H. G. Wells uses the description of location to build atmosphere by splitting the locations into three significant sections, the housekeepers room, where he starts the story, the passages and staircases, the narrator travels through on his journey to the red room, and then the red room itself where the narrator drives himself crazy due to the unnatural silence, the creeping presence of darkness and the inexplicable presence of undiluted fear itself.This splitting up of location gives the story a slightly disjointed aura as each location is different and is in contrast to the next, yet at the same time almost exactly the same.The first location that you experience is the housekeeper's r ...view middle of the document...
This has the affect of causing the narrator to question himself if even the shadows are scared should he be more wary himself. Wells also uses the unnatural glow of the moon as the light source for the journey meaning he can describe the half hidden shape of an object but not its full detail as this is obscured by the silvery light cast through the long, tall, windows.The third and final location in Well's "The Red Room" is the most sinister of the three and is of course the red room itself. Immediately as the narrator enters the red room he feels a change. The red room seems different from the other locations. It seems almost living. Wells creates this picture of the room being alive by using images of fertility. He says it is "germinating darkness" and that " legends sprout in its dark corners". Again as on the journey Wells uses the shadow as a key tool in the description of the red room. They gradually grow and make their presence known to the narrator as if they are slowly invading, "that undefinable quality of a presence". The presence of the shadow is almost as if it is a living being, "lurking, living", as if the shadows are the unknown forces which inhabit the room, and fight against the light. Another tool which Wells uses is making the stay in the room feel like a battle, with the constant relighting of candles a fight against darkness, light against dark, good against evil. "Panting from candle to candle in a vain struggle against a remorseless advance.", is like the advance of two armies about the enter into an epic battle. Wells also uses verbs such as "volley" in "a volley of cand...
