“His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw.”
The signalman was obviously in fear of something within the area because he kept looking quickly over at the tunnel entrance sharply.
“He directed a most curious look towards the tunnel’s mouth, and looked as if something were missing”
Reading this story makes me feel like something weird is happening and does set a mood that leaves me in suspense. When reading through this story at first the signalman seemed like a strange man too me, but as I read on it was easy to see that he was disturbed because of the very unusual things that had been happening to him. As the narrator gets to know the man better their relationship develops into one that they seem to withhold no secrets from each other.
Dickens adds many little phrases within the text to remind you of the atmosphere he is trying to maintain. For example – he closed the door (to keep out the unhealthy moisture).
Later in the story Dickens adds the signalman explaining to the narrator why it is that he is scared of the narrator shouting “helloa bellow there”.
It is because the signalman had seen a person or spirit standing beneath the red light near to the tunnel’s mouth shouting “helloa bellow there” before on a number of occasions, every time this had happened an incident had taken place on his stretch of line.
This makes me understand why the signalman was fearful of the narrator when they first met, and why he chose to ignore him when shouting down to him.
The best descriptive paragraph in the story is as follows: -
“ I resumed my downward way, and, stepping out upon the level of the railroad and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a cracked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction, terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthly deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it that it struck to chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.”
I think that this is an excellent paragraph for describing both the signalman and his surroundings, it is full of description and Dickens has obviously thought about his use of language carefully as his writing contains many metamorphic words. Dickens also uses some personification in describing the “dampness of the dungeon”.
The conversation with the signalman also heightens the suspense. Short one line question and answers leaves the reader needing to know the full story. As the story unfolds and more information is passed on, the reader begins to draw his or her own conclusions, however the full picture is never quite clear, again building suspense
When the narrator could think of nothing to say his mouth was ”very dry”. Dickens uses these phrases to build suspense
“He bit his under lip as though he was some what unwilling” is another example
Once the story has been revealed the question of what the sceptre is trying to warn of is tackled. Here Dickens continually uses the word danger. In two short paragraphs beginning “what is it warning against” he uses the word danger six times.
The narrator leaves the Signalman but leaves us in no doubt doing so troubles him. The suspense is heightened on his return as the man “with his left sleeve across his face” appears. The dash down “the notched path” brings the suspense to a climax before the final twist is revealed.
