How does Charles Dickens use the ghost story genre to provoke fear in both the Victorian and modern reader of The Signalman Essay Example For Students

How does Charles Dickens use the ghost story genre to provoke fear in both the Victorian and modern reader of The Signalman Essay The Signalman is a short ghost story written by Charles Dickens and published in 1866. The story is about a signalman that works at a railway station. It explores many areas of fear including: the paranormal, the unknown, and darkness. I enjoyed the stories un-nerving and alluring structure. I feel this added to the tension and fear of the story. In a typical sense a ghost story is a novel that is based around the afterlife and paranormal, but through time the word ghost has been replaced with the word scary. They began with stereotypical chilling atmospheres and bloodcurdling settings such as graveyards and old houses, but what Dickens achieved is making a known scene, a railway station, scary and unknown. Ghost stories for Victorians were good as they could explore subjects that the Victorians were not too educated in, or maybe subjects that were being tested by society. For example, ghost stories tested the afterlife theory, and in turn tested the bible. Darwin was testing the Bible with his theory of evolution and consequently people began to question all aspects of religion. Ghost stories let people come up with their own views and thoughts on life not just living the life that generations before them had. They were also an alternate and fresh version of entertainment. The beginning of The Signalman is an unconventional but effective one. Dickens has begun the story with dialogue from the narrator. It begins with two exclamatory sentences that instantaneously grab the readers attention, Halloa! Bellow there! This unconventional choice is clever, as it leaves a sense of the unknown to the story, meaning that the reader doesnt really know where they are or what is really going on. It would be normal for a ghost story to start with a descriptive piece on the setting and characters, but by leaving this until later Dickens has already captured the fear of the unknown and suspense in the reader. Fear is provoked by the fact that by using this beginning it doesnt make it a ghost story so the reader isnt expecting to be scared, they just find themselves being scared at a normal novel which then creates fear of self, and fear of what they are feeling. On top of the above, fear is provoked in all readers as they have been placed in an unknown setting with an unknown character, and once the scene has been set, a station, then Dickens has made this recognisable place threatening and alien. This story explores the idea of setting in a new and eccentric way. In the beginning you are given a small amount of setting, his post was in as solitary and dismal place as I ever saw. On either side a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective on the way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter the perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light. In this quotation Dickens talks about the setting but mainly is setting the atmosphere. The connotations of some of the words are so strong they could haunt you, terminating this word is used to show the light turn of, but the word terminating can also mean, stop and death, and death is most peoples largest fear. The slight use of these words casts a shadow of death over the entire story and again adds to fear in the reader. Whats more the story is set at night. The narrator likes to go for walks at night and the signalman works the night shift. Automatically this provokes a fear as at night there is dark, both of these are two common fears, also the idea that he goes for walks at night as slightly disturbing and puts a ? over the character. As well as a disturbing sense that night gives, most people are awake and are about during the day so when the story is set at night is puts the reader into an unfamiliar time zone, creating a tense atmosphere as the reader isnt too sure what to expect. In this story there is only one setting, the railway station. This setting is very unconventional and hasnt really been done before giving it an edge other stories. Making the reader uneasy about a familiar place is clever as it gives the story a personal touch. Plus with the unusualness of having one setting makes the reader really know the station by the end, and knowing a place and still being scared of it is almost scarier as you know that you should know what is going to happen but you dont. By using a station there is a slight confusion in then reader as to a Victorian reader the railway was a place for upper-class, it resembled holiday and to the modern reader the railway is a place where people go to get to work, see family, or travel to more interesting places, it isnt really symbolic of a scary feeling, so therefore the reader at first is confused as to why they are reading about such a happy place. This confusion dangles over the story adding to the trepidation that slowly builds in the reader. In the Victorian era the railway was new and exciting, and as it was a change people feared it. Dickens' notion of what it means to be "a true gentleman in Great Expectations EssayThe idea of leaving the story on an edge of a cliff really got the reader into it, now and in Victorian times. Also suspense is an easy and affective way of creating fear, as again, it creates the fear of the unknown. Dickens created these suspense moments by suddenly changing the story for example, when the signal man suddenly talks would be a good point, or when the story goes from a slow passed almost silent story to a running scene, a fast passed panting scene. In the story the signalman has a vision, a ghost, of a man covering his face and having is arm. This vision is spoken about in the middle of the story and is described as an illusion. When the ghost is first written about the narrator isnt too sure what to make of it and sort of forgets about it. But when the signalman reveals that this is what he is afraid of the reader knows that it is significant. The Signalman believes in this figure and tries to figure out what it is but when he cant his fear grown and it almost eats him up. In this story the majority of the fear is created as the reader figures out allot for themselves. In the begging the signalman fears that he narrator is a ghost and vice versa, but the n the reader figures that they are both human. And that fact that the ending leaves the reader discovering why things happened in the story and it all seems to fall into place. The ending to the signal man is slightly unclear and ironic. The whole way through the story both characters have a fear of ghosts, at first they fear each other maybe and then they fear the signalmans vision/ghost without realising that they are really afraid of themselves. There is a definite conclusion but not really a resolution. The sudden end leaves the reader with a chilling feeling that can haunt them. The idea of witnessing your own death before it happens really provokes fear in all readers, especially the Victorian reader as the concept of death really was being tested in the 19th century. The narrator realises that the signalman had been visualising his death for a long time, and the reason why he was so scared of the narrator was because the narrator utters the words that the signal man said haunted him. The beginning line in the story is haloa below there and it just so happens that these are the words that conclude the sorry as well. These words are the words that end the signalmans life and for that the narrator feels slightly guilty for the signalmans death as he says them and contributes to his fear. This ending contributes and reignites the Victorian fear of railways as it makes the stories that people can die on the railway true as a man that worked and knew the railway like the back of his hand somehow managed to wind up on the tracks and as a consequence a target for an oncoming train. The Signalman is based around the supernatural, and it tests and explores its many forms, from ghosts to visions. In the 19th century the idea of the supernatural really blew out of proportion as the bible was being tested by many scientists with new theories. Dickens believed in the idea of the supernatural and pondered about what happened after death, whether is was the end to all or if there was something after death. Many Victorians also felt this way and The Signalman add to that unsure knowledge of death making many Victorians think, and therefore remember the story and remember Dickens. As for the modern reader the story doesnt have the same question mark hanging over it as we are much more clued up on many different theories but it can be used as evidence or a source as maybe Dickens writing the signalman saw his own death means that you life does flash before your eyes before you die, or that Cod had a vision of his train crashing. It can never be said but I feel any reader of any age or any era is going to question death after this story. I feel that this interesting and chilling novel is a fantastic contribution to the ghost story genre as it doesnt quite fit the mould but somehow is still exceptionally unsettling and haunting. The untypical structure makes the original plot even more exiting and the twisted finish polishes the stories unnerving scheme perfectly. The not so evolved Victorians would have pondered about this story for a long time and I feel the most fear provoking part of this story is the fact that there are many different ways of perceiving it making the reader question itself, and this conversation staring novel gets the reader finding out how they really feel about death, making it almost educational. All in all I feel Dickens achieved what he set out to do with this novel and it shall defiantly bag itself a place on my bookcase.