How H.G. Wells Makes The Red Room Succeed as a Ghost Story

How H.G. Wells Makes The Red Room Succeed as a Ghost Story

The key to any ghost story is to build up tension and drop it slightly

before lifting it back up to keep the reader interested. As he keeps

doing this the reader becomes more curious to know how the book turns

out and the ending usually jumps out as a surprise as the reader does

really think the story through as they get so involved. The writer

also has to make he reader feel the surroundings that are described in

the book to get them involved and really into the story. The name of

the story already starts getting you involved with questions going

through your head asking what is so important about this room and why

is it red. Red is also associated as a negative colour giving it

effect rather than calling it say the blue room which sounds strange

but makes you picture it in a much more positive way.

The first line "I can assure you,' said I, 'that it will take a very

tangible ghost to frighten me" which tells you that it is a ghost

story and unlike longer stories there is no long intro and instead the

writer has got straight to the point. There are four characters in the

beginning which are the young man, the old and his wife and another

old man. The two old men and the old woman are all afraid of going

into the red room and warn the young man not to go there but curiosity

overpowers the young man and he wants to go inside.

The old man says "It's your own choosing" warning the man but also

putting pressure on him so that anything that happens to him is his

own fault. He then repeats it and says "Why don't you drink" offering

him a way out of it and to just let him sit down and drink beer

without having to admit he had backed away from the red room. When the

young man says he is going to the red room the old woman cries out