Examine the settings which the writers have chosen for their stories in

              Charles Dickens “The Signalman” is inspired by the tragic incident of 1865 where Charles Dickens had been on a subway accident, he had been travelling to London when the train unfortunately killed over ten people, Charles Dickens was upset and distraught, and you will often find his stories are based on his upsetting. Dickens uses words like ‘dungeon’, ’gloomy’ and ‘barbarous’ in his story. The readers automatically think that this is going to be a spooky, lonely setting. When I read the story, I can’t help to get the feeling of a country, foggy, lonely setting, with just an obscure signal box in the middle of nowhere next to the railway. ‘A dripping wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all but a strip of sky’, this particular quote makes the scene look darker by the excluding of the sky, and makes it also look gloomy and damp. Again, to prove my point in the atmospheric settings of the story, I found ‘a gloomy red light and a gloomier entrance to a black tunnel’, the part ‘gloomy red light’ used in my quote, makes the effect by the waving fog passing the red light.

             The Adventure of the Speckled Band was surprisingly written while Jack the Ripper was still active with his gruesome killings; this makes me think some of Doyle’s stories may have been slightly influenced. I think the story lines of the Speckled Band are highly addictive and got me reading till the very end, unlike The Signalman which unfortunately I was bored at some parts, this shows The Speckled Band’s hooking device worked perfectly on me. With lines like ‘The building was grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high central portion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab’, tells me Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a great describer of his stories which means the audience will rarely be lost. Another line I found amongst the story: ‘About nine o’clock the light among the trees was extinguished’, I found this one particularly good, because of its use of words, ‘extinguished’ means ‘to put out’, and that line is describing that the light among the trees was put out or gone away.

          The Red Room was my second best of the three books, the ‘Hooking Device’ did work for me and I thought it was an interesting and original story line. The Red Room is written in what some might call as ‘Gothic Literature’ which involves the most extreme or supernatural, like ghosts, witches and other gothic elements. This story is mostly involved in castles and moonlight, atmosphere wise. ‘The moonlight picked out everything in vivid black shadow or silvery illumination’, this line is also good for explanation, it is saying ‘moons light’ has the dark shadows. Also with ‘Listening to a rustling I fancied I heard, but there was absolute silence’, gives me the expression that maybe he is alone, or hearing things he doesn’t maybe want to.

             Out of these stories I think ‘The Signalman’ was the spookiest, and ‘The Red Room’ was more of gothic style writing. Also, all of these stories are of mystery, with puzzles to solve and answers to be answered, this is what keeps the reader reading until the very end, it would be disappointment for a reader to start a mystery story, and never finish it. If I had to choose a favourite, it would be ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’. The three stories also draw out a good sense of imagery in my mind, this happened throughout me reading the story. What the stories also deliver is a particularly good lighting, with gloomy setting along with a cold feeling, whilst you read them, which is a great bonus when it comes to writing mystery / thrilling stories.