In “The Red Room” by H.G Wells the story also begins with dialogue. Unlike in “The Signalman” where it is very eerie start where the story begins quiet fast, the author H.G Wells starts slowly. We find out a lot about the characters but little about the setting. The author does this to get the reader to feel more involved with the characters as we find out about them and the way they react to certain situations. It is very important that in a short story there is an interesting and engaging introduction that immediately hooks the reader and makes them want to read on. “The Signalman” does this by instantly awakening the reader’s senses with the man shouting. In “The Red Room” the introduction is slower but just as effective as we learn about a lot about the characters.
In short stories it is important that characters are vividly described as the audience will either dislike, emphasis or relate to them. In doing this the author must not waste too much time doing this as it may get in the way of the narrative and stop the reader from wanting to read on. In “The Signalman” the main character is presented as a very mysterious character and not much is reviled about him. His behaviour when the narrator calls him is very peculiar and his body language tells us he is being defensive. It is not to after the narrator starts to talk with the signalman that he begins to open up about. I believe that the narrator makes the signalman feel relaxed because he represents the outside world that the signalman is not apart of because of the isolation of his place of work.
We find out that the signalman is very conscientious and precise about his work. It is said, “no man in England knew his job better” and that “one of the safest men to be employed in that capacity.” He gets used to the monotony and loneliness of his job and passes the time learning a language and experimenting with algebra. In his youth he had been well educated although he had “run wild, misused his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. The narrator gives the impression that the signalman is very trustworthy and believable.
We also hear that after the signalman starts to become more confident with the narrator and relieves a ghost that predicts train crashes before they actually happen is visiting him. The man is clearly in distress by the visions, which the narrator explains are caused by “ the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by the unintelligent responsibility involving life.”
In “The Red Room” we are presented with a completely different type of character. The young man is very cocky and self-assured. He seems to look down on the other people who are much older and seem wise. He describes them as being grotesque. The author of “The Red Room” portrays him like this as he wants the reader not to like this character and make them read on to see what his fate is. As the main character makes his way to the Red Room along the “long draughty, subterranean passage that was chilly and dusty,” there is an atmosphere of expectance that something is going to happen but there is an anticlimax when nothing does. When the young man does enter and his “hand trembled with fear” we cannot help but feel sorry for him. This builds the tension in he room as it shows the fear in the character. This fear is then passed on to the reader. Charles Dickens uses a similar technique in “The Signalman”. In the line “the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing down my spine” the readers can almost feel this happening to themselves. This is because of the way that the story was written in the 1st person. This is because we learn a lot more about the person and his or her feelings. This makes the character easier to relate to and the audience feel what they do.
Both stories “The Signalman” and “The Red Room” contain elements that appear in many good ghost stories. They have an atmosphere that is mysterious and menacing. Both stories use this especially the signalman. The author Charles Dickens uses phrases like “down in the deep trench,” “extremely deep, and unusually precipitate” and “so little sunlight ever found its way to this spot … had an earthly, deadly smell,” to make the track seem full of dread and darkness. The idea of a trench makes you think of WW1 and the whole idea of hell. The author is comparing the railway track to hell. Another typical ghost story convention is an eerie character that makes you suspect something. Again both stories do this and again “the signalman “ does it better. We know very little about the signalman and we all suspect that something’s up from the very beginning. With the death of the signalman at the end we all suspect that something else is involved but we do not find out. This is again using another effect - having an ending that leaves the reader guessing. In both stories there is a lot of irony and symbolism. In the “Signalman” the white light that he carries is a symbol for the goodness that he represents in the evil tracks. His job is save peoples lives by sending messages up and down the tracks. This could also represent the light at the end of the tunnel for the man with all the visions he is receiving.
In my opinion “The Signalman” is the better of the two stories. It has a mysterious character that the reader can identify with and feel sorry for. In “Red Room” the character is much more arrogant and boastful which makes the reader not care as much as to what might happen to him. I think that the true meaning of “The Signalman” is the effect of modern technology and industrialisation on the human soul. The signalman is driven to the point of insanity by the monotony and, at the same time, the awful responsibility involved in his work. He is alienated from his environment: he is an intelligent and imaginative man that is deprived of sunlight, with very little to occupy himself and always knowing that the smallest mistake could lead to a terrible loss of life. The super natural element reflects the era that the story was written in. Many Victorians were very suspicious of the rapid advance in technology in the 19th century. The story is a true mystery has it can have a number of different true meanings and shows that it is about the impossibility of knowing what is real.
