When the narrator goes back to see the signalman, the next day, Dickens uses an interesting technique to build up the event again. He tells us that it ‘was a lovely evening’. This completely contradicts the theme of the story. Dickens usually used a ‘dark’, ‘dingy’ and dungeon-like setting: as in the popular Gothic novels of the time. However, here it is a ‘lovely evening’. I think this is done purposely by Dickens to get the reader thinking of what may be to come, because the story so far has been a little predictable: apparition’s appearance followed by an accident, apparition’s appearance followed by an accident. This reference to it being a ‘lovely evening’ may make the reader think something threatening was, in fact, not going to happen and the ending may be a happy one after all. This takes the reader’s mind away from the pattern that is emerging. The reader then has a certain amount of surprise when the signalman dies becoming a victim of the apparition. However, there is another perspective to be looked at: that the ‘lovely evening’ is a symbol of the signalman’s mind being free of his ‘cruel hunting’ and him finally being happy: either in death; or knowing, in his final moments, what the ghostly appearances were all about. Dickens maintains the suspense right until the very end, because he leaves the story unexplained. No one tells us where the ghost came from, went to or if the appearances stop or finish after the signalman’s death. This makes the reader read on to the end of the book in the hope of an explanation, but when Dickens gives no such thing, the reader is left to ponder it for himself.
In ‘The Battler’ the character that is explored by the writer is called Nick. He is trying to get from one town to the next, but is thrown off a train and ends up having to walk. There are a lot of similarities between Dickens’ techniques of creating and maintaining suspense and Hemingway’s. Firstly Hemingway uses a young teenager in America as his main character, who, like the signalman, seems to be alone in the world: He is travelling alone and obviously cannot afford a train ticket as he is thrown off his train by the brakeman. Also, because Hemingway has him as a young teenager he is somewhat vulnerable: like the signalman was in Dickens’ story. The way Hemingway describes Nick’s appearance – he looks to have been beaten up: his ‘pants were torn and the skin was barked. His hands were scraped and there were sand and cinders driven up under his nails’. This adds to the feeling that he is vulnerable.
Hemingway uses a dark forest as the setting for the meeting between the two characters. This is similar to Dickens in that he used a deep and dark railway cutting; Hemmingway describes it as ‘dark and a long way from anywhere’. The language used by Hemmingway indicates that it is an ominous place; one, which you would not want to be lost in. He repeats that it is ‘dark’ and ‘black’ the same way Dickens did with the railway cutting. The forest seems remote and mysterious; it is near a ‘ghostly swamp’. There is a sense of urgency about Nick. Hemingway tells us that ‘he must get to somewhere’, it seems it does not matter where. When Nick finally meets the character, it seems he is more like the narrator in Dickens’ story. He comes across as a man who looked to be alone. ‘He was sitting there with his head in his hands looking at the fire.’ Hemingway uses repetition of the word ‘fire’ to create a scene of tension. This is quite an intense image. Hemingway repeats it (the man sat there looking into the fire’) a second time to make sure the reader forms a good mental picture. The suspense he has then created is maintained and even heightened by the fact that ‘Nick stepped quite close to him’ and ‘he did not move’. This can be likened to the narrator in Dickens’ story on his first meeting with the signalman: the signalman stares at him, and it is not until the narrator gets very close that the signalman even moves. This is done by both writers to create suspense, but it also makes the reader question the signalman’s and the man’s sanity. As in ‘The Signalman’ this question of sanity is continued, and here probably answered, in the dialogue between the two characters. The man starts to talk to Nick as if they were friends. He uses a very familiar tone. For example, his reply to Nick’s ‘Hello’ was; ‘Where did you get the shiner?’ Hemingway carries this on: he has the man engaging in, what most would consider as, a ‘friendly chat’.
Another thing that creates interest in the reader’s mind is the man’s constant reference to fighting. For example, he asks Nick about his ‘shiner’, he says things like ‘It must have made him feel good to bust you’ and ‘get him with a rock’. This creates the expectation, in the reader’s mind, of violence to come, which is similar to when Dickens tells us that there has been a sighting of the ghost but not yet an accident. Both of these comments have the reader waiting for something to happen. When we finally do learn the man’s name (Ad) he still talks to Nick as if they are good friends. There is constant repetition used by Hemingway during the next parts of dialogue. For example, Ad persistently says ‘I’m crazy’. The word ‘crazy’ itself is used seven times by Ad in describing himself. Dickens uses this technique in that the narrator in ‘The Signalman’ thinks the signalman to be crazy on their first meeting.
