How is language used to create atmosphere in The Red Room and The Signalman

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How is language used to create atmosphere in The Red Room and The Signalman?

In this essay I will be comparing two stories The Signalman and The Red Room, I will be looking at the language techniques and how they are used throughout the stories. All language techniques are used for a reason and in this case it is used to create atmosphere and also keep the readers attention. The stories are both Victorian and remembered for their supernatural content as well as the actual story.

The Signalman and The Red Room are both Victorian stories. The Signalman first appeared in 1866 in a Christmas magazine. Since then the story has become very popular, this was because the Victorians enjoyed supernatural stories. They liked reading ghost stories and stories in which there were mysteries to be solved. The story itself had a very modern setting for its time, and it being at a railway station was different because in those times it had just become popular. Charles Dickens saw trains as dangerous and destructive, which is why in another story, 'Dombey and Son', a train killed a character in it. He may have seen them as dangerous because in 1865 he was in a train crash but luckily survived.

Archaisms are used throughout both stories. Archaisms are works which are old and not used today. Words such as 'apopelexy' and 'alcoves' aren't used today but are likely to still be found in the dictionary. The language used throughout both stories is rather complex and many sentences are deeply detailed. A well descriptive sentence in The Red Room is

'Their very existence was spectral; the cut of their clothing, fashions born in dead brains'.

This sentence is very descriptive as after reading it you get a clear picture of what the old people in the red room look like. The picture the reader gets is that the subject in the sentence is very old and also that they are idle.

The Red Room is written by H.G Wells and The Signalman is written by Charles Dickens. In The Signalman, an outsider greets a signalman, oddly the signalman doesn't respond and instead he looks in the opposite direction. The greeting 'Halloa! Below there!' was said by Barbox to the signalman. In the story Barbox is the narrator. Eventually they do meet and talk, however Barbox finds it difficult to communicate with the signalman, the signalman thought it was a ghost because previously when someone had called out the phrase 'Halloa! Below there!' there were two incidents; one where a woman had been killed and the other where there was a train crash. The signalman was a very odd person as when he was talking to Barbox he unexpectedly looked away twice as he may have heard something even though nobody was around. In the end the signalman ends up getting killed by a train as the driver shouted out 'below there! Look out! Look out! For god sakes clear the way'. He died in the end because he thought it was a false call as similar phrases were used previously.
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The story mainly focuses on a signalman however Barbox who is the narrator plays the second role. This story would have been very interesting in the time which it had been written because the setting adds to the spookiness of the story. We are used to knowing that train stations are dark and filthy which is what made the story more interesting to read.

In The Red Room the narrator is in for a time of his life as he says that he has never been scared before. He then spends the night in the red room ...

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