I recently read HG Wells’ gothic short story “The Red Room”. (If you like haunted houses and spooky classic prose, do check it out!) I posted the following question/musings on r/HGWells but didn’t get any responses, so I thought I’d share my thoughts here in case others who have read this story want to chime in.
I wonder who the 28-year-old unnamed first person narrator of this story is. We know that he is here to look into the mystery of the ghost that is said to haunt the Red Room, but is he just a random person who has taken on the task of debunking any ghost stories about the room, or is he someone related to the unnamed absent owner (“her ladyship”) of the castle — possibly in the line of succession to inherit the castle one day? I know it’s just a story and the narrator’s unspecified identity is probably a deliberate choice on the author’s part, but it’s still interesting to speculate!
The narrator says “I come to the business with an open mind”, and does not speak in a tone of authority over the elderly hired housekeepers, which suggests that he is just a random ghostbuster who has heard of the superstitions and chain of tragedies surrounding the haunted room. Perhaps he met “her ladyship” at some point, was intrigued by her story about her castle, and decided to ask her permission to spend a night there and see for himself? Or did “her ladyship” formally hire him to investigate (if we take “business” to mean a financial agreement)?
But the narrator also speaks of the “young Duke” (who died earlier keeping vigil in the same room) as his “predecessor”. Presumably the deceased Duke and “her ladyship” were related. (Why was the Duke keeping vigil in the Red Room, unless he was going to inherit the castle one day and wanted to really be sure about the place, or he wasn’t going to inherit it but was merely curious about the Red Room superstitions?) So could our narrator also be someone related to “her ladyship”‘s family — perhaps a distant relative of lower rank who won’t inherit the castle one day, but is merely here to take on a ghostbusting challenge and satisfy his own curiosity?
by milly_toons