The time that the story was written had a great influence on both of the stories .Many more people were exploring places to go and what they could do. More people had extra money than what they had ever had before, and the middle class was growing because of the industrial revolution. I feel TSM is a story that tries to reflect the 19th century society. As advances in technology came about so did the denial of ghosts. The signalman was never out in sunlight and was “Alienated” from his environment.
Both stories have an un-named narrator and both stories involve the narrator going on a physical and mental journey. Like wise in both stories this is obtained by a gothic style of writing that was very popular at this time. The long explanation of the way to get the red room “You go along the passage for a bit, ’said he, ‘until you come to a door, and through that spiral staircase with baize. Go through that ad down the long corridor to the end, and the red room is on your left up the steps.’” The significance of the long distance to the red room show that the narrator is going on a physical journey to the red room. The journey made by the narrator to the signalman is described in an elaborate way, adding to the gothic theme, “time to recall singular air reluctance or compulsion” suggesting there is something more sinister to his descent to the railroad. This writhen in a very gothic style of writing.
H.G Wells uses the three old caretakers in the red room to create a certain mood of mystery at the beginning of the story. When he introduces the “man with the withered arm” it helps create tension and gives it an eerie quality. The caretakers are also left nameless to add to the mood of the story they are referred to as inhuman “Human qualities seem to drop from old people insensibly day by day.”
H.G Wells gives his story TRR a time less quality by making the meaning of the story the worse thing to fear is fear it self “the worse of all thing that haunt poor mortal man,’ said I; and that is, in all its nakedness – Fear! …..”
In the TSM Dickens uses something that Victorian people are scared of the railway. The same as people these days with the internet and mobile phones. It is in human nature to be scared of the unknown and the new. This also gives this story a timeless quality.
Dickens and H.G Wells both use language to create a mood. An example of this in TRR is the narrator describing the corridor lending to the empty, cold and old feeling “The long draughty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty This is made by the repetition’s of certain word’s, simile, and metaphors. The alteration in the length of paragraphs short and long. The Number of short paragraphs in a row “
‘Did it cry out?
‘No. it was silent.
‘Did it wave its arm?’
No it leaned against the shaft of light, with both hands before the face. Like this.’”
An atmosphere is created in both stories in several different ways but all creating a gothic / horror style: “the brooding expectation of the vigil weighed heavily upon me. It was after midnight that the candle in the alcove suddenly went out, and the black shadow sprang back to its place there”. The story has a lot of description in great detail allowing the reader to imagine the situation and the atmosphere: “The flame vanished as if the wicks had been suddenly nipped between a finger and thumb, leaving the wick neither glowing nor smoking, but black. While I stood gaping, the candle at the foot of the bed went out, and the shadows seemed to take another step towards me”.
The writers in both of the stories create a feeling of a mysterious and unnatural place the narrator’s are going to. In TRR this starts straight away with the introduction of the three caretakers but similarly in the signalman it starts nearly at the beginning “struck chill to me as if I had left the natural world.”’
The end of both stories leave you wondering about what fear can do to a person. Neither offers a solution which makes them true mystery stories. I do prefer TSM because I found it engaged the reader more as you; go on a journey with the narrator. It had a more compelling storyline and felt the foundation of the story was more original then TRR. It engages the reader more by having a more true to real life story, people every day imagine that they see and hear stuff.
