The next tale is ‘The Signalman’, this makes us think that we know some content of the story. A signalman is a very lonely job and we get the feeling that he is isolated from the outside world and the busy city life.
The settings of the tales are not very similar, but they are both set in dark places and the settings are in public places. ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ is set during the nighttime this is dark and mysterious and ‘The Signalman’ is set in a dark tunnel. This is also a good way of creating mystery, as what could lie ahead at the end of the tunnel. But the feeling of being in a warm house in ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ gives us a sense of safeness. This is different to ‘The Signalman’ as it gives us the feeling of cold, damp surroundings. Also the feeling of trains dangerously going through the tunnel makes us feel vulnerable. The language in the stories plays a key part in the creation of mystery. In ‘The Signalman’ we think differently about him and this creates mystery as written in these descriptions, “There was something remarkable in this manner of doing so, though I could not of said for my life what.” This description makes us think twice about him again. When Dickens uses language like ‘remarkable’ to describe the signalman, we become very desperate into solving the mystery that Dickens has set us up to find.
The descriptions that Jacob’s sets up in ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ are both detailed and thrilling, the monkey’s paw is just a paw dried into a mummy. “He took something out of his pocket and proffered it. Mrs White drew back with a grimace, but her son taking it, examined it curiously.” The monkey’s paw is described as being mummified; this suggests a supernatural quality like the Egyptian pharaohs. Again curiosity and mystery gets the better of Mrs White’s son as he takes the monkey’s paw. Mrs White draws back with grimace when she sees the monkey’s paw this gives us the impression that it is a horrid thing to look at or that she could be superstitious. “If you keep it, don’t blame me for what happens”… “Hold it up in your right hand and wish aloud, but I warn you of the consequences”. This clearly shows that the sergeant major has experienced bad things with the monkey’s paw. Word’s like ‘warn’, ‘consequences’ clearly show that the paw is evil and that you should be careful of what you wish for.
‘The Monkey’s Paw’ and ‘The Signalman’ were written in the 19th century and people from that time had a big demand for horror, death and mystery stories. So Dickens and Jacobs must have been popular as writers at that time for delivering all these genres in their short stories. The two stories both ended with a death and a good description of how that person was killed. In ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, Herbert is crushed in the machinery at work and the signalman is ‘cut down’ by a train.
Both of these stories, people died because of different types of industry, industry was at its peak in those days and both writers used industry an exciting look into to the future to cause death in both tales. This would have really captured the eyes of the nineteenth century reader.
