The Red Room Essay Example for Free

The Red Room Essay The story ‘The Red Room’ is written by H. G. Wells in 1896. The story is written in first person narrative the narrator is the 28 year old male who is very arrogant and boastful about never seeing a ghost. The story is being told by the main male character. The Red Room is based in a suspected haunted house called Lorraine Castle. The character is in Lorraine castle because he has been told it is haunted so is there to investigate if there are actually ghosts in the castle as he has been told there is. During the story the only thing that haunts him is his own fear and imagination. The man says â€Å"in all its nakedness fear that will not have light nor sound, that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms† this is saying that he wasn’t scared by anything but the fear of being haunted by something. After his experiences in the red room he concludes that the castle is not haunted by the ghost of earl nor the ghost of countess. The other characters in the story are the old people, this includes an old woman and two old men. The old woman is a very wise woman who lives in the house she has very pale eyes wide open which see gaze into the fire, she chooses the ignore the second old mans comments. The first old man has a withered arm and is wrinkled in the face, he dislikes the second old man as well. Then there is the last of the old people, the second old man. He walks with a crutch and is very wrinkled and old, the description we get of this old man in the story is â€Å"He supported himself by a single crutch, his eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth†. He also has a nasty cough. The old people talk to the man like they have experience seeing the ghosts themselves repeating â€Å"its your own choosing† meaning whatever happens to him in the red room will be a consequence of his actions in that room. Although the old woman is a very wise woman she says â€Å"this night of all nights! † maybe she is referring to an event happening that same night years ago like the death of the countess after her husband played a joke on her â€Å"the tale of a timid wife and the tragic end that came to her husband‘s jest of frightening herâ€Å". The man says ‘I half suspected the old people were trying to enhance the spiritual terror of their house by their droning insistence’. here he is referring to how the old people make him feel, he also suspects the old people of making more of the ghosts. Lorraine castle is a very big dark place with shadows overlooking every move you make. One of the old men gives the young man a list of directions to get to the red room this is showing that the castle is big. The rooms are big and decorated with â€Å"deep-toned, old fashioned† furniture, the young man suspects a statue of a Ganymede and an Eagle is â€Å"someone crouching to waylay† him. The long, chilly and dusty corridors lead to the spiralling staircase which takes you to the red room, the most haunted room in the house. The doors are covered with baize making these room look forbidden . The castle is lit up by candles and the moonlight which shines through the big windows. The red room is a very shadowy place coloured red and black with big bay windows. The candles and fire flicker with the draught coming in from the windows barely lighting up the room, rescuing it from the shadows that haunt the room â€Å"had that indefinable quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking, living thingâ€Å". The young man is very threatened by the darkness of the castle. â€Å"Tonight of all nights† that night could resemble the death of the young countess after her encounter with her husband. The fear of getting haunted by something got to much for the young man, making him go a bit crazy. Running back and forth to keep the room light relighting the candles that get blown out by the draught coming from both the young man running and the windows. He was so afraid of being haunted by the shadows â€Å"the shadows I feared and fought against returned, and crept in upon meâ€Å". When all the candles are fading out the man panics to get out of the red room quick, he ends up injuring himself on all the furniture ‘a vague memory of battering myself thus, to and fro in the darkness’. Eventually he knocks himself out â€Å"a horrible sensation of falling that lasted an age, of my last frantic effort to keep my footing, and then I remember no moreâ€Å". When he wakes up, he is found my the old man with a withered arm, not being able to remember who he is ‘I seen to remember you, and yet I cannot remember who you are’. The man soon recovers his memory and is able to tell the old man about his experience in the red room. The young mans character changed dramatically during the story, he went from being over confident, arrogant not believing in ghosts to somebody that is absolutely terrified at the thought of being haunted and seeing a ghost. When the man tells the others that the room â€Å"is haunted† it seems like he is going to carry on and admit that the room is haunted, going back on what he said at the beginning of the story but he doesn’t, he builds up the tension â€Å"there is neither ghost of earl nor ghost of countess in that room, there is no ghost there at all; but worse, far worse-† and then tells them that the room is haunted by fear. So we don’t know what actually happened to the narrator in the red room, was he imagining it or was there actually a ghost?. My opinion on the effectiveness of the text as a ghost story is that it is not actually a ghost story, there isn’t a ghost that haunts the young man, it is fear. It is a classic scary story with darkness and fear lurking around, not knowing what is going to happen. Fear is uncontrollable, maybe it was fear that killed the young duke sending in flying down the stairs, just like it nearly killed the young man. Making him lose all his senses and go mad but he fought it and got out alive. Fear will always be there â€Å"you can feel it even I the daytime, even of a bright summers day, in the hangings, in the curtains, keeping behind you however you face about it† â€Å" there is Fear in that room of hersblack Fear, and there will beso long as this house of sin endures†. Fear will be there until the house is destroyed.