One last way the author lays emphasis on terrifying the reader is the way the tunnel is described. Charles Dickens uses words and phrases such as ‘Great dungeon’. This metaphor paints a picture of a gloomy dungeon in the reader’s mind that creates an atmosphere of gloom. Another phrase that is used to describe the tunnel is,’ Lonesome post’. This phrase also helps to unnerve the reader as they are words that are usually associated with hell or a tomb. One last word that the author uses to lay emphasis on terrifying the reader is ‘terminating’. This word is an example of a word that has a powerful connotation.
Another typical element of gothic horror is the use of archaic settings. In horror stories, archaic settings include settings such as castles, monasteries, dungeons and medieval architecture are very much used to create tense atmosphere. In ‘The Signalman’ the signalman himself occupied a ‘lonesome post’ which was near a tunnel that has already been described as a ‘great dungeon’. Some further description that construct an archaic setting out of what could have been an average tunnel is shown in the following phrases,“…clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down”. This phrase helps to create an image of damp and moist stone due to ooze. These words could also be associated with the type of dampness and moisture that graves and tombstones have.
Another typical element of gothic horror stories is a prominent use of the supernatural. In horror stories, the paranormal is portrayed through familiar characters such as ghost and monsters. The idea of including any reference to the supernatural is crucial in any horror story based around the indefinite. In ‘The Signalman’, the ghost appears in the form of a man calling for help. When the signalman recognizes and approaches the ghost it disappears, and typically after the appearance of the spectre a disaster occurs. “…When I heard a voice cry ‘Holloa! Below there!’…and saw this someone else standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving as I just showed you…I ran right up at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve, when it was gone”. These quotes just briefly sum up the first sighting from the signalman of anything beyond the norm.
A further typical component of gothic horror stories is barbarism and brutality. In ‘The Signalman’ signs of obvious brutality are shown. The sighting of the spectre from the signalman is typically followed on by horrendous accidents on the train track, “That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed…what looked like a confusion of hands and heads…I ran after it and as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young woman had died…” This shows acts of brutality as many people were made to scream terribly and a young woman was brought to her demise.
The conception of mystery and suspense in ‘The Signalman’ is created right at the beginning. I state this because of the response of the signalman when the traveller calls out ‘Holloa! Below there!’
“When he heard a voice thus calling to him...but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about and looked down the line. There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my life, what…”, The signalman’s odd reaction to a simple call seems very weird and most definitely builds up a sense of mystery and tension in the reader right at the beginning of the story.
The tension structure of ‘The Red Room’ is one which continuously rises until the end of the story. Right at the beginning, the description of the old people and the way they act, slightly unnerves us, and makes us question of abnormality.
As the story advances the tension begins to rise. The repetition of the phrase, “This night of all nights” by the old people builds up tension around the time. As the old people carry on talking and get to the topic of describing where the red room, the tension rises further.
When the protagonist departs from the old people despite their several warnings, the description of the setting around him as he makes his way to the red room make the journey itself more tense.
As the protagonist makes his way to the red room he thinks he sees someone crouching, but later realises that it was just a statue. The purpose of this moment is to create a minor thrill before the real excitement ‘Kicks in’.
As the protagonist enters the red room, he notices the alcove in the corner of the room. This notice of something rather unrelated to the task he has gone to the red room to prove, makes the reader rather weary and suspicious of it.
When the candle in the alcove goes out ‘just after midnight’, the tension dramatically amplifies. The protagonist has the frantic fight with the candles, which start to extinguish simultaneously by themselves. This provides an action packed climax.
Finally, after the protagonist has fled from the room, he takes a knock to his head and he is reunited with the old people. At this point the tension has sub-sided as the protagonist is safe, its day time and the story generally finishes on a happy note.
On the other hand, the tension in ‘The Signalman’ is intermittent which is the sort of tension structure that has no particular flow and has ‘breaks’. Right at the beginning of the story, the traveller looks down towards the signal man who reacts very strangely. The purpose of this point could be to mislead the reader into thinking that the signalman is someone scary and abnormal.
