Year 10 GCSE Literature Coursework
In the following essay I will be discussing the ways in which Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe evoke setting and atmosphere in their respective short stories ‘The Signalman’ and ‘The Black Cat’.
In ‘ The Signalman’, there are various themes, one of which is technology, for the setting is at a railway signal box, which was then one of the very latest in cutting edge technology and industrialization. This theme could also link to a different novel by Dickens, ‘Hard Times’, which is a novel based primarily on technology as well. Another is Dickens’s attention to class, giving the story a Victorian idea. As well as having a historical context, there’s also a personal and social context and a literal and metaphorical context. This helps with the whole effect and atmosphere of it being a ghost story. The atmosphere is also helped with frequent details of imagery that also contribute to the overall mood of the story and there’s also a feel that the narrator is sharing his sensations with the reader throughout these short detailed passages: ‘a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all but a strip of sky’. I think that this is used because of how threatening it sounds as an adjective and that it gives a sense of claustrophobia. Here’s another very simple yet powerful extract from the text: ‘this great dungeon’. It’s very short, but it gives the reader lost of ideas, and the use of imagery give such as a sense of being trapped inside and the color black that also relates to cold and evil and the sense of being a prisoner. These are just two of the many phrases used that really do give a good sense of the mood of the story being quite personal and metaphorical. The narrative perspective adds also to the feeling and mood of the story. In ‘The Signalman’, the narrator is in the first person. This helps give a sense of the story being more personal and imposing on the reader. It also gives a sense of being more involved in the story, that’s always important in a ghost story.
