The opening line “Halloa” Below there!” instantly gives the reader a sense of expectancy and it makes people think about “who is asking this” and “who are they speaking too”. The line also draws people into the story, as if they are involved. I think this line may have provoked fear into a Victorian reader more than a modern reader, because people in the Victorian era were more familiar with introductions starting with “it was a dark night…” so when they began to read the story, I think that they may have been a little more intrigued about what was to come further on in the story.
Charles Dickens used his descriptions of characters to also stir the reader’s imagination. He gives the signalman a mysterious appearance by mentioning of his “odd skin tone and thick eyebrows”; this gives the reader the impression of a weird looking man. The Victorians were immensely interested in the abnormal and the thought of man who was less than perfect in looks would have intrigued them. This would have given the book an interesting appeal for them. Dickens changed the way the characters behaved throughout the book, at first the signalman seemed quite scared but as the book progressed his mood changed and he became more at ease with the situation but the narrator became more anxious. The narrator seemed like any normal man. However, as the story progressed people became more intrigued about who he was and why he was there. The characters in this book are not typical of the ghost stories of the time as the stories usually included ghosts or visions of the long dead. The signalman was alive and well, this in itself would have seemed unusual to the Victorians.
My impression of the narrator is that it is a man, a gentleman of the time, because of how he speaks, he doesn’t use any local language and he seems very polite. We know it is a man because of a quote in the book, when the signalman speaks to him, he says “but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled..” The fact that the signalman calls him sir indicates that he is a gentleman. I think structuring the story into three separate segments, helps with the suspense, as learning about the ghostly appearance in the first segment, makes the reader want to read on and learn more in the second segment. Perhaps Dickens thought that it would also make reading it easier, more people during Victorian times were becoming literate, and perhaps having the three segments, he thought that it would be easier for people to understand.
I think the story hooks our attention by having the signalman behaving quite mysteriously, we do not find out about his ghostly appearances straight away, but we have to wait until the narrator returns a second night to hear about the ghosts visits.
Tension in the story is built up quite quickly. The narrator finds the signalman a mysterious person and also his description of the place he is in makes it seem quite scary. The ghost is described as a figure, not clearly seen, waving with one hand, while the other hand hides its face. I think the end is a sad one, the signalman was quite scared of the fact that seeing the ghost usually meant the death of someone, but the story explains that the signalman saw the circumstances of his own death, not someone else’s. The Victorians at the time were quite fearful of the railways. Considering they had no cars, or planes, meant that a large number of people were actually killed because of rail accidents. This in itself would have been enough to fuel any fear they had.
Victorians were very interested in the supernatural, and seemed to enjoy reading about ghosts. Many more people went to church than now and, were quite convinced there was more than just life. The afterlife was quite commonly believed in. As modern readers I think that we can read the book and enjoy it, without the fear attached. We are more sceptical about the idea of ghosts and need proof of sometimes before we can accept it on face value.
