This means that the signalman was having ‘visions’ of his own death.
Another famous Victorian ghost story was “The Red Room” which was written by H.G. Wells.
The Red Room is about a Duke who use to live in this supposed haunted castle. He died because of The Red Room and his wife left the castle after he died. The caretaker is the only one looking after the castle. The narrator is interested in the Red Room so he visits the castle to check it out. After being warned several times about the Red Room, the narrator took no notice of him so he investigated only to realise that the candles in the room start to go out, so he re lit the ones that went out, but the other candles started to go out. This left the investigator terrified so he tried to light as many candles as he could but the candles kept on going out faster and faster so the investigator was rushing around the room feeling petrified, until he tripped over an object that was on the floor and this resulted in injuring his head. At this point in the story the caretaker opens the door seeing the investigator on the floor with his head bleeding so he gets him out of the Red Room as swiftly as possible.
Another famous Victorian ghost story was “The Monkey’s Paw” which was written by W.W. Jacobs.
The story is about an old couple and their names are Mr. White and Mrs. White and they also had a son named Herbert that posses a monkey’s paw. Their neighbour who was serving the army in India gave the paw to them. The sergeant major explained about the paw. He said that the paw had a magical spell on it by a Fakir, which is a magician. He also mentioned that the paw was bad luck because he explained about the last person that had the paw died after he asked for his three wishes.
… “And has anybody else wished?” persisted the old lady
“The first man had his three wishes. Yes,” was the reply.
“I don’t know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That’s how I got the paw.”
The old couple were very interested in the paw so they decided to ask the major to buy. At first he refused to sell but after a while he agreed to give the paw if he gets the pie in return, so it was agreed. The old couple were thinking about their first wish. After a while they wished for £200 to pay off their house payments. The next day there was a knocking on the door and Mr. White answered the door. It was a man and he said that he was from “Maw and Meggins” the place where the old couple’s son works. The mother was very worried when she heard that the man was from the place that their son was working at.
“ I – was asked to call,” the man at the door said.
“Is anything the matter?” she asked breathlessly
“Has anything happened to Herbert? What is it?”
The man explained that Herbert was caught in the machine whilst working, so in compensation the company gave the couple £200. The old couple were very shocked that their wish had come true, but the consequence was the death of their son. A week later Mrs White woke up suddenly saying
“ The Paw!”
“The Monkey’s paw”
The reason that Mrs. White shouted that out was because she had an idea and that idea was to bring back their son back alive. Mr. White hesitated because he thought that he would come back as the state that his body is now, in the grave. However Mrs. White kept on persisting her husband to make that wish so he did. Later on that night there was a quiet knock on the door, the wife asked what was that and the husband replied that it was a rat running around. Later on the knock was louder and Mrs White was excited as she said that it was Herbert knocking on the door, but Mr White was frightened to see what state Herbert was in; so he tried to stop his wife from answering the door whilst looking for the monkey’s paw. Mrs White escaped Mr. White and hurried down the stairs, whilst Mr White was frantically looking for the monkey’s paw and just when Mrs White was opening the door, Mr White found the monkey’s paw and made his last wish and when the wife opened the door there was nobody there. This is the point where the story ends leaving the reader with an open ending so that the reader can make their opinion on what happened.
In this era, which is the present, people don’t read stories from the past and this is because of the language used in the stories and the technology in this era, which would be televisions, radio, computers etc. Also stories from the past tend to be more complex than the stories that we read today and the stories from the Victorian era is written in a different style from today because of the old fashioned words that are used in the stories which are archaisms and that’s why modern readers find it difficult to read pre-20th century literature.
There are many archaisms or phrases used in the three ghost stories.
Charles Dickens used quite a few archaic words and phrases in “The Signalman”. For instance “Halloa! Below there!” is an archaic phrase, which basically means Hello, below there. Another archaic phrase would be “And did the spectre seem to be there”
In this phrase the word spectre means ghost and if people did not understand that word the readers would find it difficult to understand the story
Also H.G. Wells used quite some archaic words and phrases in “The Red Room”. For instance “Eight-and-twenty years” this mean twenty years. Another archaic phrase would be “That it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me”. This phrase means that it will take a solid ghost to frighten the person, tangible meaning solid, concrete or real.
In “The Monkey’s Paw” written by W.W. Jacobs there are also some archaic words and phrases used in this stories like the other two stories have.
“Hark at the wind”. This means listen to the wind as hark means to listen.
“Father and son were at chess”. This means that the father and son were playing chess.
“I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and jugglers”. The word that is an archaic word is fakir and that means a holy magician.
In each of these stories that is tension and suspense. For instance in “The Signalman” the narrator indicates the disturbing climb down the abrupt embankment that: - “it struck chill to me as if I had left the natural world behind.” The main aspect in this story would be the atmospheric description used.
“Down in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset.”
Moreover Charles Dickens conveys the anxiety that his narrator feels on hearing the signalman’s references to the “spectre” and this leaves the narrator spooked.
In “The Red Room” there is quite a lot of tension and suspense and this is because of the pace of the story. At first the pace is slow and calm, but as the story slowly unravels the pace starts to become thicker and faster. H.G. Wells describes the mysterious snuffing out of the candles with a vivid image. “It was like a ragged storm cloud sweeping out the stars.” This quote explains how powerful the candles are going out and this is a useful device into creating a good atmospheric description.
“As the mantel emerged from darkness again, two candles in the remoter end of the window were eclipsed.”
This quote is also descriptive on the atmosphere and this quickens the pace in the story, which enhances the tension.
In “The Monkey’s Paw” there is also tension and suspense as these are the ‘ingredients’ into making a good ghost story. At first the pace of the story is slow and this is because that Jacobs is setting the scene descriptively before the fast pace suspense comes later in the story.
Before the pace becomes thick and fast Mr. White warns his wife that their poor son “has been dead for ten days” and would be “too terrible for you to see” due to the mutilations caused by the horrible accident. But the wife insisted that the wish should be made and so Mr. White did. The pace become fast and thick as the knocks on the door become more louder and more frequent but when Mr. White makes his last wish and the knocking stops, then the suspense tension and pace slow down.
The reason why pre-20th century stories is still popular because it keeps the reader interested because of the language devices like similes and metaphors that authors use. Also pre-20th century stories are sometimes adapted for film and TV because of the success of the story itself and the interest of the readers and this is a good market to adapt a story because the film or TV program will attract audiences that wasn’t interested in the story.
Stories of the supernatural continued to be so popular because of the way that it has been written, the language used in the stories and the suspense and pace that is also used in supernatural stories. Also people in the pre-20th century was very interested in supernatural events so ghost stories was very entertaining in those times and still is today.
I like these kind of stories because the language, pace, tension and suspense techniques that are employed in the stories motivate me into reading more supernatural stories that are done by the past. One of the three Victorian ghost story that I enjoyed the most would have to be “The Red Room”. This is because the pace was very thick and fast during the suspense and tension used in that story.
