COMPARE THE SIGNALMAN BY CHARLES DICKENS AND THE RED ROOM BY H.G WELLS EXAMINING HOW THE WRITERS CREATE TENSION AND SUSPENSE IN THEIR STORIES.

The signalman is evidently going to be an important character once they get talking and his actions are very weird to start off with. He stands intently in the railway with his hand on his chin, not moving a muscle until they are face to face 'Before he stirred I was near enough to have touched him'. Also when they do meet he makes no attempt to start a conversation, instead he looks at the red light 'Look towards the red light' He seems very mysterious and unpredictable. As they begin to talk again the signal man becomes defensive and the narrator thinks that he might be a ghost 'This was a spirit'. The signal man then starts to be scared of the narrator which builds suspense because you don't know why he is scared yet. The signal man is also described as having an attitude of 'expectation and watchfulness' like something is waiting to happen with him. In contrast in the Red Room the main character does not have any initial fear towards any specters and is brave enough to go in and stay in the 'haunted' room. His confidence along with his skepticism of the room being haunted introduces conflict between the other characters, the old man and his wife, and another old man who dare not go in the room because they believe it is haunted. This conflict between their opposite views creates drama and tension. The old people are portrayed as very wise in the stories they tell about the room and their knowledge about it but have never actually been in it. During the story the names are never mentioned which creates great mystery for example one of the old men is referred to as 'the man with the withered arm'. You don't learn much about the back ground of the young man in the "red room" apart from that he is 28 years old and has never seen a ghost in his life but that could lead to the eventual suspense if he ever encountered one. Also by the way he talks you can tell he is a well-spoken and well educated man. In "The Signalman" you learn that the signal man is quite a well learned man, he 'Worked at fractions and decimals'. This asks the question if he was well educated and is a clever man why did he end up working in the railway lines. He is also a very skilled workman 'Safest of men to be employed'. These questions add mystery to his identity which therefore builds up the suspense. When the narrator talks with the signalman, the signalman keeps looking out towards the tunnel. So you don't know what's there or what's going to happen. The signal man is a very lonely man who hardly sees any one from the outside world this could make him slightly crazy and hilusinative; this sustains an edginess tension to him. He tells the narrator in their first meeting that he is 'troubled' this makes the reader think what troubles he has and could it be to do with his weird actions previously, and what will happen next. This also builds suspense.

The setting is an integral part of any gothic novel. There are both similarities and differences in the type of settings the writers have chosen for their stories and Dickens has gone for a more contemporary setting where as Wells tried to capture the settings of the typical gothic genre novel. The setting in the red room is typical of a Victorian ghost story. It is set in a dilapidated and derelict castle. The old people who inhabit the place cannot use most of it to live in because they are afraid of the 'red room'. This keeps them well away from that section of the castle creating mystery towards the room. The old people can be looked at as part of the setting; they're weird with a sense of decay and death about them making the narrator feel uncomfortable and edgy with them. When the narrator is on his way to the red room he comes across what looks like a figure in front of him only to find it was a 'porcelain Chinaman on a Buhl table.' The narrator would already be nervous enough going to the room then all of a sudden he sees an object which would probably frighten him and then there is relief as he realises it is just an ornament. This type of build up then release of suspense using the setting sustains tension. In the signalman the setting is also very mysterious and prone to weird goings on. It is set in an 'Extremely deep and unusually precipitous' and 'Solitary and dismal' cutting with in a train station. It seems like the place is very isolated, damp and dangerous and cut off from the real world, the perfect place for supernatural happenings 'Great dungeon'. The tunnel also creates suspense because the narrator looks down there in this first place and you don't know what could be down there, it is described as 'Barbarous, depressing and forbidding', so the smells and surroundings make him a little bit reluctant to go down to the signalman when there is an 'Air of reluctance'. I think the main way both writers use the setting to create a spooky and unnerving atmosphere and build a bit of suspense and tension is how they put nearly all the action in darkness. For example in the signalman the scene is set within the deep cutting at dusk, because of the darkness the two men don't get to see each other properly until they are face to face which is too late if one man kills the other. 'I was near enough to have touched him'. It makes you think that he is taking a risk by going down there so tension builds up more and more the closer they get to one another. Also the two men meet both times at the bottom of the cutting at night 'I will come at eleven'. This keeps the tension due to the darkness; the atmosphere would be much easier and less tense if they were meeting during the day. Also the darkness impairs the narrator's vision so he does not know what is out there. In the red room it also uses darkness and shadows to create suspense. As he becomes more aware of the shadows in the room the tension rises, 'The shadow in the alcove at the end in particular had that undefinable quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking, living thing, that comes so easily in silence and solitude.' The darkness creates tension and fear. In light, he can see but when it is dark he can't see and so tension and fear is all around him.

