Comparisons

In my essay I will be explaining the comparison of the two short stories "The Red Room" by H.G.Wells and "The Tell-Tale heart by Edgar Allan Poe.

I think the story The Red Room is strange but tense and builds the tension up superbly. This is in comparison to The Tell-Tale Heart because both stories have moments of excruciating excitement which just makes you want to read on and on and finish the story. Also, both stories have a psychological comparison because you have to have a good imagination to picture things like what sex the characters are, picture the scenes and possibly even become the characters in your head and feel what they feel, think what they think.

In the stories, you can read them over and over again and create at least twenty different stories each time.

There is one main difference in the two poems that being that there is a murder committed in The Tell-Tale Heart and the extreme action is contained within the mind.

In my essay I will be looking and concentrating more on the main comparisons of the stories. Also, the two stories have a gothic genre, which was well appreciated but sometimes controversial in Victorian times because of some stories containing supernatural abilities and mystery.

The Red Room's structure is based on indented paragraphs, every time a new paragraph is created, new suspense and tensity is created too.

Suspense is created at the start of The Red Room when the narrator is actually confident but towards the middle and the end, he gets extremely cautious and afraid as he approaches the notorious red room. The suspense gets even greater when the narrator gets to the door of the red room.

"I entered, closed the door behind me at once, turned the key I found in the lock within, and stood with the candle held aloft, surveying the scene of my vigil the great red room of Lorraine Castle, in which the young Duke had died."

This is when the tension of the narrator starts to boil over when he starts to enter and explore the room and he suddenly develops psychological problems. This is because the evidence of the story suggests that the narrators mind starts playing tricks on him.

Nostalgic: a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time: a nostalgia for his college days.

Example: Paul was filled with nostalgia as he remembered the fun times in his past.

More input from Answers contributors:

• Nostalgia is the good feeling you get when you remember things from your past. When you kind of sit back and smile and think to yourself, wow, that was fun, or happy.

• Nostalgia is the act of longing for something past, for example, an ex-girlfriend, the country of origin, etc. It is when someone revives memories in his mind and feels sad that the "old times" are gone for good. (French Nostalgie).