How do Charles Dickens and H.G. Wells create a sinister atmosphere in the opening of The Signalman and The Red Room?
‘The Red Room’, written by the extremely well-known author, Charles Dickens, and ‘The Signalman’, written by H.G. Wells, are two famous stories written in the Victorian era which reflect interests of their time and displays traits that place them in the gothic horror genre of their time. Dickens and Wells create a supernatural and sinister atmosphere in ‘The Signalman’ and ‘The Red Room’, through character behaviour and description and setting, and the way they do this will be examined and discussed in great detail.
Paragraph 2
On the first page, Dickens draws the reader’s attention to the Signalman’s behaviour through the observations of the narrator. As the narrator shouts: “Helloa Below there!” the Signalman does not look up: ‘he turned himself about and looked about the Line’. The fact that the Signalman looked down the line rather than looking above, suggests to the reader his odd behaviour; he is dedicated to his work, and an encounter with another person is rare, this indicates a supernatural atmosphere because the signalman’s actions are different to that of a normal human being. In addition, the narrator repeats ‘Helloa! Below!’ in order to catch the Signalman’s attention: ‘He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him’. Two points regarding the supernatural and the sinister can be made about this quote. Firstly, Dickens creates a feeling of supernatural in the Signal man by emphasising the distance between him, and a normal person – the narrator. Secondly, in the Victorian times, people strongly believed in hell and heaven, and the fact that the Signalman is below the narrator symbolises that the Signalman is in hell, this in turn, creates a sinister feeling. Furthermore, Dickens portrays the Signalman to be different to human, which confuses the narrator: “There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my life what.” The Signalman’s odd actions have confused the narrator, which therefore confuses the reader. This creates a supernatural atmosphere. These three quotes indicate the isolation of the Signalman and symbolises hell as well as emphasising the distance between them, Dickens also uses the technique of confusing the narrator to confuse the reader, which results in a supernatural atmosphere. In comparison to ‘The Signalman’, Wells creates a sinister and supernatural atmosphere as the narrator becomes less confident and more frightened due to the custodians odd behaviour. The narrator says: ‘I must confess I had scarce expected these grotesque custodians’ and: ‘I must confess that the oddness of these three old pensioners in whose charge her ladyship had left the castle’. These two quotes hint to the reader two things. Firstly, the repetition of ‘I must confess’ indicates the insecurity in the narrator, this could be compared to ‘The Signalman’ when the narrator says ‘I hoped?’, which lets us see into the narrators thoughts which increases atmosphere and indicates to the reader that the narrator is now unsure. Secondly, the fact that both times the narrator says ‘I must confess’, he continues the sentence talking about the abnormality of the custodians, this tells the reader that he has gradually become less confident. This in turns adds to the supernatural atmosphere. Moreover, Wells uses triplets, similarly to the way Dickens uses triplets in ‘The Signalman’, to emphasise how isolated the narrator feels: ‘the three of them made me feel uncomfortable, with their gaunt silences, their bent carriage, their evident unfriendliness to me and one and other’. This quote indicates the unsociable characters of the custodians which makes the narrator feel awkward, this emphasises the supernatural atmosphere.
