'The Signalman' is as explicit in its irony, as it is effective in its purpose, of creating an awe of mystery around the story.

English Homework 13/09/02

To summarise the story we must first understand that in hindsight the very name of the story, ‘The Signalman’ is as explicit in its irony, as it is effective in its purpose, of creating an awe of mystery around the story. It cruelly but entertainingly, creates the false perception, a façade, of the story’s name being based around the central character of the Signalman, when in fact it is in relation to the ghostly apparition, which gives ‘Signals’ to the haunted signalman in his secluded box.

Dickens indeed uses many of the essential techniques commonly used in short story writing, Starting with only using the bare minimum of important characters.

To set the scene we are thrown straight into the action (the first sign of a short story) And we see that an unnamed character tries to catch the attention of the lonely Signalman (the absence of names is also a sign of a short story, as names can detract from the importance of the singular story and give away too much information).

Through the use of the signalman’s silence we are thrown into wondering who this figure is (building suspense through withholding information) but slowly he lets his guard down and welcomes the un-named character, Mr A, for all purposes to come down. As Mr a gains the trust of the Signalman explains to him his terrifying apparitions before horrible deaths, given to him by a silent figure that then disappears.

The Signalman then speaks of the way that, just before a death, a ghost would appear and do some action that would eventually represent a fatality yet to come, such as mourn for a lost passenger or shield its eyes from the horror of death, and tells Mr A finally that the vision he has had recently is of a this ghost blowing a whistle, that seems only real to the Signal man himself, note that at that this point the Signalman

Also speaks in abundance of his childhood, education and fears, yet very little detail is given to his present circumstance or surrounding, another sign of the short story (an economic/sketchy background).

After trying, and failing, to reason with the Signalman (telling the Signalman that his ‘visions’ were nothing but visions) Mr A decides that there is too much evidence to put them down to coincidence. He instead sets himself the task of settling his friend’s fragile nerves and succeeds. After this he leaves the Signal box and heads for his residence.

Upon returning the next evening, with ...

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Upon returning the next evening, with ideas of taking the Signalman to get some help, Mr A discovers the death of the Signalman, and perhaps even more terrifying the strange circumstances of his untimely death, the exact same case of that of the apparition, with all the actions of the ghost slotting together, as the driver tells us that he had stopped blowing the whistle on the train thinking that the Signalman would move from harms way as an instinct. The final twist (and final sign of the short story)

being that Mr A is in fact, just as influential as the spectre In predicting the chain of events leading to the death of the Signalman (As he was first mistaken for the spectre saying “hallo, below there” the words the driver spoke before the Signalman was killed).

Dickens also uses the literary devices such as repetition, similes and intense description to create the imagery that we are in a very frightening and lonely place, whenever we are with the Signalman. In fact the Signalman is just an ordinary man that gets caught up in a catastrophic chain of events, which lead to his own death,

Which, for the reader completely changes the personality of the ‘spooky’ Signalman into a character of sympathy.

The life of Dickens

1812 7th Feb- born to john and Lizzy dickens

1824- John Dickens sent to Marshalsea Debtors Prison (an experience he comes to use in David Copperfield)

1827- Employed as a solicitor’s clerk (Used later in great expectations)

1829-1831- works for Mirror of Parliament and True Sun

1833- First stories published in Monthly Magazine.

1836- Pickwick papers

1836- Marries Catherine Hogarth

1838- Nicholas Nickelby

1829- The Old Curiosity shop

1843- Martin Chuzzlewit

1843 Dec- A Christmas Carol

1844- Living in Italy

1847- Living in Paris

1848 Oct- Dombey and son

1848 Dec- The Haunted Man

1849 May- David Copperfield

1852- Bleak House

1857- Meets Ellen Ternan (His Mistress)

1858 May- Separates from his Wife

1859- A Tale Of Two Cities

1861 Aug- Great Expectations

1865 Nov- Our Mutual Friend

1870- The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Unfinished)

Life in Dickens’ age

Some things that I picked up on were that perhaps Dickens wrote some of his best work was written once he separated from his Wife, which was still frowned upon in his age. This leads me onto another point, which is that Dickens stories were never happy ones. A lot of the time people misconstrued his moralistic, ironic humour as comedy, when in fact it was a murky reflection of his sordid life. His father was in Jail when Charles still really needed him and although, common as it was, it couldn’t have been very easy for him. After a good education we see Charlie thrown into all sorts of menial jobs and we can imagine him encountering the likes of Wopsle, Estella or Scrooge in his daily duties, and indeed much of his work does correspond to his previous life experiences.

In the 1800’s we saw things that had never been seen before, which prompted things like trains (a relatively new transport from 1830) to have an awe of mystery and the unknown, which Dickens seized upon to create the tension and suspense he held paramount in ‘The Signalman’

We also saw a great amount of skilled artists emerge who influenced and worked with Charles, namely George Cruikshank an artist of the time who illustrated for Dickens during his monthly works in the Monthly Magazine. Also he was an acquaintance of the novelist E.M Forster who would avidly read his work and praise his ability to anybody who would listen.

The Fact that Dickens’ marriage was falling to pieces and would eventually buckle under the extreme pressures he was subjecting it to, was in no question. After his public affair with Ellen Ternan his marriage just snapped, and although I hate to say it, under this horrid emotional pressure he wrote some brilliant work!

Charles Dickens was also a revolutionary, he was the first editor to give Charles Darwin’s Origin of the species a chance in print, and during his life he set up a home for homeless women and a rehabilitation centre for prostitutes. I think that this was due to the fact that he had had so much anguish and pain in his life he just wanted to make other peoples lives a bit nicer, maybe a very basic conclusion but in my opinion, true. His feelings for women seemed very mixed, on one hand he cheated on his wife countless times and in the end left her with his children, but on the other he set up homes for homeless women and a centre for whores.

During the lifetime of the genius the1800’s developed around him so fast he sped along so fast he ended up leaving people behind. He was pushed into writing by three factors, His social conscious, which made him believe that it was his moral obligation to spread the news of how badly the working class of his society were treated and the unfairness of life, secondly to entertain, because his words were so prolific, that he knew that he could touch more lives in this way than in any other, last but perhaps most important, he used his writing to escape. His very unhappy childhood was followed by an unhappy marriage and a messy break up, his works were a way of pouring his emotions, his very soul into these endless volumes, giving him a way of expressing his pain and anxieties to the nation.