How Do Dickens and Wells Raise Tension In Their Ghost Stories?

Jane White

10:2

Ghost genre is a theme that can raise tension or just make a chill run up the reader’s mind. The stories are usually set in an old house, rectory or somewhere that appears to look creepy and abandoned.

Charles Dickens is a famous author. One of his most famous ghost stories is “A Christmas Carol”. This was a huge success for him and, people still enjoy reading it today.

H.G.Wells is considered by some to be an excellent writer of science fiction. One of his most famous books was “The Time Machine”

Dickens has set his story in a railway cutting, which is unusual, as most stories as most ghost stories are set in an old house, whereas Wells has set his story in a castle. The idea of setting this in a castle seems more fitting for the genre than a railway cutting because a great deal of ghost stories are set in places like this. But using a new idea is also good, as it has never been used before and therefore the reader would enjoy it more.

In both stories the narrators and the characters show the tension by using powerful language to describe the scenes and their experiences well.

H.G.Wells uses a series of repetition in his story, for example the man with the “withered arm”. Stories hardly ever use repetition because then the reader will feel as if they are reading the same thing over and over again. In this story I think that H.G.Wells is just using repetition to create tension because it is a strange and threatening way of behaving. In “The Signalman” there is no trace of repetition.

Both stories raise the tension using a series of pauses and detailed descriptions. It also helps to build up an image of the atmosphere.

“Quickly changing into a violent pulsation”

“The Signalman”

The detailed language used enables the reader to pick up an image of the setting. Also the language is very strong

“Tangible and grotesque custodians”

This makes the story more daunting because it builds on the reader’s imagination. It is just making the story more interesting to read.

The narrators both act out the scenes, telling the reader about the strange ...

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Both stories raise the tension using a series of pauses and detailed descriptions. It also helps to build up an image of the atmosphere.

“Quickly changing into a violent pulsation”

“The Signalman”

The detailed language used enables the reader to pick up an image of the setting. Also the language is very strong

“Tangible and grotesque custodians”

This makes the story more daunting because it builds on the reader’s imagination. It is just making the story more interesting to read.

The narrators both act out the scenes, telling the reader about the strange noises that take place, the atmosphere and the characters facial expressions.

In “The Signalman” the narrator is telling the story as it happens, whereas the narrator in “The Red Room” is telling the story as a sort of secondary source. We know this because the narrator in “The Red Room” says “and then I remember no more”

While reading “The Red Room” we believed that there is a ghost in the room, as the man was hearing strange noises and seeing shadows on the wall. But we now have an idea that it was his imagination running wild and that the power of his mind was extinguishing the candles. The man was experiencing fear for the first time in his adult life, and we’ve come to a conclusion that fear was the only reason why the events happened or it was all in his imagination. It is an ambiguous ending.

In both stories descriptive language is also used to show the facial expressions of the signalman and the old people

“His eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip half averted hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth”

Shadows appear to be seen in both stories in the cutting and in the red room after the candles had been lit. The reader can actually feel what the characters are feeling at this point in “The Red Room”

“Echoes ran up the spiral staircase”. By using a hint of personification we feel the echoes are actually living.

Dickens does not make a note of any noise taking place in the cutting. The noun, silence, is used in the cutting to good effect because the reader does not know what the character/s are going to say or what is going to happen next.

Dickens and Wells, somewhere in their stories, have both used noises to create certain effects for example to make it more tense.

“I heard the sound of a stick”

“The Red Room”

“Rings my little bell”

“The Signalman”

This technique works because it creates an eerie atmosphere. All of the things that are seen or heard in the stories are written in depth, like the man hearing noises all of the time. This is to make the tension rise and to make the story more interesting to read.

Most of the ghost stories that were written throughout the Victorian era would have been frightening but to us we would have found then rather tame, but these two stories are great and the readers are still able to feel the tension. Victorian people would have really enjoyed them.

I enjoyed reading “The Red Room” the best because I found it easier follow whereas “The Signalman” was quite hard to understand what was going on because I found it harder to follow and made it harder for me to feel the tension rising. “The Red Room” was more tense. I think this because Wells used his detailed language better that Dickens. I found “The Signalman” rather boring compared to “The Red Room” because did not raise half as much tension as Wells had in his story. The language was more basic in “The Signalman” but yet it was harder to understand because of the lack of tension rising. Wells has used more techniques to raise tension that Dickens which helped me to decide which story was most enjoyable to read. I think that “The Signalman” is more of a mystery rather than a ghost story. I believe that the best part in “The Signalman was the most surprising part, when the signalman was hit by the train. “The Red Room” is definitely a ghost story as it set in an place where the reader knows that it is haunted. When the visitor was in the red room and fear came upon him, we started to remember what the old people said in the beginning, which was that another man fell to his death after spending time in the red room. The same sort of thing happened to the man that in this story. This was a really exciting part of the story. I enjoyed this part the most because the pace becomes faster. The faster the pace, the more tense the story is. H.G.Wells and Charles Dickens use pace well in the most crucial parts of their ghost stories.

English Coursework