The Techniques Used by Wells in The Red Room to Create a Feeling of Suspense and Terror
The Techniques Used by Wells in The Red Room to Create a Feeling of Suspense and Terror The title "The Red Room" immediately makes the reader think about the story; it is important and leaves unanswered questions. "What is the red room?" "Why is it red?" Red is associated with fear and danger. The title raises so many questions that it has the effect of making us read on, wanting to find answers to our questions. The writer has to attract the reader keep their attention throughout. In order for any story to work, tension has to be built in the text, to keep the reader asking themselves questions and wanting to read on. The reader will be able to have a strong influence from the writer's first and last lines. It is essential that they are well thought out. This is the first line: "I can assure you, said I, 'that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me'." From this first line, the reader gets two pieces of information. Firstly that this story involves a ghost, or some involvement of the supernatural, and secondly that the character is an educated and well-read man, who may also be young and arrogant. This point increases the tension and stops the reader from putting the book down. Also, as it is a short story it is immediately setting the tone for the rest of the story. In the first page we are introduced to four characters. A young man,old man and his wife, and another old man. We never know their names. The young man is sceptical about the red room being haunted. The three elder people believe that it is haunted and dare not even go there. This is the perfect example of how opposites build tension. Firstly, we have the young against the old, which also symbolizes the inexperienced against the wise. There is also the conflict between 'sceptics' and the 'wise'. Although they may be wise, the older people have not ever dared to go to the red room. They have become wise as they have heard the stories about the room but none of them has ever had first hand experience of the room. This is the first example of what the old people are afraid of, the unknown. . Repetition is also a device used by Wells to build tension. One of the most obvious examples is on the first page. "It's your own choosing." The old man is
trying to warn the young man, or even scare him, but at the same time he is leaving the 'choice' to him. It is as if the three old people are washing their hands of the responsibility of the young man. They feel it is their duty, like guardians, to warn the man of what they believe may be his death. Another use of repetition is slightly later on, when the old woman repeats, "this night of all nights." We never find out why that night is important but it gives the reader a more unanswered questions and doubts in ...
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trying to warn the young man, or even scare him, but at the same time he is leaving the 'choice' to him. It is as if the three old people are washing their hands of the responsibility of the young man. They feel it is their duty, like guardians, to warn the man of what they believe may be his death. Another use of repetition is slightly later on, when the old woman repeats, "this night of all nights." We never find out why that night is important but it gives the reader a more unanswered questions and doubts in their minds. Although we are going to find out when we read on. We want to have answers and this continues our interest. . The location is critical to the short story. The writer needs to give his story a carefully considered and appropriate backdrop, and since this is a gothic novel a typical gothic setting is needed, in the form of an old castle with long passages and subterranean levels. A short story, work through it's location, characters, and setting in time and language. These are the guidelines that tie it together and make the story complete. In this story, the location is very important. The story is set in a castle. A gothic story in a castle is not a new idea and although it is a rather typical location, it is perfect to create the desired effect. The old people who inhabit the castle also add to the effect of the typical gothic novel. They cannot use most of it to live in because they are afraid of the 'red room'. This keeps them well away from that section of the castle, and leaves more possibilities and more unknown facts. A castle is such an appropriate location and here, the unknown is far more frightening than what is known. A castle is a perfect example of the unknown. It is full of rooms, corridors, passages and stairs. As the story continues, the young man explores the castle on his journey to the red room. En route to the red room, he comes across what looks like a figure in front of him only to find it was an ornament of a Chinaman on a buhl table, it is detail like this that allows the reader to create vivid images and form their own ideas of Lorraine Castle. Then as he approaches the door to the red room, the tension builds and he enters very quickly closing the door behind him. He finds himself in a huge red walled room. As he continues to arrange the room, the tension is allowed to fall giving the reader a certain release. As he becomes more aware of the shadows in the room the tension rises again: "The shadow in the alcove at the end in particular had that indefinable quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking, living thing, that comes so easily in silence and solitude." Again, this shows us how darkness is far more frightening than being able to see and knowing what is there. Tension is built by how the young man expresses his feelings. To conquer his fear of the unknown the man places a candle in an alcove in the corner of the room: "At last, to reassure myself, I walked with a candle into it, and satisfied myself that there was nothing tangible there. I stood that candle upon the floor of the alcove, and left it in that position." Here he is referring to the opening line about having