The Red Room vs the Monkeys Paw

The Red Room vs the Monkeys Paw

  • Submitted By: nolys
  • Date Submitted: 11/04/2008 11:34 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1303
  • Page: 6
  • Views: 1

The main idea of this essay is to discuss and compare the differences in suspense and tension in the two storys “the monkeys paw” and “the red room”
The monkeys paw by w.w.Jacobs
There are a lot of ways in which the monkeys paw creates and builds up tension and suspense. The autor uses various techniques in how he does this. An example of his creation of suspense is in how much detail he goes into the weather and the surroundings of the setting. when he says “the night was cold and wet in the small parlour of laburnum villa…” this is adding to suspense because straight away he is describing what it would be like to be in that situation yourself. If the setting had been in a normal inner city house or something then there is nothing scary about it but if it is set out in the middle of nowhere it provides a feeling of isolation from civilisation, and also when it I at night it provides an aspect of fright and scariness. this makes the story better because it means that if something were to go wrong then the have no way of getting help. This is why the setting is so important in a story, especially is it is supposed to be scary.
The description is another way that the author builds up on his tension and suspense, as when you read his story he goes into great detail. This is a way of making the reader want to read on because it makes the story so much more interesting e.g “the solider regarded him in the way that middle is wont to regard presumptuous youth” is so much better than “the solider said” I think this is the most important technique to create suspense and tension as without the description there would not be any suspense or tension. The way he goes into detail about “the brightness of the wintry sun next morning…” is a great way to keep people reading as it tells you that is a much better day so people are going to want to find out what is going to happen. A third way that the author trys to build up tension is in the way he uses his characters e.g a...

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