Suspense and Tension in Short Stories of H.G. Wells :: H.G. Wells Short Story Essays

Suspense and Tension in Short Stories of H.G. Wells Herbert George Wells was best known as the author of fantasy and science fiction novels: The Time Machine, The Invincible man, The War of the worlds, The Stolen Bacillus, The man who could work miracles and The Red Room. From this vast collection of different genres, three stories have been chosen to illustrate, compare and contrast how the different setups create tension and suspense. There are similarities and differences in the settings that the writers have chose for their stories by H.G.Wells. These stories though different in genre and plot illustrate how H.G.Wells manages to capture the imagination of the reader and create atmosphere and tension in contrasting ways. The Three stories I agreed to choose were The Red Room, the Stolen Bacillus and The man who could work miracles. The Red Room is a story about a young man 28 years old goes to this houses where people had been complaining about this ghost like figure they keep hearing in a room of there's. The young man arrives at the house only to be surrounded by a bunch of old people, these old people made the man feel very uncomfortable and unsure about what they want him to do. After a while even the young man confesses to himself how he wasn't expecting these miserable old people in this quote "I must confess I had scarce expected these grotesque custodians "(pg 4). The man later went on to describes how the men became ghost's of themselves "A monstrous shadow of him crouched upon the wall and mocked his actions as he poured and drank" (pg 6) A man with a withered arm repetitively keep saying the words "It's your own choosing to go in that room" (pg 6). The man then got described to him what had been happening in the house, and then he walked along the corridor with the old man with the withered arm and into the room. Only the young man entered the room to see that it was dark and no lights were working. So he stayed and settled for a while, he had a look around and then suddenly something came up behind him and the man blacked out. When he woke up all of the old people were surrounding him and he couldn't remember a thing. Then the old people are eager to know all about what happened to the young man. Then he explains to them that "there's neither a ghost nor an earl in the room but it's the worst thing of all that haunt poor mortal man", he said and that