English coursework on 3 stories

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English Coursework by Shekeb Neda 10.9

Miss Jennings

Examining the Setting Of

‘The Signal Man’ ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’

And ‘The Red Room’

‘The Signal Man’, ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ and ‘The Red Room’ are all stories which have been written during The Victorian Times. However, ‘The Signal Man’ by Charles Dickens is the oldest of the three and is set in the mid-Victorian era. The description of the stories gives us a hint that the stories are written during the Victorian era as it differs from the modern England. ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ was written in 1891 and ‘The Red Room’ in 1894, which were around about thirty years after ‘The Signal Man’. This conveys that they were written during the late Victorian times. Most importantly, all three stories were successful in accomplishing suspense and tension. In the Victorian era, there was a sense of foreboding, as people were inherited into the class system from their previous ancestors.

The choice of settings differs in all three stories depending on the plot. It could be said that, the reader will automatically notice during what period the story was written. The ways that the author describes the setting give a noticeable difference from the present. The three stories were serialized and published in weekly magazines; this way the authors had to have a high-quality plot to engage the reader and to force the reader to carry on reading to the end of the story. Moreover, it is significant for the authors of all three stories to create atmosphere in the stories. They had to give a clear and imaginable description of the setting alongside the plot of the stories. The settings of ‘The Signal Man’, ‘The Man with the ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ and ‘The Red Room’ is the traditional gothic setting, as the depilated and derelict buildings were often inhabited by people who neglected their own welfare and were regarded as morally corrupt.

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As ‘The Signal Man’, ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ and ‘The Red Room’ were all written during the same period; quiet similar methods were used to generate tension and atmosphere. Pathetic fallacy is used throughout the three stories; for example, in ‘The Red Room’ “coming in by the great window on the grand staircase, picked out everything in vivid black shadow or silvery illumination.” Robust descriptions are used in all three stories to give a image of the characters and settings in our minds. Using the powerful descriptions also get the reader engaged by creating tension and suspense ...

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