The build up, and the relief of tension in the Tell-Tale Heart has a very different and very interesting way of working, short sentences and lots of punctuation, which are used to quicken the pace and increase reader interest, are used to create the tension and then t there are actually two moments of climax in the story, the first one as the narrator kills the old man, and then one mammoth climax at the end where the beating of the old mans heart gets to much for him and he admits to the crime.
The build up and relief of tension in the Red Room however is different, as the voice is sceptical about ghost and of any thing supernatural, which adds an interesting twist to what happens later in the red room itself, where the mans common sense as he calls it goes and he is confronted with what he believes is a supernatural force.
There is quite a lot of prefiguring and foreshadowing in the Tell-Tale Heart, especially about how the beating of the heart could send the man insane, this is shown strongly where while the old man is still alive and the narrator is trying to pluck up enough courage to actually kill the old man he talks about his heart being like a clock enveloped in cotton, the use of a simile gives the reader a visual image/ feeling to relate to, which already shows that he has noticed the heart and that it has already had an effect on him.
And the prefiguring and foreshadowing in the Red Room is again quite different, such as the candles not piercing the darkness, which adds an element of the unknown, the pace increases which in turn makes the tension increase, the candles also start to go out, introducing the element of the unknown, and we hear of the earlier deaths that have happened in the red room.
The ending of the Tell-Tale heart is very out of the ordinary, as we start to think that the man has got away with the murder we start to see, what he thinks, is the beating of the mans heart to get louder and louder this adds an unexpected twist, where he uses techniques such as shorter sentences and more punctuation as he did in the start of the story, onto the end of the story, where finally admits to killing the old man, which leaves people something to enjoy right up to the end.
The ending of the red room however is again very different, as the pace gets quicker and the sentence length gets shorter, we seem to be building up to a huge climax, however the story ends with very much of a anti-climax, the ending turns from the frenzied panic of the man being in the room to him being outside and reflecting on what had gone on in the room that night, “my last frantic effort to keep my footing, and then I remember no more. I opened my eyes in daylight. My head was roughly bandaged, and the man with the withered arm was watching my face. I looked about me, trying to remember what had happened, and for a space I could not recollect.” Leaving the readers doing the same thing.
The setting of the Tell-Tale Heart is of a common nature in gothic stories, the whole fact that it takes place at midnight, the witching hour, which is very relevant in that it would be dark and quiet. Also it is set in an inner city area, in an old building, which is also quite common in gothic stories as it adds the feeling of old age and decay, and when it talks about the street lights light coming in through the window, it adds an element of eeriness to the feel of the story.
Quite similar is the setting of the Red Room, which isn’t set in a city, but is set in an old castle this time. Castles were used a lot in gothic writing an would have had ambience of mystery and paranormal activity linked with them by the readers. The use of a castle also adds to the effect of the setting by the things that can be found in a castle, such as large garish sconces hanging from the wall, which can be mistaken for many things, long dark passageways which add a theme of unending and unrelenting about the castle and furthermore there would be many dark twisted staircases, which would again add to the whole mysterious ambience of the castle. The next things to add to the setting in the Red Room is the old people which were found just sitting all in one room as if time and society had forgotten them, these people have been added to create a feeling of decaying and rotting within the castle, especially the man with the withered arm, because like madness, deformities were not really understood or accepted in society, rather like the castle and the red room itself.
The style that the Tell Tale Heart is written in is very distinctive. It starts with very short sentences, making the pace of the story very quick, “I heard all things in the heaven and the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad?”, you can tell the lack of emotion in the mans voice, especially seeing that he has just killed a man, it is almost as if he is amoral, he doesn’t even know that he has done anything wrong. He seems to be very confident in himself, very proud about what he has done. The use of staccato rhythm adds to theme of madness, he says he isn’t mad but he says it like he is. There is a wide range of punctuation used such as dashes, semi colons and exclamation marks. this adds to the feeling of pace and building tension as the story progresses. The man seems to be proud of what he has done, this again enforces the idea of madness and insanity. The use of lots of exclamation marks builds up the tension as he tells us the story of what had happened. He uses a lot of repetition, making sure that we know what he is talking about and trying to get us onto his side for the reasoning of the killing of the old man.. The use of reverse syntax, “Open wide, wide open,” adds again to the theme of madness, he s really trying to make us understand his reasoning for what he has done and is trying to hammer it in to us, and this is a very effective way of doing it.