As the story continues, the traveller observes many things about the signalman. He concludes that he is very good at his job. This basic analysis on the signalman makes him seem like the ‘good guy’, which is important as it allows more sympathy for him when he dies.
Further on in the story, the signalman talks of his doubts of the traveller because of the calling ‘Holloa! Below there! The waving and the red light. The purpose of this in the story is the linkage of different sections of the story as well as creating a mysterious link between the natural world and the super natural. At this point the reader should be further inclined into the story, which sets the tempo at a high point.
As the story advances the tension begins to get to one of its highest points. This is when the signalman hints at something which is troubling him, but wont mention what the troublesome factor is. The reason for this point being very high in tension is that the reader is intrigued and curious and wants to know what it is that’s troubling the signalman.
As the story carries on, the traveller leaves the signalman for the night. This provides a brief relief from the tension, which becomes low once more.
However, as the story continues, with the traveller meeting the signalman once more the tension begins to rise yet again. The reason for this dramatic increase in tempo is that the signalman finally tells the traveller the chilling tale of the ghost by the tunnel and the accidents that are linked to its warnings. This is in fact the main point of the story as everything else is built around this
After this, we have another brief relief from the tension when the traveller leaves the signalman, once more-for the second night.
Nevertheless, the tension rises again for the shocking finale of the story - the traveller arrives at the railway for the third time and learns that the signalman has been killed in an accident.
Another way both the writers create fear and tension in the reader in both stories, ‘The Red Room’ and ‘The Signalman’ is through their openings.
In ‘The Red Room’ H.G. Wells has used many techniques in the opening of the story so as to maintain the readers’ interest so that they will continue to read on. He has used Repetition of certain lines. An example of this would be the old mans line when he says ‘it’s your own choosing’, this gives us the impression that he is warning the protagonist of something which makes it quite terrifying and makes you eager to carry on reading. Also some of the dialogue of the protagonist, particularly when he says, ‘it would take a very tangible ghost to frighten me’ this shows that the protagonist is very skeptical about ghosts.
However, we can’t help feeling he will be proven wrong as soon as we read it. This causes the reader to carry on reading wanting to find out what will eventually happen to the protagonist.
As with Well’s story, Dickens has also used strangely behaving characters in the opening of his story. He
uses a lot of imagery when describing the signalman and also the surroundings and the setting. The traveller says when describing the signal man, “I saw that he had a dark beard, heavy eyebrows and bad skin’. The description of the signalman is not very pleasant but it makes you carry on reading as you want to find out more about this strange man.
Also the actions of the signalman push you to read on, “when I was near enough to touch him, he took a step back and lifted his hand’. After reading this the reader feels intrigued by this unnatural behavior and you want to read on to find out more about him.
In both stories the protagonists are quite skeptical about ghosts. The protagonist from ‘The Red Room’ says, ‘It would take a very tangible ghost to frighten me’. This shows that he doesn’t really believe in them or that he is not scarred of them.
In ‘The Signalman’ the traveller says, ‘…I promise you it did not ring at the time you went to the door’
This shows that he does not want to believe that it could have been a ghost; on the other hand, he could just be comforting the signalman.
A common practice within ghost stories is that the writer or author appeals to the senses.
H.G wells has done this a lot in ‘The Red Room’. An example of this would be, ‘I heard the sound of a stick…’ Here the writer is appealing the sense of hearing.
In ‘The Signalman’ the traveller says, ‘It had a strange dead smell,’ here Charles Dickens has appealed to the reader’s sense of smell.
Another way both the writers create fear and tension in the reader in both stories, ‘The Red Room’ and ‘The Signalman’ is through their climaxes. In ‘The Red Room’ the protagonist enters the room and many extraordinary and unexplained things begin to occur, the candles simultaneously blow out one by one and even after relighting them, still go out. Throughout this period of the story H.G wells has used specific skills to build up tension and create suspense. He has used long sentences along with commas so that a fast and frantic pace is created, “I have a vague memory of battering my self to and fro in the darkness, of a cramped struggle, and of my own wiled crying I darted to and fro, of a heavy blow, at least upon my forehead, a horrible sensation of falling that lasted an age…”
This quote is a perfect example of commas in long sentences which creates pace and adds to the suspense.
