Comparison of The Judges House versus The Signalman

I think that mystery stories are so popular with people today, and with the last couple of generations because they are so intriguing. The author tries to give the story an element of surprise and also put twists in the tails to keep the reader guessing. Rather than just watching a film it allows the reader to build up their own imagination and interpret the story in their own way. The author will also try to integrate a ghost or spirit into the story, whether it be physically there or just psychologically, this gives the sense of mystery and usually results in the protagonist of the story dying. During the Victorian era mystery stories were especially popular, this was due to television and cinema not being in existence, so people had enliven themselves in other ways, in this case with books. In Victorian times religion was cogent and people believed in God more than people today, this meant that people thought what happen in mystery stories was very plausible. However with the advancement of science, people regard mystery stories as fully fictional, conversely some individuals and groups do still believe in the existence of ghosts and spirits.

The two stories, ?The Judges House? and ?The Signalman? have atmosphere built up through the setting of the story as well as other things including the characters and also the dialogue.

First of all, the judge?s house has a very weird sort of setting. It is set in a large, old house with high windows and tall walls, basically a very stereotypical sort of house for a mystery story. However this decrepit house is situated in the middle of a community, with a wide array of people and vehicles there. This sort of area you would expect to be safe, however this could have given Malcolm Malcolmson, the protagonist, a false sense of security as the house has high walls isolating it from the rest of the community. The author describes the house as ?a fortified house than an ordinary dwelling? this suggests that it was not just a few fences around the house, rather iron bars on windows and large iron gates, these are the things you would stereotypically relate to this type of story.

?The Signalman? is not the kind of setting you would expect for a story of this nature, it is set on a railway cutting which is far from stereotypical however a railway cutting could be seen as an industrial area which can be associated with gloominess, fog and smoke.