“The Signalman”

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"The Signalman"

In the following essay I will discuss how Dickens "The Signalman" by exploring the settings and the characters. The novel was written by Charles Dickens in the 19th century. It is set in a deep cutting adjacent to a tunnel with a railway running through. I think that the over riding feature throughout the essay is the suspense that is created. So in this essay I will mostly focus on how that is built up.

Suspense is created through supernatural, horror and ambiguity. A good suspense story should have all of these. I will explore these qualities which make up a good suspense story.

The story opens with the quote "Halloa! Below there" This short, but effective line becomes very decisive as the story unfolds. We don't know who's speaking and so creates tension already. The man he is shouting to below looks round to face the tunnel "Looked down the line". Any normal person would look upwards in response to this. Again Dickens is creating the unexplainable which builds up the tension and suspense.

At this time we don't know who either of the men is. We know it is a ghost story so which one if any is the ghost. He is making you ask yourself questions which create suspense. You are already hooked and trying to figure out who is the ghost. He then goes on to describe the man below "There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so". This is evidence for the argument that he is possibly the ghost because of his weird actions. The actions create mystery which is effective to create the overall suspense. Also you still haven't had any kind of a physical description of the signalman so at this time you don't even know if he's human or not and you can't just make an assumption, you have to read on.

The story is set in the nineteenth century, a time when supernatural powers were still believable so someone reading this at the time would feel more of the pressure. The scene is set within a deep cutting at twilight and because of the darkness the two men don't get to see each other properly until they are face to face which is too late if one man kills the other. "I was near enough to have touched him". It makes you have the "Don't go down there" feeling so tension builds up more and more the closer they get to one another. Just before he goes down the cutting an unknown vibration shakes the ground "Vague vibration in the earth and air" He also uses a lot of effective adjectives like "Violent pulsation" this captures the senses and adds to the tension. This could be the final climax to the building pressure, but it ends up as being a train this; creates a lot of tension which is then lost after you are enlighten
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The cutting would be pretty dark; this darkness creates the suspended mood. It is also described as being "Extremely deep and unusually precipitous" and "Solitary and dismal". It seems like the place is very isolated and cut off from the real world, the perfect place for supernatural happenings "Great dungeon". The tunnel also creates suspension, why did he look down there in this first place and what could it be down there is described as "Barbarous, depressing and forbidding". The smells and surroundings make him a little bit reluctant to descend "Air of reluctance".

The story ...

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