The description given to us by Dickens is very distinctive: 'His post was as dismal a place as ever I saw.' This exaggerates to a grave extent the terrible conditions of the place. I feel that the description is vivid for the reason that Dickens wants to add to the suspense by making the reader asking themselves many questions about the environment, for instance, why hasn't the area been seen to i.e. why haven't conditions been improved? The place is described as something not of the 'natural world.' This could be a hint left by Dickens of things that are to come, this adds to the air of suspense.cofd fdr sefdfdw orfd fdk infd fofd fd.
There are two main characters involved in this short story, one being the narrator and the other being the signalman. There are also a number of sub characters including Tom the train driver and the spectre.coge ger segegew orge gek inge foge ge!
Most of the details about the narrator remain anonymous throughout the story; this creates a great deal of suspense for the reader. Most of the information we do come to gather about the narrator is interpreted. We are unsure about the narrator's age, size, and physical appearance. All we do have is an estimation about the narrator's physiological and conscientious profile. We interpret that the man is honourable and sticks to his word, this is due to him revisiting the signalman a second time after he said he would 'But I expressly intend to make you another visit.'cogd gdr segdgdw orgd gdk ingd fogd gd.
We know that he is caring and worried about the signalman. He realizes that the signalman is 'Intelligent, vigilant, and exact.' However, he is worried how much longer the signalman can last in this state of mind. He thinks that the signalman is suffering from a mental disorder 'When I saw him in this state, in knew that I had to compose his mind.' This adds to the tension. The narrator is also concerned for the public safety 'As for the public safety.' This begs the question, are the public going to be harmed? This adds to the overall suspense. Because we are unsure to the signalman's motive and intentions, The reader has no choice but to make up their own mind about him. This method of leaving characters anonymous is very effective in creating mystery, because the mystery constantly surrounds those characters, therefore lasts throughout the story. This hypothesis from www.coursework.info
We are also told that the signalman is a very intellectual character, 'He had been a student of natural philosophy.' This whole section of the book is surrounded with a great of mystery. If he is so educated, why is he working as a 'lonesome,' signalman? He is also a very reliable workman, 'Safest of men to be employed.' What's more he has a very superior reputation, 'No man in England knew his work better.' This backs up the earlier statement, that he is an intellectual man. As with the narrator we are unsure about many of the signalman's physical features e.g. height and size, however he is described as: 'A dark sallow man.' This description makes him sound very mysterious and creates tension. His eyebrows are thick and his skin tone is odd. Painting a picture of a mysterious looking man. The reader too feels the desperation and distraction of his ordeal. He 'wiped the drops from his forehead' showing his nerves and so making the reader feel nervous. i3DS Visit coursework dd in dd fo dd for dd more project dd Do dd not dd redistribute i3DS
The Signalman's appearance is quite peculiar as is his behaviour. He looks at the bell when it does not ring and talks of a spectre, which has been appearing to him from the tunnel. Throughout the story, we are told that the signalman has sighted a spectre. He states, "That troubles me". He is clearly very worried and very frightened about his sightings. This adds to the suspense and mystery. What is going to happen because of this?cobf bfr sebfbfw orbf bfk inbf fobf bf;
There are also a number of sub characters; Tom, he is a train driver. He was driving the train, which killed the signalman. He states that he was quite sure of the signalman and new him to be a reliable character, 'I knew him to be very careful.' Perhaps he was the signalman's friend. Dickens is making yourself ask many questions at this point, which adds to the tension, for example, why did the signalman have a sudden change in character and wonder into the track, was he possessed? Ironically, Tom is a minor character but is the only one to be named.coed edr seededw ored edk ined foed ed.
There is also the spectre. He is the haunting of the signalman and before long leads him to a fatal ending. There could be a number of possibilities to the signalman's haunting; Dickens makes the readers ask themselves why? The spectre's repetitive behaviour makes us feel anxious. The ghost always shouts, 'Halloa! Below there!' He waves his arm and covers his eyes, which makes tension and suspense. The spectre resembles a beacon of fate. He warned the Signalman of the young girls death, and the train crash. He also warned him of his own death, but unfortunately the signalman was unable to interpret it.coff ffr seffffw orff ffk inff foff ff.
There is a lot of mystery surrounding the two main characters, the narrator and the signalman. They both remain largely anonymous throughout. Because they are anonymous, they become very mysterious due to the reader not becoming familiar with them. This is a skill used by Dickens to add to the overall mystery of the story. Durkheim suppressed sweetsuga's marxism .
