Both Stories examine elements of the unknown. How do the authors create tension and how do they reflect the beliefs and superstitions of their time?

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Both Stories examine elements of the unknown. How do the authors create tension and how do they reflect the beliefs and superstitions of their time?

Comparing ‘The Signalman’ by Charles Dickens and ‘The Darkness Out There’ by Penelope Lively is an ideal way of looking at two authors from different times and backgrounds. Dickens, writing in the nineteenth century, would have had a very different audience to write for from Lively, writing in the twentieth century. Therefore, each author uses different techniques to create tension in the two pieces.

During the nineteenth century there was a strong belief in ghosts and the spiritual world; telling ghost stories around the fireplace is often seen as a typical form of Victorian entertainment. Dickens draws on this tradition to create a short story that would have strongly appealed to readers of that time. Lively, however, is not writing for an audience that would enjoy a ghost story as much, therefore ‘The Darkness Out There,’ is not blatently a ghost story. To capture her readers’ interests she instead uses the war and the attitudes to the Germans as a focus of concern. As Dickens lived in a time when the Queen was married to a man of German origin, war with Germany was very unlikely. This meant he had to use an alternate approach to draw the audience into the story. For this he used the recent invention of the steam train to gain a foothold into the reader’s minds. This was already causing a lot of anxiety so it would have been easy to take advantage of the reader. He uses this approach to create tension.

Another way the writers create tension is by exploring elements of the unknown. They both do this but in contrasting ways. In ‘The Signalman,’ the unknown is explicitly explored and it is obviously a ghost story from the beginning. However, in ‘The Darkness Out There,’ the exploration of the unknown is implicit. The story is not set in the midst of a ghostly setting like ‘The Signalman,’ instead it is set on the edge of one. Unlike The Signalman, this setting is not a main focus of the story, instead it just lurks in the background until the climax of the story.  This is symbolical of the way the unknown is explored in Mrs Rutter’s life as well. Before the climax of the story events are just hinted at but they are just rumours, the real story is unknown.

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The contrast in this approach is shown in the language used. For example, in ‘The Darkness Out There, Lively writes:

“And, somewhere, presumably, the crumbling rusty scraps of metal and cloth and ... bones?”

  The ellipses and the question mark highlight the uncertainty that is present throughout this story and show the implicit nature of ‘The Darkness Out There.’ In contrast, Dickens’ use of language shows the explicit nature of ‘The Signalman.’ When he mentions the figure, he speaks of it directly as “the spectre,” and “the ghost,” thus showing how openly the unknown is explored.  

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