In The Signalman however, the role of fate is not as large as the role in The Monkey's Paw. The signalman sees a figure waving, and then the next day, a woman dies. This happens twice again. I think that whenever the figure has been seen, it is somebody’s fate to die.
Furthermore, I will look at the suggestion of spectre. In The Monkeys Paw, the paw had been invested with so much power because “it had a spell put on it by an old fakir”, as this “holy man” wanted to get a message across to people that they were not to interfere with fate and its course.
The Signalman is a story about a man who sees a figure, or a spectre several times, and after the sightings, the next day somebody dies. The suggestion of spectre plays quite a big role in this story, and gives a very effective result. “The left arm is across the face, and the right arm is waved, - violently waved.”
Moreover, the setting of The Monkey’s Paw adds to the way Jacobs used the genre of mystery. “Without, the night was cold and wet”. You could imagine a typical mystery scene, with rain, claps of thunder etc – a effective setting. The atmosphere inside the house was equally successful in grabbing my attention, the fire was burning and the blinds were drawn, and this gives me the idea of being ‘cosy’ inside when the weather outside is terrible and miserable – an appealing setting. The story is mostly set at night, which adds to the eeriness.
Equally, Dickens grabs the reader’s attention with a disturbing atmosphere. “The steep cutting nearly over his head” gives me the idea of claustrophobia.
The thought of a “foreshortened and shadowed” figure gives me the sense of a figure that is possessed and not as it seems. Most of The Signalman is set at night, which appends to the eerie atmosphere.
In addition, I would like to mention the strange coincidences. Jacobs writes in the Monkey’s Paw, that Mr White gets £200 compensation for the death of his son.
On the other hand,
To conclude, I must say that I prefer the way that Jacobs used the genre of mystery in his story, as when I read it, it was a lot more effective. Both stories were equally as mysterious, but Jacobs managed to get his ideas across a lot more effectively to me.
