Compare The Red Room by HG Wells and The Darkness under the Stairs by Lance Salway Essay Example For Students

Compare The Red Room by HG Wells and The Darkness under the Stairs by Lance Salway Essay The main purpose of any ghost story is to scare the reader. There are many techniques used to accomplish this in both The Darkness under the Stairs and The Red Room. In this essay I will compare the ways in which the two writers create suspense and focus on how they communicate fear. Their stories were not written in the same period and were therefore aimed at audiences with different ideas of what scares them. This makes many of the techniques the same but they are used in different ways to suit the audience. The main similarity between each story is that the plot involves a mysterious room that compels the main character to discover the rooms secrets. They both use tension before the character enters the room to keep the reader guessing what is going to be in the room and ultimately what will happen at the end of the story. This use of suspense is what makes both stories successful but it is accomplished through various techniques. The main difference between each story is the ending. In The Red Room the main character survives and in The Darkness under the Stairs the main character dies. The ending of any story is important but more so for a ghost story as it is what the whole story builds up to: a dramatic climax. In the Darkness under the Stairs Andrew, the main character, is the only person who knows about the rooms mystery therefore Salway makes it more frightening because Andrew is facing the problem alone. His reasons for entering the room are more understandable as he wishes to settle his peace of mind. Salway uses the repetition of the phrase he had to to help the reader understand Andrews reasoning. It is this feeling which is frequently repeated and it creates fear and suspense as the reader is waiting to discover what is in the room and why Andrew has this feeling of intrepidation. In The Red Room, the speaker is going into the room to prove a point and share the knowledge of the room with the people at the beginning. On the one hand, this makes it less frightening because he doesnt have the fear, as Andrew does, of going mad as if he is imagining it all. On the other hand, he does, face the room alone and so experiences the fear of the room by himself, which creates a sinister atmosphere. In The Darkness under the Stairs Salway uses the suspense, tension and a series of climaxes right up to the last paragraph. From the moment the story begins there is a tense atmosphere: As soon as he stepped into the hall, Andrew knew at once that something was wrong. He couldnt tell what it was By using as soon as and at once the story starts immediately with suspense as the reader wants to know why Andrew is feeling like this but has to wait until the last few lines to find out. This gives the whole story continuous tension. At the beginning of The Red Room, Wells uses a different technique. He begins the story with speech that allows the reader to predict the end of the story, it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me This makes the reader think that this character will almost definitely be scared by the end of the story. Wells doesnt describe what is happening in the story from the beginning, the situation is very unclear, I half suspected the old people were trying to enhance the spiritual terrors of their house This sentence is used very early on in the story when we dont know who the characters are, what the house is like or what terrors there are in it. This technique is used to make the reader read on to find out these things. It is a different technique to The Darkness under the Stairs but creates the same effect. Throughout The Darkness under the Stairs the feeling of unease in the hallway is repeated: icy blast of fear dark wave of dread and dark wave of panic These are all references to the fear that Andrew experiences when he is close to the cupboard, describing how he is nervous but he doesnt know what of or why he feels this way. This builds up towards the ending by focusing on the mystery of the cupboard, Andrew stood paralyzed with fright. Yet the hall looked harmless. Wells uses a similar technique in The Red Room as the speaker says, I was in a state of considerable nervous tension, although to my reason there was no adequate cause for the condition. This technique is used to intrigue the reader with the feeling of apprehension but not knowing why he feels it. It is human nature to fear things we dont know about or understand. Salway and Wells both concentrate on this aspect of fear throughout each of their stories. Both main characters are afraid of fear itself. Especially in The Red Room as it is the main theme of the story. It would take a very tangible Ghost to frighten me, seems to be the attitude of the speaker towards the room so it builds up excitement until he enters the room as it sets him up for the true ghost inside the room. There is no ghost in there at all; but something worse, far worse- Fear in that room of hers- black fear The source of the speakers fear is made more harrowing by the fact it is not tangible at all. We are all afraid of things we dont know or understand. In The Darkness under the Stairs this technique is used differently because at first Andrew is afraid of what he thinks is something tangiblesince it has a voice. However, eventually we discover he is afraid of a premonition of his own death and the fear of being trapped. All the way through the story the suspense continues. Andrew comes close to entering the cupboard on two occasions but is stopped, once by Mr. Sharman and a second time by Daniel Sharman. These series of anti-climaxes are used to set up the dramatic final climax at the end. Each time, when Andrew gets close to the cupboard, short sentences are used to increase