Darkness And The Stories Of Ghosts example essay topic

19th Century Literature After examining four nineteenth century stories I have looked in depth at how the authors of these stories have used setting to create atmosphere and mystery. The stories I have looked at are "The Red Room", "The Signal Man", "The Speckled Band" and "The Man With The Twisted Lip."The Red Room" is about a young man whom visits an old house in the country although it is not said were. The occupants of the house are themselves old and distorted. There is an old man and woman who both suddenly jolt their heads and a man with a withered arm.

The story is about a room believed to be haunted that a young man goes in to decide whether it is. The story is written by H. G Wells during a time when ghosts were thought to be nonsense. "The Signal Man" is set in a railway cutting somewhere in the UK around the time of the industrial revolution. The story revolves around a signalman who sees and hears supernatural happenings occurring around the railway and the tunnel. The story is told by an upper class man who goes to the signal box and has numerous conversations with the signalman. "The Man With The Twisted Lip" is a Sherlock Holmes mystery story set in the murky streets of London just a year before jack the ripper was at large and at a time when the police were useless.

The story is about a missing husband who goes missing in an opium den and is believed to be dead but as the case goes on and the pieces of the puzzle are put together it turns out that the man had two identities. He is a beggar on the streets of London in the day and a upper class man when he's not begging the story tell as how he becomes stuck as a beggar and is accused by the feeble police for killing himself but as they think the upper class man. Each of the stories we looked at used setting to create mystery, tension and suspense. I decided to look at their reasons for using the setting and found that they were all relevant to the time and experiences of the author.

For example "The Signal Man" written by Charles Dickens and set on the railway was relevant to him because he was involved in a similar train incident in 1895 as he was travelling from London by train when it derailed at high speed killing ten people and injuring many more, he wrote "The Signal Man just a year later. Also he has used the railway as the setting to mix the supernatural that had been believed in for many years with the contemporary cutting edge technology of the time the railway. The railway was a new invention at the time and the people were very exited about it. However as was present in every thing in everyday life the railway showed the social class difference. The signalman himself creates the mystery of why a highly educated man could be working as such a low class man. This was unthought of in the Victorian era, as there was a very rigid class division.

The backdrop to "The Signal Man" is a railway cutting before a tunnel it is described as "a great dungeon" and with a "glow of an anger sunset" this gives u the impression of a deep dark cutting with no life anywhere near and the sunsets glow over the land above the only form of light that enter the cutting this create a eerie atmosphere and the sort of surrounding that the supernatural would dwell as the supernatural is always thought to lurk in the darkness and try to avoid the sunlight. Dickens cleverly always makes it so the conversations between the signalman and the other man happen at night. In the man with "The Man With The Twisted Lip" the setting is I the murky streets of London at the time of Jack the Ripper, the setting has been cleverly chosen by Arthur Conan Doyle at reassure those in London that the crime rate can be stopped and people like jack the ripper who was at large at the time can be stopped and he uses Sherlock Holmes as the man to represent this. He also uses darkness to represent mystery and uses the dark dusty streets.

He uses a sense of realism to create a greater sense of mystery and uses Watson as the first person narrative to do this. The streets of London are described as "a endless succession of dark and sombre streets" and the alleys as "vile" this gives you an impression of murky streets were untamed by the useless police and crime thrives in them. This atmosphere is carried on through out the story and also like all the stories I have looked at how the writer has used decent as a way of imagery of hell and every thing that's supposed to have mystery in it has some form of decent in it. In "The Red Room" the setting is in a castle in the middle of nowhere. As with most gothic literature of the time the castle is used. Gothic literature used many intense images also used by graveyard poets like Gray and Thompson.

The imagery of concealed ruins like the castle with horrific rooms like in the red room were popular at the time of "The Red Room". The writer has also used characters familiar to gothic literature, as they are all very melancholy and seen as distorted there are four Characters one an old man who lurks in the darkness and every now and the jerks his head to the side. Then there is the old woman who is very much like the old man but is very interested in the happenings of the room and eager to now what its like as none of them have ever dared to enter it at night through the fear of the ghosts they think lurk in the room. Also there is a man with a withered arm who is very strange and maybe even to strange to suit the story. And finally there is a young man who believes there is no such thing as ghosts as many of his generation also believed and he wants to go into the room and prove there is no such thing as ghosts.

The settings of the castle are old and rustic again relating to Gothic literature and the castle have lots of dark corridors with almost medieval d'ecor to add to the sense of the old and its relationship to ghosts. For instance the room is described as "ghostly" and with the "thoughts of vanished men" and not like "the world of today" this gives an old fashioned and eerie feel to the story. In "The Red Room" HG Wells has used lots of feelings to represent mystery and create a image of surroundings such as "the door cringed on its hinges" not only does this generate the feeling of sound but it also creates an image of a large old fashioned squeaky door. This sound is often related to in mystery and horror stories to add suspense to the story. Also H.G. Wells uses the characters to add to the sense of abnormality by using a man with a "withered arm" an "old woman" and an old man who was bent and wrinkled. The effect of this is it gives a distorted impression that has already been created by the surroundings.