Another way both the writers create fear and tension in the reader in both stories, ‘The Red Room’ and ‘The Signalman’ is through their endings. ‘The Red Room’ is in a way resolved. The unusual incidents such as the candles unexplainably going out are explained by the protagonist himself to be down to ‘fear’. Naturally, as humans, people will always try to find a rational explanation to incidents such as these and because the ending of this story cannot be rationalised, people may get frustrated.
Similarly, ‘The Signalman’ is not resolved soundly. The unusual death of the signalman him self as well as all the other people that have died before are not rationalised either.
The protagonist in ‘The Red Room’ is fairly idiotic whilst also being a hero. On the point of being idiotic, despite all the warnings he receives from the old people and after hearing the history of the room, he still enters the room. In contrast to this, I also think that he is some what a hero as he has the courage to actually enter the room, survive and come out alive.
I think that the ending of ‘The Signalman’ is more effective as it is more typical of what the reader of a gothic horror story expects.
A further method both the writers create fear and tension in the reader in both stories, ‘The Red Room’ and ‘The Signalman’ is through their language and stylistic features. The author of ‘The Red Room’, H.G Wells uses the stylistic feature of repetition right at the beginning of the play when the old people repeatedly warn the protagonist of the red room and its history, “It’s your own choosing, said the man with the withered arm once more”. The emphasis on these lines through repetition show how much the protagonist was warned before actually setting upon the red room.
While the protagonist is on the way to the red room, H.G Wells uses adjectives and personification, “The long and draughty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty, and my candle flared and made the shadows cower and quiver”. H.G Wells’s uses the adjectives ‘chilly’ and ‘dusty’ which makes the protagonist seem slightly vulnerable as well as uncomfortable. The author has also personified the shadows to have ‘cowered’. As we know, cowering is an act that a human does, not shadows. This word also helps to create the feeling of apprehension and fright in the reader.
As the protagonist enters the red room, H.G Wells describes the ‘vastness’ of the room compared to the protagonists ‘tongue’ of flame by using a very powerful and meaningful quote which combines the use of personification and metaphors, “My candle was a little tongue of flame in its vastness, that failed to pierce the end of the room, and left an ocean of mystery and suggestion beyond its island of light”. The author personifies the protagonists candle as being a tongue of flame compared to the room’s ‘ocean’ of darkness. The use of the word ocean to describe the density of the darkness of the room is an example of the use of metaphors. This word also portrays the candle light as insignificant and again makes the protagonist seem very vulnerable and exposed to extreme danger.
Throughout the story, we can see that a preferred stylistic feature of H.G Wells is personification. In many cases does he personify the shadows, “Lit and where the shadows had lain deepest”. Another example of personification is used to describe the shadow of a candle being blown out, “Its shadow fell”. Another use of personifying the shadows in this story is displayed when the protagonist relights one of the candles, “The black shadow sprang back to its place”. The shadows have almost taken on a life of their own and pursue the protagonist to the last, “The shadows seem to take another step towards me”. The personification of shadows builds up until the protagonist is eventually enclosed and engulfed in the shadows.
The description of the signalman’s ‘lonesome’ post, through its language, help to create further tension and fear within the reader. The phrase, “dripping wet wall of jagged stone” includes words that are usually associated with hell or a grave.
I think, between the two stories, the signalman has more relevance to people today. The dilemma facing the signalman is a psychological one. To be more specific, the signalman is faced with the sighting of a spectore. Each time he sees the spectore, it warns him of an oncoming accident. The daunting prospect of this predicament is that the signalman basically carries the burden of many peoples life on his shoulders; this is because he says he cannot tell people of the warnings and troubles of his situation as they might think he was insane.
I think that in today’s times, many people may be able relate to the signalman’s psychological imprisonment. This is because in these times, many people may be able to relate to these psychological issues. Of course these issues may root from problems such as loneliness, drug addiction and so on rather than ghost sighting. However, the root of the Signalman’s issues come from him believing, that if he told anyone, they would not believe him and could may as well think that he was insane. We can say that this case of loneliness and feeling of other people not understanding is a vital psychological blow to the signalman and very relevant to people even today who don’t know where to turn for help.
