrator is doing. “It was like a ragged storm-cloud sweeping out of the stars.” In this simile alliterations are used e.g. spiral staircase; the stair case seems to never end because sibilance were also used.
Every chapter of the red room is giving the reader a kind of cliff hanger effect, which makes the reader to read on and on. The writer also kept the reader’s attention throughout the story, in order for the story to create tension and suspense. In the story, the writer created tension, building it up and letting it to drop and picking it up again
Secondly, I will be talking about the “Ghost at the window”:
In this story, the title is filling our head with lots more questions. The curiosity aroused by this question alone makes us want to read on and find out what is going to happen. Opposites always build drama and drama, in turn, builds tension.
“Lighting split the night sky without a sound illuminating the skeletal trees outside”. This extract from the story is describing a setting which is also a metaphor; its effect is to create atmosphere and illustrations in our minds. This extract sounds frightening because it means that the place quiet and you feel alone, all you can hear are the trees and the wind sweeping; it also makes people feel that they’ve been watched.
“The old Victorian house shook to its very foundations once the pearl thunder rumbled hatefully across shimmering, tempestuous lake.” This is describing an old Victorian house, the writer used personification like thunder rumbled hatefully.
The main characters in the story are: Ross the pilot; his co-pilot, Jack Whitely and a girl called Megan. Megan was a really sweet girl, as many children; Megan asked tonnes of the stuff that she wants: “I want my mommy”, “I want my teddy bear...” I think the main character Captain Ross is quite caring and helping however he made an awful mistake when flying the aircraft, he didn’t concentrated hard enough. And the plane crashed. Not only he hurt and injured himself and his co-pilot, he too killed Megan. The writer did not include many characters, only three; this makes the story more interesting and unique.
In my opinion, Megan is a scary character because after she dies in the plane accident she comes back as a ghost to take revenge on the Capitan. It is similar to a person dies and suddenly they becomes alive again.
Many figurative language were been used in the story like “My heart turned to frozen palpitating slush.” This quote is a metaphor which is suggesting that I am out of control and I’m scared. “My soul and sending icy shards stabbing up my spine.” This quote is describing my feelings and also a metaphor; it is as if saying the character cannot control himself and stabbing his own spine.
The writer is trying to build up the tension and suspense by using figurative language and putting the scenes in chronological order. It used dialogues to tell the story. The writer used the effect of putting one of the character’s name at the very end, this creates a sense of creep and terror.
In conclusion, I think the Red Room was the most effective in captivating the reader because it made you ask more and more questions after very chapter. It makes people thinks “What will happen next?” It is one of the best gothic stories I’ve ever read.
I don’t think the more traditional stories would have been more effective at the time when it was written because a traditional story is taught it is very well-known; so it wouldn’t be fascinating because everyone knows what’s going to happen next.