Also the fact that the characters are old and odd suits the surroundings. The story uses first person narrative to bring the story to life and make it more believable. The author has used the young man who goes into the room as the narrator for the story. The young man is of the younger generation to those who live in the house and does not believe in the existence of ghosts like most of his generation. When he goes into the room he is scared mainly by the stories the inhabitants have told him and by the dark he encounters in the room. It is described as a "large shadowy room with its shadowy window bays, its recesses and its alcoves" than the thought of a ghost.

The settings in the room are dilapidated and derelict. The gloominess by the dark contributed to the atmosphere of oppression and neglect. The inside of the room is described to be more mysterious by quotes such as "the fading light" and the "Ancient" and "dim" feel of the room. These quotes give the room a feeling of concealment from the outside world and darkness and sinister feeling to the room. The young man feels claustrophobic and becomes afraid of the darkness.

The levels of tension for both the narrator and the audience when he tries to bring light into the room by lighting some of the candles in the room but as they begin to go out he begin to be dragged into a frantic attempt to escape the darkness. In his desperate attempt to escape from the room in a struggle with what he fears is a ghost but thinks is his mind playing tricks with him he bangs his head and knocks himself out. The other dubious characters find him later on as they hear his screaming. In keeping with the views of many people of the time the story unravels at the end with the young man saying that there was no ghosts in the room but he was scared by the darkness and the stories of ghosts that he had heard before from the inhabitants of the house. This is typical to the type of gothic literature at the time with the authors beginning to give other explanations for the supernatural than had previously been explored by writers. In "The signal man" he creates the imagery of hell by describing of hell by describing the cutting as a "great dungeon".

This is used to represent imprisonment as it's like a hell also we think of dungeons as dark and eerie places so it creates a supernatural atmosphere. He again uses the idea of when he describes the "rough zigzag descending path" which is implying the decent to hell, which was widely believed in at the time and was used by many authors of mystery stories at the time. It is again implied when he describes it as a "deep trench" and a "wall of jagged stone" as hell is thought to have jagged stone but with lava round it. This lava is represented by the "glow of an anger sunset" which makes you imagine the jagged stone as having a red glow like it would be though to in hell from the light of the lava. Dickens again goes into greater detail of the cutting by saying that the air in the cutting is "a barbarous, depressing and forbidding air like that of a underground tavern with stale air like that again that we imagine would be like in hell as it is thought to be a large underground tavern.

The tunnel is showed to be the centre of the mystery its said too have a "Gloomier entrance to a black tunnel" and as with other stories I have looked at darkness is often the source of mystery and the supernatural. As the story goes on and we find out a little more about the signalman we begin to come upon another mystery of why a highly educated man from an upper class background is doing a lower class job. At the time the story was written there was a very clear class division in everything in everyday life. Like most good mystery story I have looked at the unravelling of the mystery is left to the very end of the story as used by most author to keep the reader interested until the very end of the story.

In "The Man With The Twisted Lip" Doyle describes the streets of London as a "vile valley lurking behind the high wharves" this describes well the streets of London as at that time they were highly polluted by al the factories of the city and the smoggy smoke from the chimneys of the houses. However by describing it in this way Doyle manages to add an eerie and mysterious feeling to the streets. And the fact that the streets are always described as being dark and murky when there is something strange happening again shows like in other stories that they is something abnormal happening in the streets. This story is part of the Sherlock Holmes series and was popular around the time a relief for the people in a time when the policing was poor and there were characters such as jack the ripper on the lose. Holmes gave the people reassurance as he always solved the crime no matter how complicated or sinister it is. On another level the people were intrigued by London's murky and murderous reputation.

The filthy while smog that existed over the Thames was the perfect setting for crime and was used as a cover to hide the crimes taking place there. Then again this made it the perfect surroundings for an amateur detective to work, as there was plenty of crimes to solve. The majority of the story is set in an opium den hidden in the smog of the city. The opium den is again used by Doyles as a way of creating mystery as making you think of different endings to the story that are more extravagant than the one used in the story. The opium den is described as "gloomy" and with "bodies laying in fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown back and chin pointing upwards" what better place is there to start a mystery story as your left with hundreds of drugged up high men in a murky street and in a mysterious places.

There are numerous possibilities of reasons for why a man could go missing in a dark dingy place like this. And when Holmes himself is sat in the opium den the story begins to become more of a mystery, why is an upper class genius in a place such as an opium den? Is it because he likes his opium, which we know he does from other stories involving him or is he in an undercover operation to solve the goings on. The setting for "The Man With The Twisted Lip" could not be better to create mystery and create multiple possibilities of endings but Doyle cleverly uses one that no one would ever think of. We all assume from the surroundings and the setting that the man must have been murdered were as it turns out to be completely different.

Through the reading of these stories I have noticed many similarities in the ways they create mystery such as they all use darkness to cover the mystery and all are in distorted places. Also I have noticed that they all build up tension and mystery throughout the stories up until the very end and leave many possible scenarios for the reader to think about. Again all the stories use the fear of the unknown however some more like "The Red Room" than others. Each of the writers cleverly appeals to the sense by using great description along with 1st person narrative. This method of description brings the story to life for the reader.

The stories also appeal to the senses with the use of colours such as red, which we associate with danger and the abnormal and darkness and its connotations to the underworld and evil.