Discuss how the settings in 'The man with the twisted lip' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 'the Red Room' by H.G. Wells and 'The Signalman' by Charles Dickens create mystery and suspense.

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Discuss how the settings in ‘The man with the twisted lip’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘the Red Room’ by H.G. Wells

and ‘The Signalman’ by Charles Dickens

create mystery and suspense.

The Victorians were extremely inventive when it came to entertaining themselves. Unlike us they could not simply slouch on the sofa, with the lights on bright and catch a quick episode of ‘Eastenders’, instead they often met up to share their ghost stories.

With the ever flickering candle light casting ghouls all around, and that familiar blackness introduced by the shadows that managed to hide a twenty foot monster, it was no wonder that the Victorians were so petrified by such stories. In those days, everyone believed in everything supernatural so to them these stories where very real. I have read and studied the following Victorian short stories:

The Signalman. By Charles Dickens

The Man with the Twisted Lip. By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and

The Red Room. By H.G. Wells

        

‘The Signalman’ story is entirely set around a railway track. It is told in the first person, by a holidaymaker who meets the signalman. Soon he becomes aware that the signalman is extremely frightened. The signalman tells the holidaymaker that recently he has been seeing a spectre in the railway tunnel. This ghost seems to be calling out to him in distress, as though warning him. The signalman speaks of how the red light and the warning bell come on, previous to the ghost appearing. The holidaymaker continues to visit, and hears one day of a women being killed on one of the carriages, they believe this has something to do with the spectre. However he appears again, and causes worry that another accident is going to happen. The next day the holidaymaker goes to see the signalman, but gets told there was a fatal accident and he has been killed by the train. In fact it was the signalman’s own death he was getting warned about all along, and the ghosts distressed warnings where the exact ones that the train driver gave just before the accident, to try and warn him to get off the tracks!  

        

‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ is also written in the first person, from the point of view of Sherlock Holmes’ assistant- Watson. A woman’s husband is missing and she believes that she saw him in an upstairs window of a decrepit building. However when she returned with the police to the scene, he is not there, only an old beggar is. Her husband’s belongings are there and blood on the window sill gave reason to believe the beggar had killed him. The wife does not believe her husband is dead, so calls in Sherlock Holmes to help her track him down. She later receives a letter from her husband, yet this does not make Sherlock believe her. Sherlock is confident that her husband has been killed, so finds it difficult to help. However it soon becomes clear that the beggar and the missing man are in fact the same people. Sherlock visits the beggar with the wife and reveals the husband who explains he did it to beg for money as he often made more begging than what he did at work. Yet promised his wife he would never do it again.  

‘The Red Room’ is, again, written in first person. It is about a man who hears a house is haunted. He decides to stay there in order to prove that the house is not haunted. Before entering the so called ‘haunted room’ he meets three rather scary and unnerving old people, they speak of the room and how it is not a good idea for him to visit. All three of them refuse to show him where it is. Once he has navigated his way there, he enters the room, he’s already rather nervous so when the candles begin to go out he becomes very frightened indeed. When finally it becomes too much he tries to exit the room, forgetting where the door is. He strikes himself on furniture again making him more and more on edge each time. When he finally makes it out, we realise it is not a ghost haunting this room, but is in fact fear.  

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“The Signalman” was written in the period it was set in. I feel that sometimes this means a story can become out of date a lot quicker as the ideas are more relevant at the time. However in this case, I do not think it has happened. It uses modern and contemporary ideas, for the period it is from. It was based on an incident that Charles Dickens encountered first hand, this means he is able to describe it in a far more realistic manner. The characters involved are well thought out. The opposite positions in the social hierarchy ...

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