The author uses many descriptive and vivid sentences and paragraphs to describe the setting and the signalman's initial reactions to the narrator, 'On either side a dripping wet wall of jagged stone.' These sentences are good at bringing the setting to life. They create a great deal of tension and suspense during the story. The adjectives are used in such a way that they create real beliefs of mystery and fear. The author mainly uses long sentences to describe his setting however he also uses a handful of shorter sentences to move the story along. Dickens also avoids using direct speech; this lack of direct speech creates mystery. This makes the reader less familiar with the characters, and makes the characters remain anonymous, maybe to make them sound less human, because they do not interact directly as other humans do. The abundance of indirect speech gives you a lot of detail about the environment and the signalman's past life, which distracts you from the lack of detail given about the physical appearances of the characters.coed edr seededw ored edk ined foed ed:
The story opens with a mysterious short burst of speech "Halloa! Below there!" This plunges us immediately into the story, telling us that we must be attentive in order to follow the story. It also makes our imagination start to ask questions, for example; who is saying this? Whom are they speaking to? This immediately creates mystery. This will not be understood by the reader unless they read on to find out what it means. The man he is shouting to below looks round to face the tunnel 'Looked down the line.' Any normal person would look upwards in response to this. Again, Dickens is creating the unexplainable, which builds up the tension and suspense. The tunnel also creates suspension, why did he look down there in this first place. In addition, what could be down there, It is described as 'Barbarous, depressing and forbidding.' The smells and surroundings make him a little bit reluctant to descend 'Air of reluctance.' At this time, we don't know who either of the men are. Dickens is making you ask yourself questions, which create suspense. He then goes on to describe the man below "There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so". The actions create mystery, which is effective to create the overall suspense. Also you still haven't had any kind of a physical description of the signalman so at this time you don't even know if he's human or not and you cannot just make an assumption, you have to read on. The scene is set within a deep cutting at twilight and because of the darkness the reader is concerned for the narrator, because you are unsure of the signalman's intensions e.g. weather they are to kill the narrator. It makes you have the "Don't go down there" feeling so tension builds up more and more the closer they get to one another. Just before he goes down the cutting an unknown vibration shakes the ground "Vague vibration in the earth and air" He also uses a lot of effective adjectives like "Violent pulsation" this activates the senses and takes the reader to the location, this adds to the tension. This vibration is due to a train coming by; this set the mood for supernatural happenings. The final bout of tension in this scene comes with the train. The train is a steam engine, which would have produced a lot of smoke, which is almost like a 'cut' to the next scene. The cutting would be relatively dark. This darkness creates a suspended mood. It is also described as being 'Extremely deep and unusually precipitous,' and 'Solitary and dismal.' It seems like the place is very isolated and cut off from the 'outside' world, this seems like a perfect place for supernatural happenings. Dickens emphasises this by metaphorically stating it as a 'Great dungeon.' I feel that the beginning works very well, this is due to the to the opening statement which leaves the reader pressurised to read the whole story and find out what it means. The story ends with a twist in the form of the death of the signalman. For me this was unanticipated, I felt that the spectre would turn out to be no more than a hoax however I fell that this ending works very well. In the final, paragraph the narrator thinks that he is now possessed and is destined for the same fate. He has come to this conclusion by realizing that the spectre repeated his exact words 'Halloa! Below, there!' Which he had said to the signalman on his first visit. This works because the signalman has deceased but the spectre seems alive in the form of the narrator. There is a sense of mystery involved with the ending. This also invites the readers to make up their own mind about the fate of the narrator. Dickens deliberately leaves this up to the reader, which is the final method of creating mystery. Carstens obfuscated sweetsuga's marxism .
