Gothic Genre: The Red Room versus The Monkeys Paw Essay -- essays res

The Red Room was written in the late 19th century by H.G Wells. During this time the gothic genre was incredibly popular with every type of person as it was a great form of entertainment due to the fact they didn't have a television or a computer back then. The gothic genre started becoming most popular in 1837 and continuing untill 1901 during the Victorian period, they appeared in magazines as short,cliffhanger ending,eerie stories. The most famous examples of gothic stories are "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelly and "Dracula" by Bram Stoker which most people have heard of. The Red Room is a prime example of a gothic story. It shows typical characteristics that would be included in a story of the gothic genre. Even the title of the book "The Red Room" has a certain darkness about it. "The" makes it sound unique as though there is only one red room which sounds very different to saying "a" red room and by chosing to do this there is a sense of weirdness before the book has even been read. "Red" makes us think of blood, anger and evil. There is also alliteration in the title with the hard sounding "r" . The story starts off with a rainy, gloomy,candle light or fire light setting, very typical opening features of a story written in the gothic genre. H.G Wells describes a fire-lightened room and straight away ghosts and the supernatural are mentioned by the main character, this gets the reader involved straight away where it starts with speech. After this the reader meets the strange characters of the story - the old people.When the narrator meets the old people we see his arrogence towards them as he describes them in a sense that he is actually mocking them and their suspicions to do with the red room. When infact the old people... ...ey have a mind of their own and they are out to get the narrator. The ending of the story tells the reader that there was nothing in the red room, all that time the reader was convinced that there was some sort of ghost or spirit present at the time so because you find this out the tension level goes down. The tension also increases as the old man describes how fear is what he discovered in the red room describing it as "a power of darkness". This spooks the reader. H.G Wells, the author of "The Red Room" has used certain writing techniques in order to create and build up tension in his story. Techniques such as imagery, alliteration, repitition, choice of language and punctuation in order to create a tension build up or decrease. I think the story is a typical one of the gothic genre as it explores each idea of being trapped , darkness and fear very well.