to find a very tangible ghost. Tension mounts as he begins talking to himself, but after listening to the eerie echoes, he gets more frightened than before. The tension is increasing all the time. He is getting more nervous and he feels the need for more candles. He has to get some from the corridor and he lights them and places them around the room. His spirits lift but there is also tension created through his black humour. He may be watching what he describes as "cheery and reassuring little streaming flames", but he is getting nervous and he jokes about how he should warn any ghost about tripping over a candle on the floor. Wells constantly shows that the man is still trying to be rational and keep thinking scientifically and logically. This shows that the man is cocky and believes still that he is right, and that the idea of ghosts is irrational. The next passage is when Wells increases the tension, the first candle goes out, casting a black shadow on the wall, the second candle goes out and the tension in the story is boosted once again as there is an uncertainty about what is causing the candles to go out. Although the man does not feel any draft, he claims that it was a draft that blew it out. He tries to reassure himself by lying to himself although he has a deeper feeling that he may not be alone. He has to dismiss this from his mind otherwise he would become the victim of his own fears, and he could become like the old people. As he goes to re-light the candle, it goes out, then another and another. Then one is extinguished in front of him while he is looking at it. "Shadows seemed to take another step towards me" The light symbolizes the truth. Without light, there is no truth. If the light goes out he has no way of finding out what is in the red room. The darkness creates the tension and fear, again of what may be, it is the possibilities of what might be that scare the young man. In light, we can see but when it is dark we cannot see and therefore tension and fear is everywhere. When the man says that the shadows take another step towards him, he is saying that fiction and is closing in on him and as it does, he is been drawn away from the truth, the unknown is again what scares him, as it has been throughout the story. In the story, the man has a revolver. This symbolizes violence, which leads to conflict, and this again builds tension. Fire symbolizes warmth and wards off evil. The old people symbolise the fear inside him and how he would not like to end his life, like them. However, ironically, at the end, he does become like them, talking like them, in their style about what had happened. Panic comes as the room plunges into shadows and darkness with him hurrying, franticly attempting to keep the candles alight, and stop the room from being plunged into darkness. Approaching the climax, the suspense and tension is further heightened, as the sentences become shorter and the use of punctuation is increased. Clumsily he knocks his thigh against the table. His downfall begins now. From here on he loses control. He loses his quest for the truth as he tries to light the fire with the last candle, he has descended into panic and chaos, which I feel is ironic as at the beginning of the story he is very rational and arrogant when he is telling the old people about how the ghost that would scare him would have to be a "very tangible ghost". He runs into something and knocks himself out. For me this is the true climax, as he has proved he is human and susceptible to human fears just like the old people, and people that have visited the room before him. He became frantic, as the fear of the unknown took hold of him and it took him to be knocked and has to be rescued at dawn by the old people. Then there is a gap in time, tension starts to unwind slowly. He wakes up the next morning after being rescued at dawn by the old people. He personifies fear with the red room. He has had a fight with his fear and in the end his fear wins. For me, the red room symbolizes one's own fear. Nothing is actually in the room except what is believed to be there. The only way that the room is haunted is by people's imagination and fear of the unknown, there is no supernatural influence or ghost. One of the most effective techniques used by Wells throughout 'The Red Room' is his use of graphic and detailed description, the short passage below is just one example of this, "He supported himself by a single crutch, his eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth." I feel that by using such vivid and detailed descriptions Wells is able to convey how these people look, more than techniques used by other writers I have seen. Also it allows him to create more terror and suspense as his extra detail creates clearer pictures. What the old people fear in the story is the unknown and the possibilities of what may be in 'the red room' and generally what they have manifested in the great amounts of time they have. Any passage relating to the unknown could build suspense and terror. Language plays an important part and changes with characters. The old people have an old English vocabulary, whereas the young man is given a very upper class, stylish and from at times arrogant vocabulary. The fact that the old people have and older vocabulary allows the reader to think that they have got something to do with the room supposedly being haunted and again heightens the suspense. Around the main focus of the story, the language relating to the young man's experience is described in very short sentences with a lot of punctuation. The first time I read this, I did not feel that it held my attention, but now that I have read it again another few times, I can see that Wells has used some great techniques to capture the readers attention, to create suspense and terror, I feel that by holding the readers attention for longer her can therefore build suspense and scare the reader. I found myself reading on quite eagerly. I feel that this was due to the literary techniques, to terrorise readers and his ability to lengthen suspense.