The style of the Red Room is also very similar, it is highly descriptive, particularly of the setting. The writing has taken the description of the castle and of the old people into great depth. He talks about the state of the people sitting in the room, how they seem to be rotting away with the house itself, he talks highly descriptively about the man with the withered arm as if saying that that is what the house does to you, this all is emphasised by the old people repeating the same things over and over again, such as “Not tonight of all nights,” and “It is your own choosing.” At the beginning the voice of the narrator seems to be very relaxed, using long sentences and little punctuation, but as he journeys deeper into the house itself and eventually into the Red Room, he starts to become more anxious and increasingly afraid, which is similar to the Tell-Tale Heart when the man starts to hear the old man’s heart, however it is also different to the Tell-Tale Heart in that this is the first climax in the story whereby in the Tell-Tale Heart there are two climaxes.
The atmosphere in the Tell-Tale Heart is dramatically increased, firstly by the description of the setting, the great depth used by the writer to describe the room where the old man was, the rest of the house and the surrounding city area with the light of the street lamps braking in through the window. And, secondly by the descriptions of the people involved, firstly by the description of the narrator and of his madness, he introduces madness very early on in the story and emphasises his point just by the way he talks, he seems to have no real reason for killing the old man except for his pure hatred of his eye, his “vulture like eye,” as he calls it. The eye is another thing that is described very deeply in the story, as this is the main focal point of the narrators desire to kill the old man.
In the Red Room the highly descriptive passage about the old people, the mood of the old people, the room the old people are in and the décor and furniture in that room, are the main things in which atmosphere is built up. However the things the old people say are also very intriguing, their constant mentioning of “not tonight of all nights,” and “it is your own choosing,” are excellent examples of the fear that the red room instils in the old people, and the repeated reference to fear, darkness and shadows all have a cumulative effect on the atmosphere of the story.
There many occasions within the Tell-Tale Heart in which language imagery plays a huge part in enthralling the reader. The use of emotive language is imperative in the beginning of the story beginning, it lets the reader know that this man obviously doesn’t think he has done anything wrong. The fact that the man goes back seven nights in a row, opening the door a little wider each night, shows that the murder was pre-meditated and calculated, this builds the tension as the reader wants to find out what the man actually does in the end. The boastful and proud tone to his voice when he is talking about how he killed the man would shock the readers and still increase the theme of madness. The fact that the writer uses capital letters for the “Evil Eye,” adds a powerful tone to the story and in a round about way does actually make the reader question whether or not the narrator has a good enough reason to kill the old man. The personification of death as a person adds a frightening feeling to the story and makes it more interesting to the reader. The metaphor of the eye as a vulture’s eye, makes the eye itself seem more evil and penetrating than was first thought. There are many similes used to add to the sense of madness and of psychosis. The metaphor of bringing outsides hellish evil into the room adds to the sense of overall evil within the story. There is quite a bit of interaction with the reader, the narrator always seems as though he is talking straight at the reader, once again increasing the theme of madness. Repetition of the phrase “the noise steadily increased,” adds to the build up of tension in the story. And anaphora is used in “anything………anything,” this again builds up the tension and the theme of madness.
The language imagery in the Red Room again plays a big part in the expansion of the story, the use of the colour red adds an immediate feel of devilry and evil, as these things were often connected. The long description of the mans journey through the old castle adds to the tension, by prolonging the feeling of fear. The use of sayings such as “long, chilly, echoing passageway,” adds a sensuous description, making the reader feel like they are actually there. The use of sibilance, “The moonlight picked out everything in vivid black shadow or silvery illumination,” this tells us that the moonlight is helping him see, but is also scaring him, which makes it seem even scarier and creepier. Personification is used of the shadows, “Shadows, cower and quiver,” making them seem a whole lot more real to the reader, and again the same thing is used for a bronze group, “A bronze group…gave me the impression of someone crouching to waylay me,” this has the same effect as last time. A metaphor is used in, “the pallid silence of the landing,” and synesthesia is used to make the moon seem unnatural.
The authors of the Tell-Tale Heart and the Red Room have both used a wide range of effective techniques to create an atmosphere of fear and tension, they have used many similar techniques, all associated with the gothic genre, and they were all very effective in the way they used them.