The story only ever takes place within the cutting. I think this is so that none of the tension is lost, because of this reason the tension is well sustained throughout. Again the signalman and the narrator only ever meet at night, "I will come at eleven" this keeps the tension due to the darkness. Charles Dickens knows well what he is doing because the tension would be lost if they were to meet on a sunny midday. In addition, the darkness impairs the signalman's vision, which could be a possible reason for his sightings. He can't be sure what's out there. The signalman is obviously very troubled to start with. He starts acting rather peculiarly. He stands stubbornly in the railway with his hand on his chin, not moving at all 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 the 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 man becomes slightly hostile and the narrator speculates that he might be a ghost 'This was a spirit.' After their conversation, the narrator leaves and the signalman tells him that on his return journey not call out those words. "Halloa! Below there!" It builds tension over what these words really mean to the signalman and why he is scared of them. The signalman himself looks mysterious "A dark sallow man". This would add to the reader's suspense and build up the tension, as he gets closer. They eventually make their way to the signal box and from his long description, you realise that the signalman is quite an intelligent and intellectual man 'Worked at fractions and decimals.' This begs the question if he is so clever why is he a signalman? He is also a very skilled and reliable workman "Safest of men to be employed". These questions add mystery and intrigue to his identity. Within their talk, the signalman looks outside toward the tunnel more than once. This creates mystery and expectancy of what's going to happen and why he is looking down at the tunnel. On his first visit, the Signalman tells the Narrator that he is 'Troubled.' He does not expand on this point so this makes you ask the question what is he troubled about and does it have anything to do with his strange actions previously? These questions make you think about what's is going to happen. This also adds to the suspense. On the narrators, return visit he is told about the mysterious figure and how it disappeared. 'It was gone.' This long passage describing the spectre's actions adds tension and expectancy that it will come again. He is writing about the sightings, describing the light and the circumstances in which the ghost appeared, and that makes the reader suspect that the story to discover the truth. He also clears up his odd actions (when he looked down the tunnel). The Spectre says those very same words, which the narrator had previously shouted to the signalman "Halloa! Below there!" We now wonder about why they both repeated the same phrase. We end up having to choose sides between the author believing the signalman is crazy and the signalman behaving crazy. The irony leaves the reader shaken. The one time the signalman chooses to ignore the voice was the one time he should have. The calm scientific reasoning of the author was wrong whilst the hysterical ramblings of the signalman were surprisingly correct. The final paragraph of the book leaves the fate of the narrator up for debate, and adds to the overall mystery of the book. The narrator points out the coincidences that he, the train driver, and the spectre had all repeated the same words and the same actions. The narrator now thinks that he is destined for the same haunting as which the Signalman has received. The unexplained ending leaves us in a very tense and unsettled state. Our many questions are left unanswered. As I have said earlier, throughout the half term, we have studies several short stories; I am now going to make some comparisons with other short stories that we have read. Firstly with the short story of The Necklace. Both of the stories have a twist at the end, which gives each a sense of individuality. In The Signalman, the twist is all that the people say and in their actions, as there seems to be a mysterious connection between the spectre and all the other characters which I personally found to be very alarming. However, the most significant connection appears to be between the narrator and the spectre in that the narrator repeats the words that the signalman hears from the Spectre. In The Necklace the twist is that after so many years trying to pay off the 50,000 francs debt, which she had for losing the necklace, Madame Loisel finds out that the necklace was worth no more than 50 francs. Fate is also present in both stories. Madame Loisel is destined for a life of near poverty whereas the Signalman is destined to be haunted by the spectre, which leads him to his own death (He is warned of his own fate but cannot interpret it.) Secondly, I am going to do a comparison with The Red Room written by H.G Wells. Both of these stories are tales of the super-natural, which make them ideal for a comparison. In both stories, the author creates loneliness. However, the loneliness is slightly different in the stories. In the Red Room, loneliness is illustrated by the fact that the young man is on his own without companions in the Red Room. When the candles go out in the middle of the story, the man is scared and screaming then eventually dashes for the "Moonlit" corridor. This shows his loneliness "With my bowed and my arms over my face, I made a run for the door." The Signalman shows loneliness by the fact that that he is isolated from the rest of the world, and the environment around him reflects this by being described as "Lonely," and "Solitary." As with The Necklace and The Signalman, The Red Room has a twist at the end of it; the young man, before he went into the Red Room did not believe in the super-natural, but he changes his beliefs. I found all three of these short stories entertaining; I think this is due to the twist at the end of the stories. To me this shows that an unexpected twist makes a good short story. It is evident that Dickens creates a lot of suspense throughout the story with the opening words and as he descends the cutting, looking at the signalman whose actions are very strange, plunging you immediately into the setting. Suspense is created as the signalman tells the gentleman of the strange happenings recently. Mystery surrounds the settings, which are even prone to something like this happening; the mystery also surrounds the two main characters, the Signalman and the narrator. They remain anonymous throughout so the mystery stays with them constantly. I feel that due to Dickens' ability to bring mystery and suspense to life are the main reasons behind what makes this story so fluent and mind initiating