The main themes of both stories are the supernatural and partly fear. Suspense is created through the supernatural in both stories. It represents the unknown and is frightening for the characters as it creates mystery and an unearthly atmosphere. In both stories it asks the question, is there really a ghost or spectre, or are other factors getting the better of the main characters i.e. loneliness in the signalman and fear in the red room. And generally maintains the theme that 'to be denied of information as a reader is far more powerful than to know the truth'. There are constantly clues in the signalman that shows the idea of the supernatural involvement. The signalman tells the narrator about the supernatural goings on that he has experienced ' The ghosts ring has a strange vibration in the bell' this gives an image of an eerie supernatural atmosphere. Near the beginning of the story the narrator says ' cold wind rushed through it (the cutting), that it struck chill to me as if I had left the natural world'. This gives a clue to the supernatural in the area. In the red room, the first line: I can assure you,' said I, 'that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me.' Immediately this tells you that the story has something to do with ghosts and the supernatural. When in the red room the narrator says 'I postulated quite unreservedly that nothing supernatural could happen, and to pass the time I began to string some rhymes together, in goldsby fashion, of the original legend of the place.' Here he is trying to convince himself that he is very confident that nothing unusual is going to happen but this builds suspense because the reader can tell that he probably subconscientiously really hopes nothing unusual will happen but probably will.

In both stories the characters have typical Victorian speech. In the "Red Room" the old people have an old English vocabulary, whereas the narrator, a young man has an upper class and stylish vocabulary. The writer uses repetition a lot as a device to create tension. There are a couple of examples of this in the beginning of the red room before the young man goes into the room. The old man keeps telling the narrator 'It's your own choosing.' This implies that the old man is leaving the decision up to him as if it is not his responsibility if he dies in the room. The other example of repetition to create suspense is when the old woman keeps on repeating, 'this night of all nights.' So it gives you a hint that there is something different about that night and something odd will happen. When the narrator talks about his experiences in the room the sentences are very short and sharp and a lot of punctuation is used. This builds confusion and tension as he tries to recall what happened. In the signalman, Dickens uses a lot of effective adjectives like 'Violent pulsation', 'angry sunset', ' a barbarous, depressing and forbidding air' this captures the senses and adds to the tension. Both stories use language to suggest the atmosphere in both stories and uses imagery of darkness and fear.

Both stories are told in the first person, with the narrator's point of view. This is very effective as the reader feels like events are actually happening at the same time you read it. For example in the signalman when he talks with and about the signalman 'You look at me as if you had a dread of me'. Neither the reader nor he knows what the response will be. Talking about the signalman he says "he seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said no more". He describes it as it happens which adds suspense. You also go through the events with him and emphasize with him as he plays a big role in the story. I think the first person perspective is even more effective in the red room because the narrator plays a larger role story and the main events which create suspense and tension and the fear and panic involved with his actions are expressed to the reader.

Both writers share common ground in trying to keep the reader in suspense in their stories but some investigation of historical, social and cultural backgrounds help show why each writer made his particular choice of setting and story line. The Signalman was written before The Red Room in 1860 and at the time the railway was a recent invention just beginning to expand around the country: it was new and inventive technology. This gives Dickens' story a very contemporary touch. References to steam trains and the idea of every small, obscure signal box in the country being permanently manually operated gives a sense of historical context to readers today. There is also a very Victorian idea about how the classes are divided up, it is very noticeable to the narrator that this signalman is too educated to be such a low rank in society without some kind of explanation. It is important to recognise how Dickens chose to combine the old idea of the supernatural with a modern railway setting was unexpected and extraordinary. He was most likely influenced by the fact that in 1865 he had been involved in a railway accident. He was traveling to London by train when it derailed at high speed, killing ten people and injuring many more. He wrote "The Signalman" a year later. The Red Room was written in 1894. Wells made his choices in its contents and setting deliberately adding a timeless quality to it. In contrast to Dickens he did not want his story to be closely linked to the time period it was written in, so that he could 'explore the ageless nature of fear itself'. Wells' story has few references which place it in the 1890's but it is similar to earlier 'gothic' literature in the eighteenth century.

Both stories are left quite well open to interpretation on what the story was really about and what could have happened to the characters within them. The Signalman could just simply be a 'ghost story' about a lonely signal man who thinks he is being visited by a spectre but taking the writers' experiences and the time period into account I think the story is about the effect of the industrial and technological revolution on human beings. The signalman is driven mad by his monotonous works and the responsibility he has to stop these awful accidents in his job. He is away from every one else and has been forced to live his life as a signalman deprived of sunlight and nothing to occupy his mind and knowing he could cause such terrible accidents on the line. Dickens is connecting the supernatural with the advances in technology during the 19th century. The Red Room though is more simply a very typical gothic/horror story but does ask the question during the story if there really is a 'spectre' haunting the room or is everything just in his head? Has all the 'hype' about the room stuck with him? Has fear just got the better of him?

It is evident that Dickens and Wells create a lot of suspense throughout their stories with the opening words: As the narrator in The Signalman descends the cutting and when, looking at the signalman whose actions are very weird and in The Red Room how the old people warn the young man not to go in the room. Suspense is also created as the signalman tells the gentleman of the weird happenings recently and in The Red Room how tension is built while he stays in the room for longer. The settings are very mysterious and quite typical of the gothic genre and are even prone to unexplainable events happening. They use the characters' actions, language and the atmosphere in different ways to add to the suspense and tension. Dickens' story is based on a more contemporary idea. Both writers also include first person narrative adding up to make two suspense filled stories and keep the overall idea that:

'To be denied of information as a reader is far more powerful than to know the truth.'