Compare H.G. Wells The Red Room and Farthing House by Susan Hill Essay

Compare H.G. Wells The Red Room and Farthing House by Susan cumulusThere was no mistake well-nigh it. The flame vanished, as if the wick hadbeen suddenly nipped between a finger and thumb, leaving the wickneither refulgency or smoking, but black. Ghost stories use dark andfear of it as a key element, and most occurrences happen in the night,and/or in the dark.The bring forth of this essay is to compare and contrast the two short stories- The Red Room by H.G. Wells and Farthing House by Susan Hill. The RedRoom was written pre twentieth century and Farthing house was writtenpost twentieth century. I will mainly look at the formulaic structureof the stories and the tension that is built up throughout them by theauthors.A good ghost story involves a mixture of tension and an interestingplot or storyline. The formulaic elements - e.g. oldhouses/graveyards/ other sinister settings, threateninghousekeepers/guests/noises, staying overnight, dark/night, threateningweather (e.g. storms, thu nder) and a death/previous ghostly historyall help to create the genre and allure the reader to continuereading. There should be twists in the story, to help make it moreinteresting, and less predictable. There is also often a lot ofarcanum involved - mysterious key characters, unknown noises andpeople etc.The Red Room is a pre-20th century story, written by H.G. Wells in1896. It is about a room that is allegedly haunted and the story istold by a unripe man who is spending the night there. He starts offextremely confidently but as the story goes on he becomes more andmore frightened and the tension increases. The Red Room is about thepersonal experience of the young man whilst in the room, and his ownfear o... ...ing plots. Some elements of thefirst formula suck stuck, which is why The Red Room and FarthingHouse are so similar, although written years apart. I think that theyhave stuck because they are a winning combination that attractsreaders.Over time ghost stories have become more popular and some stories havealso been shown as films or television programmes. This shows thatthey are still a popular part of culture and probably will continue tobe in the future. Films and television programmes still often stick tothe formula - setting and history, for example. However the visualimages and plots differ. Farthing House is testimony to this, thesetting is similar but the plot and aspiration differs. I was not afraidanymore, not now that I knew who she was and why she had been there,getting out of her bed in Cedar room, to go in attend of her baby.