Analyzing the Ways in which tension is built up in the Red room

Red room is a great horror story by HG Wells which his lots of techniques to create tension. Before the extract, the story stars from the middle of something which creates the tension. It is about a man who goes in to the red room even though old people advised him not to. The extract starts from the bit where odd things happen up to where he is so terrified about the room just before he faints.

Firstly, I am going to discuss about two of the techniques (written in 1st person & the punctuation) and how this creates the tension. HG Wells chose to write it in 1st person; for example ‘I did not see the candle go out; I simply turned and saw that the darkness was there, as one might start and see the unexpected presence of a stranger.’ From this quotation, it shows that by using 1st person, it creates more tension because it makes the reader feel that they are there, feeling the fright ness with the narrator. It gives lively experience.

It also demonstrates how desperate the narrator is and how scared he is. HG Wells also used variety of odd and good technique of a punctuations “Odd!” this quotations implies that by using exclamation mark, it builds up tense showing that he is scared and shows that he is crying out loud. It also that he is like children who cannot protect himself form other harmful things.

Secondly I am going to explain about other technique which is the length of the sentences. In this extract there are variable lengths of the sentences. By using long sentences it uses lots of adjectives and uses descriptive techniques, it gives us a clear images for example ‘I turned my head involuntarily and saw that the two candles on the little table by the fireplace were extinguished’ This quotations shows that the writer is trying to emphasis to the reader, the picture of the room. In additions, HG Wells also used lots of Short sentences, ‘It was like a ragged storm-cloud weeping out of the stars.’ From this quotation, you can notice that the sentence is short therefore it is snappy and gives the shocks to the readers.

Thirdly, I am going to discuss about HG Wells used direct speech to create tension. There are lots of direct speeches HG Wells has used in this extract. The followings are few examples. ‘”Did I do that myself in a flash of absent-mindedness?”‘, ‘”This won’t do!”‘, ‘”Steady on!”‘, “What’s up?”‘. There lots more but I will only see one specific direct speech ‘”What’s Up?”‘ By speaking in direct speech, it seems like he is speaking to the reader and it gives an impact of a situations. HG Wells used this technique also as a rhetorical question, which doesn’t read the answer. HG Wells used this to make the readers feel that the narrator is speaking to them but as it is too obvious, they don’t need an answer.

In Addition, I want to explain about various adjectives and sibilance. HG Wells have used lots of different adjectives to create tension. Black shadow is one of the examples of the HG Well’s Adjectives. Colour black represent evil spirit, by using word black shadow, it gives terrifying feelings. Also by using word ‘shadow’ it gives the reader feel that someone is behind the narrator and feel fear same time as narrator. HG Wells also used lots of sibilance like ‘…and as I succeeded with the second, something seemed to blink on the wall before me…’ By using lots of ‘s’ words (in other word sibilance), it gives lots of ‘s’ sounds. It gives the reader an echoing sound.

Furthermore, I want to discuss about narrator’s feeling from this extract. At the beginning of the extract, you can see that narrator is not taking much of the weird things happening in the room. We can see it from ‘”odd!” I said. “Did I do that myself in a flash of absent-mindedness?”‘ but by the end of the extract, we can see that he is struggling to get out of the room. ‘With a cry of terror, I dashed at the alcove’ this shows how terrified he was.

To conclude my points, HG Wells have used lots of techniques like sibilance, short sentences, lots of variable adjectives etc. which created tension in the story. It is one of the good horror stories which create lots of tension but, towards end of the story, it is quite pity that it finished as nothing scary thing has happened in the room.

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