Pre 1914 Short Stories

Pre 1914 Short Stories

Short stories were very popular in those times because they were

published in magazines for house wives to read because they had

nothing else to do other then clean the house while their husbands

were working. Also the husbands would read them when they got home. In

ghost stories the typical setting is usually a dark place or somewhere

in the middle of nowhere.

‘The Red Room’, by H.G Wells is a classic gothic horror story set in

the nineteenth century. Wells conveys the experience of fear in ‘The

Red Room’ in many ways. The narrator first starts off by making a bold

statement in which he mentions that ‘it would take a very tangible

ghost’ to scare him. Since he knows that ghosts are thought to be

invisible, he mentions tangible instead. Notice he says tangible. It

could mean that a ghost wouldn’t scare him, as ghosts (according to

others) aren’t tangible. Furthermore he shows his fearlessness by

describing the old people in a ghostly way and yet he himself is not

showing any fear at this stage. Wells also uses clever manipulation,

for he manipulates the reader into thinking that fear is not present

at all, which is not the case, because that aspect of fear is around

him with the old people. So by him showing such a contrast in the

fearless character of the narrator, and the fearful environment or

people, he makes the narrator stand out and be thought of as very

gallant indeed.

There is an unusual and sudden increase in the build-up of fear as the

old lady mentions something about so much to be seen in the castle and

sorrow for what has been seen by the naked eye. Maybe the old woman

means sorrow for the young duke who had to die. She might have also

meant that so many people have tried to come out of ‘the red room’

alive and abolish the myth of the room being haunted, but much sorrow

is felt each time when they don’t make it out alive.

A sense of suspicion is built-up by the old folks in the castle, for

the boy suspects them of enhancing the ‘spiritual terrors’ of the

house by using their repetitive insistence. The narrator’s character

at the beginning is one of a more bold nature, for, he mentions that

if he is to see a ghost then he will become wiser for he would know

what lays behind the door. Here you can notice that the narrator takes

a much more tranquil approach to the situation, when he mentions as