A Comparison of The Signalman by Charles Dickens and The Red Room by H.G. Wells

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A Comparison of The Signalman by Charles Dickens and The Red Room by H.G. Wells

‘The Signalman’, Charles Dickens and ‘The Red Room’, H.G. Wells are

two gothic stories written in a nineteenth century style. In a century

when life seemed to be explaining itself by the means of science, the

notion of what we don’t know gives the story fear. The gothic style

was very popular in this era and gothic stories were read as popular

entertainment, the way gothic novels where written infringed fear into

the hearts of mid-nineteenth century citizens.

Charles Dickens narrator is an informal, well educated, high class

citizen who is up to date with technology and is well informed of its

presence in modern day life he seems however to be wrapped up in

technology as he is a traveller who moves from place to place, to try

to improve his knowledge. The language he uses to narrate is polished

and complex, ‘There was something remarkable in his manner of doing

so’. The difference between the narrators is extremely large, the

narrator in ‘The Red Room’ is young, educated pompous and upper class.

He seems unsure of everything around him; he denies all unnatural

happenings and passes them off as an event of chance. He will not

admit even by the end of the novel that he was wrong and that the

happenings in ‘The Red Room’ were abnormal in any form. The biggest

difference between the two narrators is the way in which they seem

aware of the happenings around them, the narrator from ‘The Red Room’

is totally un-aware of the happenings in his surroundings and anything

he does notice he passes off as a happening of chance or indeed thinks

nothing of it. The narrator in ‘The Signalman’ is well informed and

tries to find a reason through science; he tries to explain the

unexplainable.

‘The Signalman’ is set in a misty valley perhaps in rural Britain in a

Signalman’s box. The use of the similes and metaphors creates an image

in our minds, ‘a rough descending zigzag path notched out’.

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