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 Hill "There was no mistake about it. The flame vanished, as if the wick had been suddenly nipped between a finger and thumb, leaving the wick neither glowing or smoking, but black." Ghost stories use dark and fear of it as a key element, and most occurrences happen in the night, and/or in the dark. The aim 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 Red Room was written pre twentieth century and Farthing house was written post twentieth century. I will mainly look at the formulaic structure of the stories and the tension that is built up throughout them by the authors. A good ghost story involves a mixture of tension and an interesting plot or storyline. The formulaic elements - e.g. old houses/graveyards/other sinister settings, threatening housekeepers/guests/noises, staying overnight, dark/night, threatening weather (e.g. storms, thunder) and a death/previous ghostly history all help to create the genre and entice the reader to continue reading. There should be twists in the story, to help make it more interesting, and less predictable. There is also often a lot of mystery involved - mysterious key characters, unknown noises and people etc. The Red Room is a pre-20th century story, written by H.G. Wells in 1896. It is about a room that is allegedly haunted and the story is told by a young man who is spending the night there. He starts off extremely confidently but as the story goes on he becomes more and more frightened and the tension increases. The Red Room is about the personal experience of the young man whilst in the room, and his own fear o... ...ing plots. Some elements of the first formula have stuck, which is why 'The Red Room' and 'Farthing House' are so similar, although written years apart. I think that they have stuck because they are a winning combination that attracts readers. Over time ghost stories have become more popular and some stories have also been shown as films or television programmes. This shows that they are still a popular part of culture and probably will continue to be in the future. Films and television programmes still often stick to the formula - setting and history, for example. However the visual images and plots differ. Farthing House is testimony to this, the setting is similar but the plot and purpose differs. "I was not afraid anymore, 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 search of her baby.