The Red Room :: English Literature

The Red Room I am writing an essay, based on the story ‘The Red Room’, and will try to explain what makes it such a good mystery story. Some of the main reasons for why it’s a great story include the vocabulary and words the author has used and the setting that the story is created in. The author uses gothic language, giving the story more suspense; he also sets the story in a haunted setting which builds up tension. The story was written by HG Wells, between the turn of the 20th century. HG Wells was an English author and a political philosopher; he was most famous for his science fiction romances. Wells gets across his ideas of the red room in many ways throughout the story. ‘The Red room’ belongs to the gothic genre. A gothic novel emphasises mystery and horror and it is filled with ghost haunted rooms, just as ‘The Red Room’ does. They also have underground passages, secret stair ways and so on. The genre builds up a mount of tension in the story where the description of the house gives the impression that it is old and abandoned. The old woman says, ‘eight and twenty years you have lived and never seen the likes of this house’. This illustrates that the house must be historic and it could also be decaying. The story of ‘The Red Room’ is written in first person, this suggests that the reader believes it’s from personal experience and knows what they’re feeling. At the beginning of the story, the main character (also the narrator) is open minded and sure of himself. He believes that there are no ghosts. He is very cynical, which is shown when he refuses to believe what the three old pensioners tell him. The anonymous character is referred to as `I’ as we don’t know how these pensioners know him or who he is. This leaves him with no identity, making readers think he’s mysterious. The character says ‘I can assure you said I, that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me.’ The author uses very expressive words in his writing and uses the adjective `tangible’; this means you can touch the ghost. You cannot touch ghosts genuinely and this is why the author uses this adjective, because the character believes ghosts are not real. The character feels unsure when the three old pensioners make him feel uncomfortable. He says `the three old pensioners made me feel uncomfortable.' This explains that the character is not made to feel at ease. It also brings out that the old pensioners are quite