When the narrator goes back to see the signalman, the next day, Dickens uses an interesting technique to build up towards the story’s climax. He tells us that it ‘was a lovely evening’. This completely contradicts the theme of the story. Dickens previously used a ‘dark’, ‘dingy’ and dungeon-like setting: as in the popular Gothic novels of the time. However, here it is a ‘lovely evening’. Purposely, Dickens gets us thinking of what may be to come, because the story so far has been a little predictable: apparition’s appearance followed by an accident, apparition’s appearance followed by an accident. The reference to it being a ‘lovely evening’ may make us think something threatening is, in fact, not going to happen and the ending may be a happy one after all. This takes our minds away from the pattern that has been emerging. We then experience a certain amount of surprise when the signalman is found to have been killed, becoming a victim of the apparition. However, there is another perspective to be looked at: that the ‘lovely evening’ is a symbol of the signalman’s mind being free of his ‘cruel haunting’ and him finally being happy: either at peace in death; or having known, in his final moments, what the ghostly appearances were all about. Dickens maintains the suspense right until the very end, because he leaves the supernatural unexplained. No one tells us where the ghost came from, went to or if the appearances stop after the signalman’s death. As Dickens gives no such thing, we are left to ponder it for ourselves.
In ‘The Battler’ the character that is explored by the writer is called Nick. He is trying to get from one town to the next, but is thrown off a train and ends up having to walk. There are a lot of similarities between Dickens’ techniques of creating and maintaining suspense and Hemingway’s. Firstly Hemingway uses a teenager in America as his main character, who, like the signalman, seems to be alone in the world: he is travelling alone and obviously cannot afford a train ticket as he is thrown off his train by the brakeman. Also, because Hemingway has him as a young teenager he is somewhat vulnerable: like the signalman in Dickens’ story. The way Hemingway describes Nick’s appearance – he looks to have been beaten up, which adds to the feeling that he is vulnerable: His ‘pants were torn and the skin was barked. His hands were scraped and there were sand and cinders driven up under his nails’.
Hemingway uses a railway line in a dark forest as the setting for the meeting between the two characters. This is similar to Dickens in that he used a deep and dark railway cutting; Hemingway describes it as ‘dark and a long way from anywhere’. The language used by Hemingway indicates that it is an ominous place: one, which we would not want to be lost in. He repeats that it is ‘dark’ and ‘black’ the same way Dickens did with the railway cutting. The forest seems remote and mysterious; it is near a ‘ghostly swamp’. There is a sense of urgency about Nick. Hemingway tells us that ‘he must get to somewhere’, it seems it does not matter where. When Nick finally meets Ad, it seems he is more like the narrator in Dickens’ story. He comes across as a man who looked to be alone: ‘He was sitting there with his head in his hands looking at the fire.’ This is quite an intense image. Hemingway repeats it (‘the man sat there looking into the fire’) to make sure we form a clear mental picture. The suspense he has then created is maintained and even heightened by the fact that ‘Nick stepped quite close to him’ and ‘he did not move’. This can be likened to the narrator in Dickens’ story on his first meeting with the signalman: the signalman stares at him, and it is not until the narrator gets very close that the signalman even moves. Both writers create suspense, but also make us question the signalman’s and Ad’s sanity. Ad starts to talk to Nick as if they were friends. He uses a very familiar tone. For example, his reply to Nick’s ‘Hello’ is: ‘Where did you get the shiner?’ Hemingway has the man engaging in, what most would consider as, a ‘friendly chat’.
Another thing that creates interest is Ad’s constant reference to fighting. For example, he asks Nick about his ‘shiner’, and he says ‘It must have made him feel good to bust you’ and ‘get him with a rock’. This creates the expectation, in our minds, of violence to come, which is similar to when Dickens tells us that there has been a recent sighting of the ghost but not yet another accident. Both situations have us waiting for something dramatic to happen. When we finally do learn the man’s name (Ad) he still talks to Nick as if they are good friends. There is constant repetition used by Hemingway during the next passage of dialogue. For example, Ad persistently says ‘I’m crazy’. The word ‘crazy’ itself is used seven times by Ad in describing himself. Dickens uses this technique in that the narrator in ‘The Signalman’ thinks the signalman to be crazy on their first meeting. The authors both make their central characters seem vulnerable, alone with men who might be mad.
Hemingway continues to build up the suspense by bringing a new character into the story without warning. Bugs ‘drops’ from the dark, wooded embankment. This moves the emphasis onto the un-stereotypical relationship between Ad and Bugs. He incorporates tension into the conversation. Ad seems to be easily ‘whipped up’ and when he says: ‘that ain’t what I asked you’ it suggests he is angry with Bugs’ reply to one of his questions. It renews our sense of Ad as violent and the thoughts of something to come. Hemingway describing Ad as ‘the prize fighter’ heightens anticipation still further. The tension is continued when Ad asks if he could have Nick’s knife and Bugs cuts in very sharply with ‘No you don’t’. This implies that Bugs knows Ad is dangerous and thinks he may do something malicious with the knife. Bugs says something to Ad but: ‘Ad did not answer. He was looking at Nick’. This is repeated twice in exactly the same form and Hemingway tells us that ‘Nick felt nervous’. We now almost know that the violent climax between Nick and Ad is coming and Hemingway does not disappoint. The next sentence shows Ad’s explosion.
Hemingway has created and maintained suspense up until this point and now it all breaks with the climax of violence from Ad. Hemingway gives us an explosion of language to illustrate Ad’s own eruption. For example, Ad calls Nick a ‘snotty bastard’ and he asks, ‘who the hell’ he thinks he is. The words are followed by actions and the climax comes when Ad is threatening Nick, trying to make him fight. However, Hemingway, having built up all this suspense, releases it and brings in another surprise. Just as no one expects the signalman to be the victim of the railway accident in ‘The Signalman’, we here do not expect the fight to be broken up by Bugs. This is a very interesting situation created by Hemingway. It seems Bugs knows exactly what to do as he ‘followed behind [Ad]… and tapped him on the base of the skull’. Here is evidence that Bugs knew Ad was dangerous, but also knew not to try and stop his violence by usual methods. Hemingway is indicating that Bugs is not the stereotype black man that most 1920s Americans had in their minds. A large part of his story is to do with proving this stereotype to be wrong. Another thing about Bugs is he is ‘gentle’ in laying Ad back down next to the fire after he has knocked him out. He is ‘gentle’: almost graceful. This was a characteristic that Hemingway greatly admired in a man: grace under pressure.
Also, the strange relationship the two men have is very interesting. Bugs seems to look after Ad: he makes and buys his food; protects him; and generally keeps him in line. The relationship is strange because usually black people and whites would not have such close involvement. This tells us that Bugs must get something out of their being together, for example: with the laws concerning blacks, Ad would have been able to do things Bugs could not. Hemingway is showing his moral standings on colour prejudice here: he believes that the American stereotype of black people was wrong. In ‘The Signalman’, Charles Dickens explores human nature more than the ethics of a situation. The point of Dickens’ work is to illustrate that new technology and science have a definite place in the new industrial world, but there will always be an element of the supernatural. Both writers use the same basic techniques and effects to get their massage across. They create suspense, maintain it until a point and then let it go after a climax of excitement.
