There are two settings in The Black Veil both of which are important in creating tension. The first is the initial setting inside the doctor’s house where Dickens describes a dark and stormy outside which immediately instills a sense of fear because weather like this often spells tragedy and danger. There is an immediate contrast to the interior of the house with the doctor in a warm cosy and dry environment described as having ‘a cheerful fire’. This is very similar to opening section of The Monkey’s Paw, which has a similar contrast between the cold and wet outside with the warmth inside. Thermal images are used in both the circumstances to make things more vivid for the reader, such as from The Monkey’s Paw ‘it was cold and dark outside’ and from The Black Veil ‘beating the rain in pattering drops.’
The description of Walworth, the slum area where the woman lives creates tension. The imagery used here is very powerful and striking. For example to show the poverty of the area Dickens describes how people’s fences and buildings were of miserable quality ‘with decay and neglect’ and ‘pilfered from neighbouring hedges.’ He also says that the houses in the area ‘were of the rudest and most miserable description’ which again is a very powerful image to emphasise just how dilapidated a lot of the buildings in the area were. Dickens also suggests that this was the type of place that is the haunt of many a person with ‘questionable character’ or ‘whose mode of life rendered its solitude desirable’ and this creates tension as it makes the reader wonder if the woman herself is a criminal trying to con the doctor.
Visual imagery is used to good effect in the description of the house. For example the woman’s house is said to have ‘an old yellow curtain drawn across the window upstairs’ and ‘the parlour shutter closed but not bolted’ and this encourages the reader to think that there may be something sinister going on inside the house. The mood in this section of the piece is desperate, helpless and dark due to Dickens’ vivid description of the surroundings.
In sharing such details about Walworth with the reader Dickens is trying to get across to his middle class reader not everybody is as fortunate as them. This brings reference to Dickens’ childhood as he himself was brought up in poverty and had had experiences similar to those of the central character in The Black Veil.
As we can see Dickens uses lots of similar ways to create tension in the settings of these two stories with lots of contrast, tactile, thermal and visual images to play on the senses of the reader.
Both stories also contain isolated and eccentric characters that are left nameless to add further to the effect. Dickens creates a dark aura around the central characters in both the stories. If we look at The Signalman we can see that both characters thought the other could possibly have been a supernatural being when they first meet. For example the narrator says ‘the monstrous thought came into my head, as I perused the fixed eyes of the saturnine face, that this was a spirit’ and the signalman himself ‘directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel’s mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were missing from it, and then looked at me’ the signalman also says ‘ “I took you for someone else yesterday evening” ’ this is a hint to the fact that the signalman suspects the narrator of being a spirit. The character of the signalman in the story is very important as he is seen to be a credible man and that makes the story more tense due to the fact that it makes the story seem less far-fetched to the reader. The signalman is described as ‘a dark sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows’ this description helps to build tension as it adds to the sinister effect which has already been created through the use of mood words.
The characters in The Black Veil are a very important factor in building tension. Tension is mainly built with the woman as she behaves in a very frightening and peculiar manner, only hinting at why she needs the doctor’s help. For example when the doctor asks why she did not come sooner she replies ‘because it would have been useless before- because it is useless even now’. This is a very perplexing thought for the reader and it immediately gets the reader asking questions about what this ailment could be.
The way the woman is physically described is very peculiar and for a moment it is even suggested that she were possibly a man when Dickens describes how ‘she’ speaks in a low, deep voice.
Dickens uses similar techniques in both stories and ensures that the characters are often in solitary situations very much like that of the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper who is isolated by her husband. In the Victorian times people were very interested in isolation and its effects on people’s mental states.
Dickens also uses narrative style to great effect in the stories. In The Signalman Dickens uses a first person narrator to bring the reader closer to the events in the story, allowing the reader to know what the narrator is thinking. For example when the narrator says ‘resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine’ this creates tension because if the narrator is scared then it naturally scares us. The tension is increased further by the fact that the narrator is clearly a calculated learned and sceptical man and so we trust his account as he makes his best efforts to find a rational explanation for the goings on in the cutting. Dickens uses a first person narrator as a device to create tension as he in fact asks the questions that the reader wants to ask himself or herself. For example there is a short section at the beginning of the narrators second visit where this conversation happens
‘ “I took you for someone else yesterday evening. That bothers me.”
“That mistake?”
“No. That somebody else.” ’. This question and answer tactic employed by Dickens is very similar to that employed by Wilkie Collins in The Dream Woman.
The narrative style in The Black Veil is third person however it is told from the perspective of a naïve medical practitioner who is ‘less callous towards human suffering’ than some of his more experienced colleagues. The fact that he is anonymous draws lots of attention towards his social standing which helps Dickens tie in the hidden moral in the story. The doctor is symbolic of ignorant middle class public men of the time. The conversations with the woman only hint at the truth and there are several ideas being considered inside the reader’s head and, one would presume, inside the doctor’s head. The boy in the story is used to heighten the tension and increase the anticipation of the introduction of the woman as ‘he looked as if he were afraid to introduce her’. Dickens uses paradoxes to keep the reader guessing at the truth. For example the woman says that the doctor is too early to help the patient and to us this does not make sense until at the end light is shed on the story.
The structure in the two stories is similar in that in both Dickens eases tension at the end in order to enhance the effect of the final climax. In The Signalman the narrator comments that he will have a short walk before he visits the signalman when he looks the railway line only to find that the signalman has been cut down by a train. This brief ‘rest’ period beforehand increases the sense of shock when one finds out that the signalman is dead.
In The Black Veil the rest period occurs during the time that the doctor is making his way towards the house. At the end of the story where the doctor opens the curtains and ‘admitted the full light of day’ shows firstly that the body itself has been revealed to the doctor’s eyes and secondly that he will shed light onto the situation and it will all become clear to the reader what has been going on. The final effect of this story is very moral implying that if you are compassionate and caring for others less fortunate than yourself you will be rewarded. The doctor was rewarded for his kindness to the woman by achieving fame and fortune.
To conclude Dickens similar techniques in both stories for building tension. The most effective of which I think is the way he describes settings so vividly and strikingly.
In my opinion The Signalman is a better story as I find the end of The Black Veil somewhat anti-climactic whereas the ending in The Signalman I find makes me think more about the story I have just read.
