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A Comparison of The Red Room and The Signalman Essay

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A Comparison Between The Red Room and The Signalman

These two stories, though different, have in common their writers intentions which is to keep the reader in suspense. We can see this in many places in the stories, and an example of this relates to the settings and surroundings throughout. The Victorians were very interested in Gothic Literature and this is shown especially in the
‘Red Room’, where Wells borrowed applications such as ghosts, castles and supernatural beings.

Furthermore we can see that the settings have been adapted and chosen to suit the character of the story. In ‘The Signalman’ for example, we can see a mixture of modern and supernatural settings, these reflect the location, mainly being a deep, steep …show more content…

The narrators in both stories give very detailed descriptions of the main characters; this was effective as it kept high levels of suspense throughout each story. The rest of the characters in the stories, as in ‘The Red Room’ were gradually introduced, with pieces of information about them being slowly introduced. The suspense in each story was gradually built up, and maintained throughout. Examples of this can be seen in ‘The Signalman’ especially in the first part of the story where the narrator leaves the reader on a cliff-hanger; ‘hallo! below there’. This type of suspense is also in
‘The Red Room’, except with different levels, as the suspense is gradually added. This gives a slow climbing build to a huge climax. To build on the general suspense, the writer added repetitive words throughout, which is affective as it keeps reminding the reader of previous events in the story. This gradually built the tension, and this keeps the reader alert and interested throughout the story.
Furthermore the narrators use irony especially the narrator in ‘The
Signalman’, as he used irony to fear the main character by using a ghost. We can concur that both endings in the stories were satisfactory, as they both had a good ‘summing up’ last paragraph that kept the reader interested right through to the end. As for twists in

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