Red Room Passage Analysis

“the room was a spare chamber, very seldom slept in; I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead hall rendered it necessary to turn to the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour, with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, prominent was an ample, cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white,with a footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.

this room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchens; solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. t he housemaid alone came here on saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week’s quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the bedroom the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur.

Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the undertaker’s men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration