Dickens appeals to all our senses in his descriptions of the setting. The visual appearance of the cutting is described as “extremely deep and unusually precipitate” and the signalman had a “lonesome post to occupy” in “as solitary and dismal a place” that the narrator had ever seen. The impression of the cutting is of a “great dungeon” set in a sunless spot with “jagged” high stone walls and “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”. The strange use of the word barbarous personifies the cutting as a wild, untamed place. From the use of extreme words and harsh descriptions, powerful and dark images are drawn of a desolate, hostile place. Dickens has created a disturbing atmosphere and mood.
Further feelings of unease and repulsion are created as Dickens appeals to our other senses in his descriptions. The “dripping wet walls” were of “a clammy stone that became “oozier and wetter” as the narrator descended into the cutting and the tunnel had “wet stains stealing down the walls”. The air of the cutting had an “unhealthy damp” and felt “chill” to the narrator. These descriptions produce feelings of descending into a tomb or into hell and are enhanced by the “earthy deadly smell” and a “cold wind rushed” through the cutting making the narrator feel as though he had “left the natural world”. The narrator adds to the supernatural feeling when he states that the cutting is an “unnatural valley” and the sound coming through the telegraph wires is of a “wild harp”. Again when the narrator is listening to the signalman’s story he describes the sound of the wind and wires as a “long lamenting wail”. Dickens heightens our apprehension even in a simple description of a normal event such as a train coming through the tunnel. This, however would not have been a normal event in Dickens’ Day. He builds the tension as he describes “a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation and an oncoming rush”. Through these graphic descriptions which appeal to all our senses Dickens has changed a seemingly ordinary setting of a railway cutting into something mysterious and disturbing.
The descriptions of the setting contain further references to the supernatural and this plays on our imagination. Reflected in the setting is our first view of the signalman who is described as someone with a “saturnine face” who was a “spirit, not a man”. Our impressions of the setting are seen through the eyes of an unnamed narrator and throughout the tale we are not given the names of either the exact location of the cutting or the signalman. This does not detract from the vivid descriptions of the setting but only adds to the mysterious atmosphere of the story.
In The Man with the Twisted Lip, Conan Doyle uses several locations in the city and countryside in which to place his story. His settings convey what life was like in Victorian England. Like Dickens, Conan Doyle also describes very graphically an unpleasant setting. The tale revolves around events that happen in an opium den but we are introduced to this setting through the effects that the opium has on a character Isa Whitney. The narrator, Watson, describes Isa as a “slave to the drug…with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point pupils all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble man”. There is however no mystery in this description but instead we feel pity for the victim of addiction.
Conan Doyle places his opium den in London in Upper Swandam Lane, “a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves which line the north side of the river”. The personification of an alley “lurking” enhances the impression of a gloomy disgusting place peopled with suspicious, “dregs of the docks” characters. Conan Doyle further emphasises the ominous nature of the opium den by describing “the steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave…down the steps, worn hollow by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet…by the light of a flickering oil lamp”. Like Dickens, Conan Doyle has the narrator descending into a dark and gloomy place to create the atmosphere of unease
Not only does Conan Doyle appeal to our sense of sight in the description of the setting of the opium den but the interior is made worse by the oppressive smell and taste of opium as the narrator enters “a long low room, thick and heavy with the brown opium smoke and terraced with wooden berths, like the forecastle of an emigrant ship”. With this comparison we can also imagine the unpleasant conditions of the den as the narrator has to hold his breath to keep out “the vile stupefying fumes”.
However although the opium den is depicted vividly as an unpleasant place, it is not a mysterious place and the descriptions of the den only provide a backcloth to the plot and are interspersed with comforting descriptions of Watson’s home, a visit to the countryside and back into London to Bow Street.
Conan Doyle draws contrasting images of the city and the countryside. The journey through the city at night is described as an “endless succession of sombre deserted streets…with a murky river flowing sluggishly beneath…a dull wilderness of bricks and mortar …with a dull wrack … drifting slowly across the sky”. The impression that we gain is of a silent, ponderous, monotonous, empty city. Conan Doyle contrasts this with a more lively impression of the countryside in Kent as Holmes and Watson “rattled along with a country hedge upon either side…. through two scattered village” where “a few lights glimmered at the windows”. They stay in a “large and comfortable” room and Holmes constructs an “eastern divan” where he begins to solve the mystery. Watson wakens to the “summer sun shining into the apartment”. The description of Holmes smoking his pipe is described in a pleasant way with the “smoke still curled upward and the room was full of a dense tobacco haze”. These are pleasant welcoming images which contrast with the repugnant image and vile fumes of the opium den.
Whereas we do not know the identity of the setting or characters in The Signalman”, everything in the setting of The Man with the Twisted Lip is recorded in precise detail. We know exact times and places where every event takes place. This precision is necessary to the solving of the mystery but also lessens any unease we may feel as the mystery becomes tangible with a logical solution that will be discovered by Holmes. The effect that this creates is one of orderliness and control and despite the unpleasant nature of the opium den the atmosphere is not threatening.
The writers have produced the settings in the two tales for two very different purposes. In the Signalman the setting is a key element in creating a sense of foreboding and unease of the unknown. The singular setting dominates in a very powerful and intense way to create an eerie and mysterious atmosphere. Dickens has created these effects by his vivid descriptions which appeal to our senses, emotions and imagination and we are left with unanswered questions. In contrast, the settings in The Man with the Twisted Lip reflect the realities of Victorian England areas and they do not assume the same sense of mystery but are used to provide a realistic context in which a mystery can be solved. Through using precise descriptions the atmosphere created in the settings is not disturbing and Conan Doyle has left nothing to the imagination. Both writers have used their settings to create different impressions but both contribute to the atmosphere of the tales.
