The Signalman -Charles Dickens ( Summary)

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) The Signalman Charles Dickens is perhaps the foremost English 19th century novelist, famous for such works as Oliver Twist, Great Expectations and Nicholas Nickleby. A feature of many of his novels is a combination of great narrative skills with an interest in the social problems of his time. As well as his major novels, though, he also wrote a number of short stories, of which The Signalman is one. In common with a number of stories about the supernatural, the narrator of this story is a sceptic, puzzled by the signalman’s conviction that he has witnessed inexplicable events. It is the earnestness and seriousness of the signalman, though, which gradually convinces the teller of the story. The signalman himself is a storyteller, and the difficulty he has in relating his story demonstrates his psychological unease. Dickens balances the oddness of his tale and his strange actions with the affirmation that he is a sane and rational man carrying out great responsibilities on the railway; he is termed ‘the safest of men’ by the narrator, and another railway worker at the end of the story says of him ‘No man in England knew his work better.’ Dickens shapes the story and creates a final twist by linking the narrator with the signalman and the strange events in the story’s final moments. The 19th century saw a huge growth in British railways, with a number of companies building lines and running services across the country. The government began to regulate the railways in the 1840s, so Dickens centred this story on a real topical interest in 1866. There are other signs of the world of 19th century England in the story. Notice how the different class or social station between the narrator and the railway workers is apparent in the way they speak to each other throughout the story. Wider reading Try some of the longer Dickens novels, perhaps starting with one of the three listed above. Compare with The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman How It Happened by Arthur Conan Doyle The Hollow of the Three Hills by Nathaniel Hawthorne The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe Online The Victorian Web (http://www.victorianweb.org/) is an excellent site for information about writers and the history of the period.