Explore the way in which Westall and Dickens create suspense and mystery in the two ghost stories,

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Vikash Sharma

Explore the way in which Westall and Dickens create suspense and mystery in the two ghost stories, “The Call” and “The Signalman”.

The two ghost stories “The Call” written by Robert Westall and “The Signalman” written by Charles Dickens, both create suspense and mystery to engage the reader’s attention. “The Call” is narrated by a person who did not experience the events of the story but heard it from other people, and he also knew the characters. In contrast “The Signalman” is narrated by one of the characters in the story, and is therefore in first person. The ghost story genre has had enduring popularity over the past few centuries. It can even be found as far back as the Elizabethan era, where Shakespeare used ghosts as characters in his plays. For example in Macbeth, the ghost of Banquo comes back to haunt Macbeth. This genre has been so popular because the phenomenon of the supernatural cannot be explained and it ignites a fear in many of us. This was more so when the subject of ghosts were fairly new in literature, around the time when Dickens wrote “The Signalman”, and therefore the story would have been quite different for readers. However when Westall wrote “The Call” in 1989-some 120 yrs after The Signalman was written, society was much more sceptical about the integrity of the issue of ghosts and therefore the story would have to be more persuading over its realism. Furthermore, Dickens wrote the tale whilst England was going through an industrial revolution, changing the landscape and people’s attitudes. Dickens was not altogether supportive of the new technology of which railways were an example. He is expressing doubts about how this technology might affect people. Over the course of this piece of writing I will try to explore the different ways in which these two writers try to create suspense and mystery in their respective tales.

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As I have already touched upon, The Call” opens with the narrator speaking in 3rd person. He heard the story through other people and never actually experienced the story or even was a character in it. However he does know the main characters well and therefore the integrity of his story can be questioned,” The rest is hearsay, from the log’s they kept”. The exposition in this story is of the narrator telling the background of the story and explaining why the circumstances of Christmas Eve came to. The Signalman is narrated in first person. It is a man’s (who’s identity ...

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