Hemingway continues to build up the suspense by bringing a new character in to the story without warning. This moves the emphasis onto the un-stereotypical relationship between Ad and Bugs. This distracts the reader into being interested in another area for a while, then when Hemingway concentrates on Ad and Nick again the reader will have refreshed interest. However, Hemingway’s techniques for creating suspense are the same. He incorporates tension into the conversation. Ad seems to be easily ‘whipped up’ and when he says: ‘that ain’t what I asked you’ it suggests he is angry with Bugs’ reply. This refers back to the text earlier when Ad was constantly implying aggression with everything he said. It renews Ad’s sense of violence and the thoughts of something to come. Hemingway describing Ad as ‘the prize fighter’ again heightens this still further. The tension is continued when Ad asks if he could have Nick’s knife and Bugs cuts in very sharply with ‘No you don’t’. This implies that Bugs knows Ad is dangerous and thinks he may do something malicious with the knife. The reader now looks on Ad as dangerous, like Bugs does, and is waiting for him to do something else. All this maintains and even creates more suspense. The narrator keeps the incident with the knife in the reader’s mind, because he mentions it again in the next paragraph (‘since the Negro had spoken about the knife’). This again reminds the reader (like with the constant repetition of violence) that Ad is dangerous: we are still waiting for the climax, with thoughts that it may involve fighting. Soon after this Hemingway uses repetition of something earlier in the story to heighten the suspense. Bugs says something to Ad but: ‘Ad did not answer. He was looking at Nick’. This repeated twice in exactly the same form and Hemingway even tells us that ‘Nick felt nervous’. The reader now almost knows that the violent climax between Nick and Ad is coming and Hemingway does not disappoint. The next sentence is Ad’s explosion.
Hemingway has created and maintained suspense up until this point and now it all breaks with the climax of violence from Ad. Hemingway gives us an explosion of language to illustrate Ad’s own eruption. For example, Ad calls Nick a ‘snotty bastard’ and he asks Nick ‘who the hell’ he thinks he is. This recalls the idea that Ad is dangerous in the readers mind. The words are followed up by more violent words and gestures. Ad repeats words like ‘snotty’, ‘bastard’ and ‘where the hell’ he thought he ‘got off’. The words are followed by actions and the climax comes when Ad is threatening Nick, and trying to make him fight. However, Hemingway has built up all this suspense and as he releases it he brings in another surprise. Just as no one expects the signalman to be the victim of the railway accident in ‘The Signalman’, the reader here does not expect the fight to be broken up by Bugs. This is a very interesting situation created by Hemingway, it seems Bugs knows exactly what to do as he ‘followed behind [Ad]… and tapped him on the base of the skull’. This proves that Bugs knew Ad was dangerous, but also knew not to try and stop his violence by usual methods. In this Hemingway is indicating that Bugs is not the stereotype black man that most 19th Century Americans had in their minds. I think a large part of his story is to do with proving this stereotype to be wrong. Another thing about Bugs is he is ‘gentle’ in laying Ad back down next to the fire after he has knocked him out. He is ‘gentle’: almost graceful. This was a characteristic that Hemingway greatly admired in a man: grace under pressure.
Also the strange relationship the two men have. Bugs seems to look after Ad: he makes and buys his food; protects him; and generally keeps him in line. The relationship is strange because usually black people hated whites (at that time). This tells us that Bugs must get something out of their being together, for example: there were certain things that blacks were not allowed to do, so maybe anything Bugs could not do Ad would either get him into that place or do that thing for him. Hemingway is showing his moral standings on two points here. One of colour prejudice: he believes that the American stereotype of black people was wrong. In ‘The Signalman’, Charles Dickens explores human nature more than the ethics of a situation. I think the point of Dickens’ work is to illustrate the point that new technology and science have a definite place in the new industrial world, but there will always be an element of the supernatural.
Both writers explore slightly differing points, but both use the same basic techniques and effects to get their massage across. They create suspense, maintain it until a point and then let it go in a climax of excitement for the reader. However, their techniques of interesting the reader again slightly differ. For example, Charles Dickens uses complex metaphors when describing the setting: ‘a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon’; ‘barbarous air’, which was popular at the time. Even the grammatical and linguistic usage by Dickens is far superior to Hemingway. Dickens uses colons, semi-colons etc, whereas Hemingway rarely uses anything like that. Hemingway draws on very few alternative words. For example, the word ‘said’ is used to tell us who is speaking: ‘Nick said’, ‘said Ad’, ‘Bugs said’. This is done to suite his audience (the working class). Although the two authors have quite opposing styles, they both use relatively the same techniques when it comes to creating and maintaining suspense.
