How important is the setting in the short stories you have read?

How important is the setting in the short stories you have read?

In this assignment I will analyse 5 short stories, which are all pre

1914. These are – ‘The man with the twisted lip’, by Sir Arthur Conan

Doyle, ‘The Red Room’, by H.G Wells, ‘The Signalman’, by Charles

Dickens, ‘A Terribly Strange Bed,’ by Wilkie Collins and ‘The Ostler’,

also by Wilkie Collins.

The stories all have an exterior location. For example, in the Red

Room, the corridors on the way to The Red Room. The language H.G Wells

uses, such as ‘haunted’, ‘darkness’ and ‘shadowy’ create a feeling of

tension and suspense. This is even before you have reached the main

setting. Compared to The Signalman, the way the settings are

portrayed, there is very little difference. Some of the words used by

Charles Dickens, such as ‘dark’, ‘gloomy red light’ and ‘cold’. Some

similarities are that they both talk about darkness and lack of light.

The interior settings play a significant part in most of the stories.

The man with the twisted lip, there is an opium den. This sets the

scene to a dark and gloomy setting, just as the authors did with the

exterior setting. The authors are always using dark and gloomy

symbolism. The opium den is described as ‘gloomy’, ‘dark’ and ‘black

shadows’. This gets you on the edge, and you want to read on. In

comparison to The Red Room which uses shock and surprise. Where it

says ‘the young duke had died’, it goes on to say, ‘headlong down the

steps’. This immediately shocks you because it is such a horrific

death. This therefore is a very important part of the setting. In

addition, when the candles start to go out, the character panics. The

writer uses phrases such as ‘suddenly went out’, ‘black shadow sprang

back to its place’ and ‘darkness was there.’ This excites the reader,

and you want to read on. Also the writer uses short, sharp sentences

to emphasise the panic and terror, which the character is feeling.

Also the sub characters help to portray the eeriness of the story. In

The Red Room, there is a man with a ‘withered arm’, and another with

‘decaying yellow teeth’. To the reader this is a very unpleasant and

sickening thought. The people who spread the myth of The Red Room help

to give out a horrific feeling to the story. In The man with the

twisted lip, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle describes the people in the opium

den as ‘bodies’, not as people. This shows that he does not see the