The Red Room borrows certain elements of the gothic genre, which was very popular at the time. Elements such as grotesque characters (‘more bent, more wrinkled’), stereotypical settings (queer old mirror), and previous deaths and curses (‘this night of all nights’). Wells also uses imagery and sound to create tension and suspense when the narrator says ‘I walked down the chilly, echoing passage’
To create mystery Wells makes the reader ask themselves questions. For example ‘thoughts of vanished men’ adds mystery by forcing the reader ask themselves ‘Who are these men and why are they ‘vanished’?
Personification is another technique used by H.G Wells to create suspense and doom when he describes the shadows as cowering and quivering. This suggests that there is a presence in the room.
The Signalman’s setting is a very solitary and lonesome post and is described by the narrator ‘as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw’, ‘jagged stone’ and ‘all view but a strip of sky’. This shows how Dickens wanted the ‘cutting’ to look gloomy and full of doom. It is also described as a ‘dungeon’ which suggests the signalman is imprisoned.
H.G Wells and Charles Dickens both use a logical, sceptical character to explain the scientific reason for the apparent supernatural events. For example the narrator in ‘The Red Room’ claims ‘it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me’ and the Gentleman in ‘The Signalman says ‘deceptions of his sense and sight’
The three old people in ‘The Red Room’ make an awkward atmosphere for the narrator and are described as having inhuman qualities. The narrator makes clear he does not believe in the supernatural but contradicts himself when he takes a gun into the Red Room.
The Gentleman in ‘The Signalman’ is portrayed as very educated and knowledgeable which is weird as he works in a job that does not require a lot of intelligence
We know this as he shares with the Signalman his scientific views on the supernatural. The Signalman himself is said to be ‘extremely exact and vigilant’ but also says he is ‘troubled’. The Gentleman describes the Signalman as pale which suggests he is ‘ghost-like’.
In both stories the beginnings are very similar with both starting with dialogue to involve the reader. The tension and suspense in ‘The Red Room’ increases as the story goes in climaxing at the end in The Room a complete contrast with ‘The Signalman’ where the tension and suspense levels go up and down throughout the story. The tension is built up at dark times and drops when light-this goes back to the gothic genre.
The start of ‘The Red Room’ (‘it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me’) introduces the supernatural element and creates a conflict between the narrator and the three old people.
‘The Signalman’s’ beginning starts off with the key dialogue of ‘Halloa! Below there!’ which is key to the plot of the story. The strange behaviour of the Signalman creates a sense of mystery around his character when he turns the other way when the gentleman shouts down to him-‘instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting…he turned himself about and looked down the line.’
The endings of both stories have an unpredictable twist. ‘The Red Room’ builds up so much tension that the reader believes that there is a ghost in the Room and then the narrator tells the three old people that it was fear and not a supernatural presence. Similarly in ‘The Signalman’ even the logical and rational narrator starts to believe in the spectre when the Signalman is killed he says it is a coincidence.
‘The Signalman’ uses the ‘visions’ of the Signalman to create doom, mystery and suspense by making the reader think about the possibility of the supernatural. The Red Room is deliberately far away which suggests it is isolated. The candles going out are a product of panic and imagination by the narrator.
H. G Wells created doom, mystery and suspense in 'The Red Room' in many ways. He raises the suspense level mainly through the personalities of the three old people, with language, description and their actions. The man with the withered arm increases the suspense level with his repetitions of the phrase 'it’s your own choosing’. It is a warning repeated three times, an effect used in 'The Signalman as well. The repetition of a phrase or an action three times is an element used by writers to increase mystery and suspense and suspense.
Charles Dickens created doom, mystery and suspense in ‘The Signalman’ by using the imaginative spectre to create tension. The Signalman’s character is very mysterious and can be likened to a ghost which adds suspense and doom as the reader will speculate the possibility of him and the narrator being a ghost. Dickens and Wells created a story that makes the reader ask themselves questions-an important aspect of a ghost story.
