‘’ I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderous
Blackness away from me, and lifting up my voice,
Screamed with all my might…’’
By contrast ‘’The Signalman’’ shows isolation in a completely different way. The man has been isolated from people for longer period of time. His isolation is built up in the story by the author in a number of ways. The man describes the place the signalman occupied; also in the way he reacts to the man he meets. He talks like a man who is troubled. The man thinks that ‘‘this was a spirit’’.
‘’ And so much cold wind rushed through it,
That it struck chill to me, as if I had left
The natural world’’
Both stories contain some sort of human premonitions. In ‘’The Red Room’’ the old man warns him before he enters the room. The old man repeats ‘’ its your own choosing’’ on four different occasions, almost to say there is danger ahead. But the man does not take this as forewarning. He thinks the old people are
‘’ Trying to enhance the spiritual terrors of
Their house by their droning insistence’’
In both stories the author creates loneliness. But the loneliness is slightly different in the stories. In ‘’The Red Room’’ loneliness is illustrated by the fact the man is on his own without companions in the red room. When the candles go out in the middle of the story, the man is scared and screaming then eventually dashes for the ‘’Moonlit corridor. This showed his loneliness.
‘’With my head bowed and my arms
Over my face, made a run for the door’’.
The signalman shows loneliness by the fact that he is solitary and is lacking friends or companions. He is isolated and the area he leaves in is uninhabited.
‘’This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said)’’
Other themes in ‘’The Red Room’’ are light and dark and supernatural. Light and Dark is illustrated by the contrast the candles create in the red room.
‘’ I also relit the larger mirror candles’
Supernatural is probably the main theme in the story. Theme is always there when the man is in the red room.
‘’ As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep
Out the two candles on the table’’
The other theme in ‘’The Signalman’’ is light and dark. This is shown by the way the author describes the signalman’s
‘’So little sunlight ever found that spot’’
I think for me H.G Wells builds up tension much better than Charles Dickens. I think this because I could feel the tension building in the red room. I could not feel this in the signalman.
I conclude that ‘’The Signalman’’ and ‘’The Red Room’’ are not similar at all. The only similarity I could find was the in the way both stories are supernatural. Apart from that they are not similar at all. I think this because the two men in the story are in two completely different situations. In ‘’The Red Room’’ the man is scared and very lonely person. He is scared of ‘‘fear’’, which he created himself in the first place. The other man is just more mystified than scared. The signalman was only scared for the future, but he did not know his fate.
