Charles Dickens Signal Man Essay Example
In what ways does Charles Dickens create tension and suspence in the Signal Man?
In the Signal Man, written by the author Charles Dickens, there is a great amount of suspense and tension created. This story is a short one, written in 1866, just five years after the Clayton tunnel crash. Charles Dickens was an English writter, he is famous for most ionic characters within his writing. His writing was best for the cliff-hangers, and kept the readers excited for the next instalment. The techniques that create the suspense and the tension in the Signal Man are what are going to be explored.
The way in which the rail way track and the surrounding area are described creates an atmosphere of tension and suspense. There is an ‘angry sunset’ in the sky but ‘so little sunset ever finds its way to this spot’. The description of the ‘angry sunset’ is a negative adjective to start setting the unpleasantness of the area. It is also the technique of personification, the sun is represented with a human emotion, making it come across as having a evil personalilty, an evil nature. Charles Dickens shows the setting as dark and gloomy, and isolation is shown by the ‘deep trench’ and that his post is ‘solitary and dismal’. Along with the darkness came a ‘depressing and forbidding air’. The way in which Dickens describes it ‘as if it had left the natural world’ with a deadly smell, shows the unusualness and isolation of the setting. These descriptions also create suspense because the place is seen as unpleasent and already that more of a memory for what had happened and a historical moment.
Another way that Dickens creates tension is through the Signal Mans character. He is described as a ‘dark sallow man with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows’. The word ‘dark’ is repeated, to reinforce that image of gloominess. Along the story you learn that there is more to the Signal man, it is suggested that he contains a mental illness, or madness, ‘there may have been an infection in his
In the Signal Man, written by the author Charles Dickens, there is a great amount of suspense and tension created. This story is a short one, written in 1866, just five years after the Clayton tunnel crash. Charles Dickens was an English writter, he is famous for most ionic characters within his writing. His writing was best for the cliff-hangers, and kept the readers excited for the next instalment. The techniques that create the suspense and the tension in the Signal Man are what are going to be explored.
The way in which the rail way track and the surrounding area are described creates an atmosphere of tension and suspense. There is an ‘angry sunset’ in the sky but ‘so little sunset ever finds its way to this spot’. The description of the ‘angry sunset’ is a negative adjective to start setting the unpleasantness of the area. It is also the technique of personification, the sun is represented with a human emotion, making it come across as having a evil personalilty, an evil nature. Charles Dickens shows the setting as dark and gloomy, and isolation is shown by the ‘deep trench’ and that his post is ‘solitary and dismal’. Along with the darkness came a ‘depressing and forbidding air’. The way in which Dickens describes it ‘as if it had left the natural world’ with a deadly smell, shows the unusualness and isolation of the setting. These descriptions also create suspense because the place is seen as unpleasent and already that more of a memory for what had happened and a historical moment.
Another way that Dickens creates tension is through the Signal Mans character. He is described as a ‘dark sallow man with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows’. The word ‘dark’ is repeated, to reinforce that image of gloominess. Along the story you learn that there is more to the Signal man, it is suggested that he contains a mental illness, or madness, ‘there may have been an infection in his