The Signalman was written in 1865, The Red Room was written in 1894 and The Man with the Twisted Lip was written in 1891. Some of the educated classes in the Nineteenth Century were beginning to embrace the modern world and reject mystery, an example of this can be found in the Red Room. At the start of the story, the main character says ‘It will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me’. This means we have an instant sense that the narrator doesn’t believe in the supernatural. Another writer that discusses the supernatural is Charles Dickens in The Signalman. The story is set in London in a railway station, it is a real place. The atmosphere surrounding the story is one of mystery and suspense. This is because in the 1860’s, the railway was a recent invention, people thought it was the latest in cutting edge technology. Victorian readers may have questioned why a ‘spectre’ of a being would have appeared near a railway line. The railways were supposed to be an excellent invention, but now they would feel it connects with ghosts and death. The Man with the Twisted Lip is set in East London, surrounding the network of streets frequented by the dark murderer, Jack the Ripper. This would create an atmosphere of evil, and darkness as a real life murderer walked around these streets, prowling on his prey
Atmosphere is also created by the settings. The Red Room is set in Lorraine Castle, The Signalman is set in a railway tunnel and The Man with the Twisted Lip is set in East London where opium dens crowded the back alleys. The Red Room is set in a ruined castle where the surroundings would be gloomy and mystifying. This creates a dark and terrifying atmosphere; ‘It will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me’ ’show me to this haunted room’ ‘blood on my hands’.
The Man with the Twisted Lip is set amongst the smog that fills the air. This creates a dull, mysterious atmosphere because the surroundings are bizarre and unexplainable, like in the
The Signalman is set in a railway tunnel; this creates an atmosphere of isolation because the signalman has been down there all these years and also of the dark. All these places have an element of the paranormal and the unknown attached to them. Words like ‘frozen finger’ ‘clammy’ and ‘spirit’ all seem to have a air of death around them, this suggests that these words are preparing us for the chilling climax of the signalman’s death.
In each of these stories, words like ‘sallow’ create the feeling of death making it frightening. All these three stories present similar characters because they are all described in unusual way. The reader questions why they perform certain actions. The character in The Signalman has an instant fear of what surrounds him and it makes you think: what has happened to him? In The Red Room, the character of the old woman and men with their wicked repeated words and sallow features makes them scary and mysterious. In The Man with the Twisted Lip, the character of Neville St. Clare is bizarre and very strange. Because of the way he looks, he creates a terrifying atmosphere in the story.
Dialogue also creates atmosphere in all three stories because of the way the writers use it. There is short, quick dialogue as if the main characters have a fear of something, the paranormal. These people might be in shock and don’t say much because they wouldn’t believe what they are saying. In The Man with the Twisted Lip, Sherlock Holmes gives long, detailed speeches so that he can understand the case and perhaps solve it. It would make people feel edgy that he knows this much because hes not a proper detective.
The way the writers deal with the supernatural also creates a fearful atmosphere. In The Red Room, the actual figure of the woman never appears. It is described only as a ‘shape of darkness, to put a curse upon a woman…it lurks here with you keeping with you wherever you go’ The fact the figure never actually appears in The Red Room, it creates a chilling sense of fear because if you cant see it, how do you know its there? However, in The Signalman, the reader can see the ghostly figure. The signalman explains to the narrator of how he sees this figure and how it warns him of future deaths. The fact that the figure doesn’t appear to the narrator but only to The Signalman creates a suspenseful atmosphere. A kind of anticipation of wanting the narrator to see it so he can believe the signalman. But did the signalman imagine it? The signalman has worked in the same dark, isolated place for decades now so it might be possible or maybe everything he sees is the truth.
All three stories use a range of writing techniques to create different types of atmosphere, such as a chilly or gloomy one. In The Man with the Twisted Lip by Arthur Conon Doyle, he uses adjectives like ‘sallow’. Sallow means yellow with a diseased appearance. This symbolises death with creates a dark, heavy, evil atmosphere and anticipates future events. This was also a time when science and theories about the unexplained overtook the paranormal beliefs of many, so it made it more frigtening The stories use repetition on speech, ’I am troubled sir, I am troubled’ this is effective because it creates a sense of tremor and suspense.
All three stories have a chilling atmosphere. For example, ‘black fear will be here, so long as this house of sin endures’. This is a almost cold quote, you imagine the fear lurking around this ‘house of sin’ or the devils house, which conjures a lot of images such as death, witchcraft and evil which were very known of in that time, creating superstition.
In my opinion, The Signalman has the most chilling and dark atmosphere. This is because the spectre is always haunting the signalman but meaning no harm. This unfortunately led to the character’s death because of the ghostly figure. The ending was the darkest point of the story ending it off on a dark, heavy, scary note.
