I am only going to be concentrating on three of the stories, which are; 'The Superstitious Mans Story' by Thomas hardy, 'The Signalman' by Charles Dickens and 'The Cone' by HG Wells. I want to compare the three stories, to see how they prepare

Now I will look at the people in the stories and concentrating on the main characters. In ‘The Superstitious Mans Story’ the main character is William Privett who is described as ‘silent’, ‘curious’ and omnipresent  ‘you could feel when he came near ee’. In ‘The Cone’ the main character was Horrocks who is described as having a ‘clumsy figure’ and was the manager of blast furnaces. In ‘The Signalman’ the main character is the signalman who is described as having a ‘solitary’ existence. He is  ‘a dark sallow man’ with ‘rather heavy eyebrows’. The authors all describe their characters and put them in the environment of their setting. It would seem that all the main characters are distinctive and the authors are creating tension by describing their characters and settings, which will allow for their place in the story to unfold.

I am now going to be looking at the deaths in each story and comparing them. In  ‘The Superstitious Mans Story’ William died in his sleep after taking a lunch break ‘and then John went up and shook him, and found that he was dead’. In ‘The Signalman’ the signalman was cut down by a train accidentally ‘he was cut down by an engine, sir.’ In ‘The Cone’ Horrocks murdered Raut in an act of vengeance for sleeping with his wife ‘Fizzie you hunter of women’, ‘suffocating gas whooped out and burned round him in a swift breath of flame’ All three deaths were distinctly different, one is a natural death in ‘The Superstitious Mans Story’ another is a mysterious accidental death in ‘The Signalman’ and finally one is a cold blooded murder in ‘The Cone’. The similarity is that all the deaths are strange in their own way and unexpected to the reader after the scene and characters have been set.

As already identified all the authors were Victorians writing at the time of the industrial revolution. All the authors chose to set their stories in the time when they were writing enabling them to draw on personal experience. This was also a time when social background and the class system were very important and distinct. An example appears in ‘The Signalman’ where the story is told in the first person narrative by one we can assume to be a person of some standing by the respect afforded to the narrator by the signalman ‘True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you.’ The use of language here also shows that by being grammatically incorrect the signalman probably did not have the same education of the narrator whose English is very correct. ‘ In The Superstitious Mans Story’ Hardy uses the language of rural Victorian England ‘I can tell ‘ee, by what we saw.’ This dates the story and shows the social context. HG Wells who also wrote ‘The Time Machine’ was always fascinated by the progress of the industrial revolution and it is no surprise that his story is set in an industrial environment.

All three stories were enjoyable and it is interesting too see and compare how each author develops their storyline and builds excitement through his description of characters in their setting. I preferred ‘The Signalman’ as the scene set was genuinely eerie by being so isolated and lonely. Only two characters and the mysterious nature of the death where a premonition is fulfilled, also lend to the atmosphere of the story.