As he was startled by what was called out to him would have also added to his pasty complexion due to him being shocked as he were.
If the signalman was on the Island with the children in ‘Lord of the Flies’ his features would have one of two effects
- He’s long beard and sallow complexion would have scared the children
- He would have been signalled and when the majority of the boys turned to savages may have even been murdered himself. Although he might of kept sanity on the Island.
Piggy’s personality and features are significant to why he died. If he had not of looked the way that he did or criticised the way that he did then he may have not been killed. Piggy reacted when people were doing the wrong thing and he reacted in an almost aggressive manner (which was not in Piggy’s nature).
An example of this is when they were making the fire. Piggy wanted to take things calmly and think whilst the boys rushed in and made a mess of the situation in not producing any smoke. Piggy always corrected the other boys if they were wrong. This (from experience) can be annoying and cause anger. Anger then leads to a sudden outburst and this is where bullying comes from.
Piggy and the signalman are never called by their real names this may have a hidden meaning. They both get killed and so after they are killed there names are not relevant but people remember their nickname. Piggy has been named after his looks but the signalman has been named after his occupation.
Piggy’s death may have been an accident but it more than defiantly was not. A rock being pushed from a cliff and knowing that there are people below can be no accident. Someone is going to get hurt and in Piggy’s case brutally Murdered.
The rock must have also been of a considerable size as it was virtually as big as Piggy.
“The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee”
The rock may not have killed Piggy instantly depending on the force that the rock hit him and where it hit him. Whereas the Signalman’s death would have been instant.
The train driver did try to warn the Signalman but the Signalman did not listen as he thought that it was the spectre who stood at the warning light calling him once again as he had recently been doing frequently. The train driver could not stop in time and so unintentionally cut the signalman down with the massive steam engine.
Both have friends who may have been able to prevent their deaths. Ralph although he had lost most of his influence and power over the boys by the time that they turned to savages could have been able to reason with jack and so the situation would have been resolved. There would not have been a situation in the first place though if Ralph’s pride had not got the better of him and decided to go and confront jack with the support of all the other savages/boys. As the boys became more like savages Piggy’s death did become more probable. The savages chant when hunting also predicted Piggy’s death
“Kill the beast
Cut his throat
Spill hiss blood”
A pig is a small beast and the nickname for a pig is piggy. Piggy’s blood was spilled eventually along with the contents of his head. Also when they use “his” they are referring to the pig as a person and so linking the chant to a person.
The Signalman also had the narrator who befriended him and too shared his concerns over the ghost’s. The difference was that the narrator showed his concern by trying to give a logical answer for what seemed like ‘supernatural experience’.
“I showed him that this figure must be a deception of his sense of sight”
When Charles Dickens wrote the Signalman, people were very superstitious. They did not just believe in ghost but took it to the extreme where many though that they new ghosts were real.
The railway was a new idea and was just staring out at the time that this book was written. As they were no new there were many accidents caused by the poor signalling and the lack of experience in managing the railways. In the book it describes the signalman as being good at his job and so mistakes should have been rare. As he himself said in the book: if he was to report danger on the line he could not give a good reason and so would be sacked. People did not know that the reason for the accidents were down to the poor signalling and so liked it with supernatural activity. Many believed that there was a ghost in every dark corner. If this was the case then the cutting where the signalman was situated would have been riddled with them. Swarming the tunnel like rats to a sewer.
The fact that in a way the ghost lured the signalman to his death proves that when ghosts are involved death was sure to follow. Ghost story’s are supposed to be real or seem as real to the reader as possible.
Dickens never wrote the story to frighten or scare the reader’s but to send a chill down their spines. The differences between the two writers are that Charles Dickens story’s were all said to have been based around true real life experiences. This suggests that Dickens was the narrator and was the one who befriended the signalman.
William Goldings story was about fictional characters and a made up island. Lord of the flies was a story that was part of its time. The story was written soon after the was and was influenced massively by the War. Lord of the Flies is an allegory, and the message was to do with the time when it was written. Instead of railways being in the public imagination as in the Signalman, a nuclear holocaust was there striking fear into the public and so William Golding also influenced by the fear wrote an astounding book on the subject and used it as an excuse to put the boys on the Island.
The war has influenced the book because the novel is all about good and evil. In a way the Axis powers were the good and so were represented by Ralph, Piggy and the Conch standing up for democracy, and Jack Meridew along with the rest of the savages as his loyal army representing the Germans.
By
Daryl White
