It later seems that the narrator experiences slight fear as he moves the candle side to side to see the nature of the door as though he was taking great caution in what he was doing. The narrator then experiences fear in the remembrance of the young duke’s tumbling death. He also mentions that his predecessor was found, maybe that’s why he was so eager to find out what exactly happened on the night of the duke’s death. As he opened the door of the red room, he hastily kept an eye on the ‘pallid’ and silenced landing where the duke was found dead. Again the narrator experiences fear as he cautiously kept an eye on the landing and the other on the door of the red room. The narrator may also be trying to satisfy his conscious by thinking that there is nothing there. He only felt fear because he thought there maybe a possibility of great danger. So, in fact, he defeats his fear here, but later on his fear defeats him. Here, Wells uses short sentences to get the reader into a tense mood so that he waits for something drastic to occur. He remains vigilant when entering the room, for he locks the door, which could also mean that he’s awaiting a threat from a tangible person not a ghost. He’s also very cautious as he surveys the room and holds the candle ‘aloft’, maybe to look for any ghosts flying above him. Well’s further describes how the young duke tumbled down the stairs to have death awaiting him at the landing. He mentions that this was the scene of his concern or awareness. Further more, H.G. Wells builds up a sense of fear as he describes the ghostly traditions of this red room. And how people died of no apparent reason, again cutting the sentences short to make them more lively and interesting.
The way HG Wells describes the light and the darkness in contrast and how the light seems like a small island in and ocean of sea really creates that atmosphere and makes the reader yearn for more. It is also quite interesting how he describes the room as germinating darkness. Again, to put himself at rest he examines the room, checking the chimneys and tucking the valences of the bed. So here he feels fearful of what is going to happen and reassures himself by ensuring that everything is in order. He also walks around the room and checks for any bodies behind the furniture. He also dealt with the fear by lighting candles, so much so that the entire room was filled with light. He also took the precaution of barricading the door to stop any intruders from entering. Again, he shows the total opposite of his brash character at the beginning of the story and places a revolver out ‘ready to hand’. The narrator now experiences fear by his echoing sound and the crackling of the fire. At first the narrator was fearful of the noises he heard but later describes how he was feeling fear from the silence and solitude overcome by the room.
It seems that the narrator deals with fear by satisfying himself – for again he walks with a candle into one corner of the room because he feared something tangible lurking in the darkness. The narrator seems to start feeling tense for a reason described as being non-apparent. He assumes that nothing super natural was going to happen, but later was wronged by those very words. Although he knows that he experiences fear he tries to defeat or deal with it by beginning to “string some together” and talking loudly to himself trying to convince himself that ghosts don’t exist. He then tries to think about the old “distorted” people downstairs to try and overcome fear. But this doesn’t avail and he goes to get more candles and so illuminates the whole room. Again, he tries passing time by pinching the candles so that they go out. Here the narrator starts experiencing fear in totally different way. His fear is more of the darkness, not the house, not the “pallid silence of the landing”.
Then in the next paragraph his fear is now from the unexpected. The first candle goes out in one of the corners unexpectedly. Here, HG well makes a complete personification of the shadows as though they were moving. The shadows were being described in this way to make them seem real and maybe, alive. Here, fear which is experienced because of darkness stars to defeat him. He then spoke-out aloud to bring the room’s taunting silence to an end.
He uses all reasoning available to find out why the candles were going out and thinks that it’s the draught. He walks across the room in a buoyant manner which implies that he is trying to deal or defeat fear in a form of darkness, for if he were to walk frantically across the room then fear would have defeated him which only takes place later in the story. As another two candles extinguished he stood up promptly and said ‘Odd! Did I do that myself’. In order to defeat the darkness he boldly steps back and relights the candles. He then finds that the candles start extinguishing simultaneously. The aspect of fear starts building up in him as it comes to be of his knowledge that clearly the wick of the extinguished candle wasn’t glowing nor was it giving off smoke as it was ought to be doing. When he mentions that ‘there was no mistake about’ this, he maybe at last hinting out that something supernatural is definitely taking place. The story intensifies as H.G. Wells yet again personifies the shadows as taking another ‘step towards’ him. And yet again he tries to defeat fear now in the form of silence by speaking to himself in a loud manner as though he’s trying to break free of something. He becomes rather persistent in talking aloud as again he cries out saying ‘what’s up?’ But to whom is he asking. Maybe its here that the narrator is being defeated by fear as H.G. Wells hints out that he may even be trying to talk to someone or something. This something could even be fear it self. His hands even start to tremble as he finds even more candles going out and the room becoming even darker. Here, again the narrator experiences fear or he shows his fear as Wells describes how he stood there in all vainness and haste as thought waiting for something to take place. H.G. Wells describes another two candles going out as though an ‘invincible hand’ had swept them out again with no trace of what actually put them out. He frantically runs across the room trying to relight the candles. He then admits to the fact that there was fear present in the room as he mentions the shadows and how he feared them. Wells then further described how he fought fear and how it persistently dominated. Wells uses short sentences to show the presence of fear where he mentions the shadows taking ‘a step closer’ and as though trapping him in a cage of darkness.
Wells further describes how the candles were put out as though a ‘storm cloud’ was ‘sweeping out the stars’. This comparison of candles and the stars enables the reader to clearly imagine how sudden and spontaneously everything took place. Wells describes how frantically he ran around the room re-lighting the candles horrific but vain battle against fear itself, which is described as a ‘remorseless advance’. He staggered to the ground in a remorseless struggle to defeat the darkness. Wells then describes how only a red light coming from the room was able to fend off (quote: ‘staved off’) the shadows advance. This red light that he was experiencing could even be why this story was called ‘The Red Room’. His last attempt to conquer fear was to try and relight the glowing coal in the fireplace. He failed and the darkness wrapped around him ‘in a stifling embrace’. The darkness ‘sealed’ his vision and froze his last attempt to reason with his brain. He then flings out his arms to push back the shadows as though they were ALIVE in another vain attempt to deal with fear. But non-did avail. He tried running. But kept barging into bulky furniture. He tried to remember the exact positioning of the door but darkness surrounded him and he fell to the ground after which he could not ‘remember no more’.
As he awakens he finds blood on his lips and forehead and also finds all the old disturbed people looking down at him. He was asked if he now believes that the Red Room is haunted. Everything changes, his attitude toward the whole matter is now of a positive one. He replies, ‘Yes, the room is haunted’. So at first his conscious at the beginning of the story told him that none of this rubbish ever existed, and he comes out of the Red Room finally admitting to what he had witnessed. It was thought that the ghosts of the earl and countess were haunting the room, but they were mistaken, for he described that it was the shear nakedness of fear in its darkest form with brought about this myth. Wells says that it followed him through the corridor and fought against it in the room. He describes this fear as not having light nor sound, fear that is beyond reasoning. He then abruptly stopped speaking as he lifts his hands up to his head in pain. Then, finally, the old man speaks out with fear and describes how the darkness lurks behind the curtains, creeps along the corridor at dusk right behind you, ‘so that you dare not turn’. Wells uses a mixture of short and abrupt sentences and the personification of the shadows, which plays a big role, all in an exciting attempt to convey the experience of fear in the Red Room. Wells leaves a nail-biting ending as the old man states that it is, fear, ‘black fear’ which haunts that room and will remain ‘so long as the house of sin endures’.
By Abbas Dhami
