I think the most successful ghost story; out of ‘ The Red Room’ by H. G. Wells and ‘ Farthing House’ by Susan Hill is the latter.
Both of the stories that we have read explore the feelings of horror and fear. In each story the characters react very different to the different types of ghost that they meet. In the ‘ The Red Room’ the young man, is very energetic and arrogant man who thinks that it ‘ Will take a very tangible ghost’ to scare him, but panics when he is confronted by a ghost which challenges him. On the other hand Hill’s story of the ‘ Farthing House’ reveals a timid, but yet experienced and mature woman who does not panic because she understands and feels sympathy for the ‘ crying’ ghost. Hill in this story builds up tension, suspense and fear, deliberately to involve the reader, by shirring their emotions and feelings through the story. She expects the reader to feel what the character in the story is feeling.
In the first paragraph Susan hill suddenly builds up tension. This is shown at the beginning of the story when it says ‘ I have never told you any of this before. I have never told anyone. ‘ we are immediately sharing a secret with the character, that know one else nos. hill is involving us in the story. This makes us seem in line with the narrator.
This is an important aspect of build tension and for the ghost story to become successful. We get into an investigation of the characters life as we get to know more about the characters background. We get to know that the character ‘ began to be restless’. This tells us that she was elatease and fearful of something that might happen to her. All the way through the story we are hooked on the characters and we are involved in the story. The character is ‘ nervous’ and ‘ anxious’.
This creates a sense of fear that she builds on to get us involved. In ‘ The Red Room’ the young man is on a mission to explore and expose the tale of the ‘ The Red Room’ that is apparently haunted, we know this when he says, ‘ It’s my own choosing’. He is in that house to go into ‘ The Red Room’ to prove that the ‘ Spiritual terrors’ of the house are nothing that cannot be proven by science. He is obviously very brave and determined but inexperienced as pointed out by the old couple that say,’ Eight and twenty years you have lived and never seen, the likes of this house.
‘ We think the boy is inexperienced because he tale a ‘ revolver’ into the room with in for protection. He is inexperienced because everyone now shooting at a ghost is about, as silly as talking to one. This seems to be a more direct and intense approach to the ghost. But the character in the ‘ Farthing House’ meets the ghost accidentally. This is brought about when her assigned room had a ‘ Serious leak’ and so was taken to the ‘ Cedar’ room.
When she first came to the room she was happy because of the size of it, but later when she goes upstairs to get the photographs, she hears ‘ crying’ and then when she had entered the room, she got a funny feeling that ‘ Someone had been’ in her room. But when compared to the ‘ The Red Room’, the ‘ The Red Room’ seems to have a more relaxed approach to the ghost. Also this woman does not have a firm belief in science or against superstition this is shown when she says’ I had never either believed or disbelieved in ghosts. ‘ The ghosts that each storyteller encounters are very different. The supposed ghost in ‘ The Red Room’ seems to mimic a poltergeist, which is very noisy and aggressive as shown, when in the room, ‘ there vanished four lights at once.
.. he darkness closed upon me..
. sealed my vision. ‘ This supposed ghost also keeps knowledge of where the person is, this is shown when this ghost took ‘ another step towards’ the storyteller. This ghost evidently is very scary and threatening, but at the end of the story, it is revealed that there was no ghost, it is just the fear aroused in the man, which caused him to suffer, this is shown by him when he says, ‘ That will not have light nor sound, that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms.
‘ But the ghost in the ‘ Farthing House’ is unconcerned for the people of the house but an only care for her own personal problems this is shown because the ghost only enters the room and ‘ cries’ but does not harm anyone. The mans emotions in ‘ The Red Room’ would be the same as most people when confronted with a ghost; scared! This is shown when he says, ‘ My hands trembled’. All his emotions were cluttered due to these ghostly appearances that go to his head. So he panicked, ‘ I dropped the matches..
. I stumbled and fell. ‘ He was totally confused, could not think, ‘ frantic’ with horror and his ‘ self-possession’ had deserted him. Whereas the woman in the ‘ Farthing House’ was not scared as emotionally as the man, but was physically terrified, as shown by her when she says, I was soaked in sweat, shaking, terrified.
‘ She was also intrigued by these ghostly incidents, because she felt the sorrow of this ghost and so was sympathetic towards it. This is shown when she says ‘ I was desperate to follow her, because I felt that she needed me in some way. ‘ This reflects the bond between women, even if it is a ghost. This concludes to that she wasn’t mentally challenged and so did not suffer as much as the man in ‘ The Red Room’. Later on when the storyteller is visiting a graveyard she see the grave of a young woman and her ‘ baby’, this causes her to find out the tragic story behind the incident and so no longer feels intrigued and hollow. The settings for both stories are very different; in the ‘ Red Room’ the author has placed the storyteller in a very intense setting.
In ‘ The Red Room’ the storyteller is in a ‘ castle’ which is very gloomy and dark, the characters are very old and untrustful as they were not cooperative and warning the storyteller, maybe trying to Enhance the spiritual terrors of their house by their droning insistence. ‘ This castle was given the basic characteristics of being a very scary place, and set the platform for a very good horror, an example is,’ The long draughty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty and my candle flared and made the shadows cower and quiver. ‘ On the other hand the settings on the ‘ Farthing House’ story are warm and comfortable. Although the story is set in the month of ‘ November’ also give a sense of early darkness. These are all typical horror story settings.
These settings are important in establishing an intense atmosphere in the story. The woman in the ‘ Farthing House’ was put in a very relaxed setting. The ‘ Farthing House’ is very modern it had ‘ framed photographs on a sideboard, flowers in jugs bowls,’ and run by polite people, to summarise the setting of the ‘ Farthing House’ the storyteller says’Farthing house was run, warm and comfortable, and there was good, home-cooked dinner. ‘ As you can see it is a contrast to the ‘ Red Room’. ‘ The Red Room’ was written at the turn of the century, where belief in science dominated. Whereas the ‘ Farthing House’ was written in 1993, very close to the millennium people are more radical, and not only have strong belief in superstition, science but also in bizarre cults.
I mentioned this to reflect the fact that ‘ The Red Room’ had a definite and clear explanation of the ghostly occurrences, whereas the ‘ Farthing House’ simply mentioned a ghost, but are ghosts real? Or not. Susan Hill’s story is relating to people who believe that anything can happen, that are totally irrational, and they are lost in a world lacking faith and need some proper guidance. All this is my personal response to the stories, and I prefer ‘ The Red Room’ because it was a complete story because it explains why the things happened in the first place. I firmly believe that there is reason behind everything that is happening, be it mental or physical.
In conclusion the man in ‘ The Red Room’ coped badly with the supposed ghost and so was mentally and physically broken down as a result of the intense setting, his age (experience), his firm belief in logic and science and aggressive ghost. But the woman coped well because she was placed in a very relaxed setting, where all the characters are women; this resulted in better understanding due to the inner bonding. The ghost, who the women encountered, was not aggressive as the one the man encountered, she also did not have a firm belief against superstition. In content of what I have just written, I think ‘ Farthing House’ is the most successful ghost story. The story ‘ Farthing House’ has a better build up to the ghost. In the story the ghost is real and described well.
Another strength of the story is that we empathise with the ghost.