the pace of the story such as Andrews train of thought and fast heart beat. Then Andrew heard it again. He heard someone crying. There was someone in the cupboard. and then the second time He had to find out. He had to help. He had to- This is the point where Andrew is interrupted as he is just about to open the cupboard. Explore how Harper Lee present the theme of Mockingbirds' in To Kill A Mockingbird? EssayAn old house is often used as a setting for a ghost story as there are many plots that can be developed from it. The Red Room follows this stereotype as it involves an old house that has a mysterious room. The Darkness under the Stairs also involves a house but there is no reference to it being old or threatening to any one but Andrew. This means that no one else can see there is anything wrong with the house accept Andrew and the reader. Through using mysterious settings both writers create an enigmatic beginning which ofcourse adds to the suspense of the story. Another stereotypical component of a ghost story is that they are usually set at night because it is considered scarier in the dark. The Red Room is set at night so it yet again follows another stereotype of a ghost story. Darkness creates mystery, a fear of the unknown, a sense of intrepidation. We cant see in the dark and people are afraid of what they dont know about. In the main fearful event of The Darkness under the Stairs, at the end, Andrew is trapped in the cupboard during the daytime when the Sharmens are preparing to go on holiday. This again isolates Andrew as every one else is having a normal day whilst Andrew is going to die alone in the darkness. Ghost stories are always better if they are original because it makes them more interesting to read. In my opinion, this is a point which Wells failed to take advantage of. However, he may be forgiven for this oversight because of the fact that The Red Room was written in the 19th Centuary therefore it appears to be less original to us than it would have done at the time it was written. The language used by each author also effects the suspense as the words chosen by the writers effect the whole story. Language chosen to describe the feelings of the main characters is what tells us what is going on in the story. In The Red Room the speaker says, My candle was a little tongue of light in its vastness, that failed to pierce the opposite end of the room, and left an ocean of mystery and suggestion beyond its island of light. These metaphors are used to describe the light of the candle and creates suspense by using so much detail because it gives the reader such a realistic feeling of the atmosphere. In The Darkness under the Stairs a similar technique is used but not in as much detail as The Red Room. Salway doesnt describe things as vividly as Wells does. He uses adjective rather than long metaphors and similies blind desperate panic and icy blast of fear Salway chooses to do this to make the story less complex and therefore easier to read and understand. Both stories also contain a lot of irony. This technique is used to drop in clues for the ending of the story. In The Red Room the most ironic line is it would take a very tangible ghost to scare me. This stsatement is obviously proved wrong by the fact that it isnt even a ghost that scares him in the end. In The Darkness under the Stairs, Wells says how Andrews luck was in when he discovers the door was unlocked. It is ironic because if the door had been locked he wouldnt have died. Irony is used in both stories to add to the suspense because there are statements that the reader somehow senses are going to be proved wrong. Both stories have a main character that experiences the main events that scare the reader but other characters also affect the atmosphere of each story and so affect the suspense. In The Red Room, Wells creates suspense by not introducing the characters at the beginning of the story. He describes the way they look but doesnt give names the man with the withered arm and the man with the shade This adds mystery to the characters and consequently the atmosphere increases in tension because we want to know more about these characters. In The Darkness under the Stairs, the characters are described as being normal. There is the Sharmen family who live next door and Andrews family. Both are described without mystery accept for Andrew, the main character and the main creator of the suspense. Also, Danny Sharmen is the son of the Sharmen family and is described as having eyes as cold as stone. Danny is a character used by Salway as a red herring; to keep the reader guessing and wondering if he will have any thing to do with the out come of the story and so again adds suspense. There are many factors in each story, which effect the suspense and tension. Both Wells and Salway use techniques to try and create the most effective level of excitement to suit their story and their audience. The Darkness under the Stairs seems more original because it is written in a time when many ghost stories and horror movies have been made so it has to be different from things done in the past in order to captivate the reader and it does this very well. The book is full of intriguing twists which the reader finds facinating. When The Red Room was written it wasnt as important to be non-stereotypical because society didnt have as much experience of horror as they do now. In fact some statements written in The Red Room seem cliched and slightly humorous to us today only because our ideas of what scares us haves been influenced by more dynamic forms of communication such as film and television. Understandably, times and social ideas have changed since The Red Room and so the techniques chosen by Wells dont have as great an impact on us as they would have had on a audience of his time. Both stories create emotion inside the reader and therefore have used suspense very successfully.