The Signalman

The story is set in a railway cutting near the end of a tunnel. This area is well described by Dickens as a cold, dark, damp and lonely place. There is particular emphasis on the loneliness of the place where the signalman spends a lot of his time and this makes the reader feel a bit sorry for him. Dickens also emphasises the dark and the damp in this deep railway cutting, he does this mainly at the start of the story to set the scene, but all the way through he makes little references to the atmosphere and general mood of the railway cutting. At the start when we are already quite confused by the characters Dickens has a train go past as if to distract the reader he describes how it came out of the tunnel and passed the point where they were standing in considerable detail.

At the start of the story we can tell that the signalman is going to be an important character in the story by the way he is well described by Dickens. Dickens uses the character of the signalman to create suspense; he does this in several ways. Firstly the way the signalman acts and behaves, right from the start the signalman acts in a strange manner. When the narrator shouts down to him from above the signalman looks from side to side along the railway line, this immediately makes the reader think he is strange. As the narrator approaches him he looks white and the narrator thinks that he might be a ghost this raises the reader's suspicion of the signalman and when it is made clear that the signalman is scared the reader knows he is a key character in the story. The signalman has an obviously lonely job but as the narrator talks to him more it becomes clear that he is actually a well educated man who could have gone on to greater things. But despite his education he appears to be going a bit mad, he claims that he is haunted by a spectre that appears every time something bad happens on the train. The first time he saw it the worst accident ever on that section of line occurred, and after the second appearance a women riding on the train died instantly of something, although we never find out what. He is concerned because he has seen the spectre again in recent days and fears another accident is about to happen. He tells the narrator of the spectre and he tries to explain it as an illusion. In this section Dickens manages to add more tension and suspense by having the narrator interrupt the signalman at several key stages and the signalman saying that he is not finished. By the time the signalman had told the whole story the narrator was quite spooked and the fact that the person who does not believe the signalman is nervous makes the reader even more intrigued. The mention of the third appearance of the spectre sets the reader up in anticipation of what and when the third accidents will occur.

The narrator of the story is the visitor to the signalman. This means we can see what the narrator is feeling about the situation, the signalman and what they are talking about, this adds more interest to the story as it provides more insight into the emotions and feelings of the characters. Throughout the novel there are great examples of the mood of the narrator as he deals with these situations. An example of this is shown when the signalman is telling him the story of the spectre; to the signalman he appears to be calm about it and just trying to come up with an explanation for the weird events, but we can tell that he is actually really spooked out by what the signalman is telling him.

As we can see Dickens effectively creates tension and suspense though out the entire story. In the opening he employs general gothic conventions to create a sense of mystery. He also makes the reader suspicious of the main characters in the opening by leading us to believe that they maybe ghosts and then proving that they are not. The setting of the story creates even more suspense by going along with gothic conventions, in a dark, damp and lonely place. It also adds to the tension by it being set on the railway line, which is considered to be a dangerous place, this makes an accident more likely. The characters are also a key factor in creating suspense, especially the signalman, right from the beginning he seems very strange and as the story progresses he becomes more and more strange.

By

Mark Duroe