By Charles

Dickens

THE SIGNALMAN

SUMMARY

• The Signal-Man is a short story by Charles Dickens, first published as part of the "Mugby

Junction" collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of All the Year Round.

• Clayton tunnel entrance as seen from the north.

• The railway signal-man of the title tells the narrator of a ghost that has been haunting him. Each

spectral appearance precedes a tragic event on the railway on which the signalman works. The

signalman's work is at a signalbox in a deep cutting near a tunnel entrance on a lonely part of

the railway line, and he controls the movements of passing trains. When there is danger, his

fellow signalmen alert him by telegraph and alarms. Three times, he receives phantom warnings

of danger when his bell rings in a fashion that only he can hear. Each warning is succeeded

soon by the appearance of the spectre, and then by a terrible accident.

• The first accident involves a terrible collision between two trains in the tunnel. It is likely that

Dickens based this incident on the Clayton Tunnel crash that occurred during 1861, five years

before he wrote the story. Readers during 1866 would have been familiar with this major

disaster. The second warning involves the mysterious death of a young woman on a passing

train. The final warning is a premonition of the signalman's own death.

ATMOSPHERE

• Atmosphere: short sentences are used to create

suspense, also can be created by slowing the pace. The

narrator creates tension with sinister adjectives and

adverbs, also uses violent verbs, which gives objects a

human power. In this story, the atmosphere is really

important because it makes the reader to get involved in the

story and with the different characters; also it helps to imagine

easily the situations and the feelings. Moreover, in this

story, the end really helps to give a frighten effect, and

mystery effect, because it let the reader to imagine the final

end.

THE THEME

• Theme: The theme of the story may have been influenced by Dickens's own involvement with the Staplehurst rail crash on 9 June 1865. While passing over a viaduct in Kent, the train in which he was travelling jumped a gap in the line where the rails had been removed for maintenance, and the cast iron viaduct fractured, causing most of the carriages to fall into the river below. Dickens was in the first carriage that derailed sideways but did not fall completely – it was suspended at a precarious angle by the coupling of the coach in front and held up by the remains of the viaduct masonry. Dickens helped with the rescue of the other passengers, and was commended for his actions, but the experience had a profound effect on his subsequent life.

• The theme can also be related to the struggle between rational and supernatural, the Signalman's convictions that he is haunted, and the narrator's belief that these premonitions are merely coincidences, and that there is not any spectre but the wind. In the end, there is the "final coincidence", that the signalman was killed by a moving train, where the driver was imitating the same motions as the spectre that was allegedly haunting the signalman.

THE CHARACTERS

-The Signalman: In the story he represents a man, that works at

a train station, and there is a ―ghost‖ That appears every

time, and every time he appears something unexpected

happens. He seems to be a courageous man, that supports this

strange moment that he is passing.

-The narrator: He is a person that retells the story, and he is very

smart in the way he creates the atmosphere, and creates

suspense. The people that read this story, can not perceive

what will happen.

THE NARRATOR

• A narrator is, within any story (literary work, movie, play, verbal account, etc.), the person who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for story-telling of any kind. The others are the author and the audience; the latter called the "reader" when referring specifically to literature.

• The author and the audience both inhabit the real world. It is the author's function to create the universe, people, and events within the story. It is the audience's function to understand and interpret the story. The narrator only exists within the world of the story (and only there—although in non-fiction the narrator and the author can share the same persona, since the real world and the world of the story may be the same) and present it in a way the audience can comprehend.

• A narrator may tell the story from his own point of view (as a fictive entity) or from the point of view of one of the characters in the story. The act or process of telling the particulars of a story is referred to as narration. Along with exposition ,argumentation, and description , narration (broadly defined) is one of four rhetorical modes of discourse. More narrowly defined, narration is the fiction-writing mode whereby the narrator communicates directly to the reader

• In the signal man the narrator has got particpation in the story, he is the one who speaks with the signalman before he dies, he tells what he has lived.

THE TONE

a literary technique which encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience

implied in a literary work. It is a tool to create atmosphere, with it you can create Atmospheres such

as suspense ones and tension.

The tone in the signalman is Scary and of suspense , the tone of the reader should be tense in order

to create a suspense atmosphere

VOCABULARY• Furled: Roll or fold up and secure neatly

• Doubt: to be uncertain about sth

• Steep: excesive

• Foreshortened: Prematurely or dramatically shorten or reduce (something) in time or scale

• Glow: to shine in the darkness

• Vague: Of uncertain, indefinite, or unclear character or meaning

• Vapour: a visible suspension in the air of particles of some substance

• Skimming: to take up or remove

• Dint: An impression or hollow in a surface

• Clammy: Unpleasantly damp and sticky or slimy to touch

• Oozier: sth which flows

• Reluctance: Unwillingness or disinclination to do something

• Breast: Either of the two soft, protruding organs on the upper front of a woman's body that secrete milk after pregnancy

• Watchfulness: the process of paying close and continuous attention

• Sallow: A willow tree, esp. one of a low-growing or shrubby kind

• Dismal: Depressing

• Dungeon: A strong underground prison cell.

• Gloomy: Dark or poorly lit

• Forbidding: Refuse to allow

• Saturnine: Slow and gloomy

• Dread: Greatly feared; dreadful

• Trim: Make (something) neat or of the required size or form by cutting away irregular or unwanted part.

• Crude: In a natural or raw state; not yet processed or refined

• Slight: Small in degree; inconsiderable

• Spine: Backbone

• Hollow: Form by making a hole

• Rung: Past of ring

• Stirs: to mix

• Strained: A breed, stock, or variety of an animal or plant developed by breeding

• Pitiable: Deserving or arousing pity

• Unintelligible: Impossible to understand

• Distress: Cause (someone) anxiety, sorrow, or pain

• I didn't mean to distress you

•

• Averted: Prevent or ward off (an undesirable occurrence)

• talks failed to avert a rail strike

•

• Mere: That is solely or no more or better than what is specified

• it happened a mere decade ago

•

• Painstaking: Done with or employing great care and thoroughness

• painstaking attention to detail

• Brink: An extreme edge of land before a steep or vertical slope

• the brink of the cliffs

• Notched: Score or achieve (something)

• she notched her second major championship

• Utmost: greatest

• Vehemence: Passion/Violence

• Trickling: a flow of liquid

• Harp: Musical Instrument

• Shudder: trembles

• Mourning: depressing (death)

• Thrill: Cause (someone) to have a sudden feeling of excitement and pleasure

• his kiss thrilled and excited her

• Shaft: A long, narrow part or section forming the handle of a tool or club, the body of a spear or arrow, or a similar implem ent

• the shaft of a golf club

• Tarpaulin: Heavy-duty waterproof cloth, originally of tarred canvas

• The scuba diver was wearing a tarpaulin

• Mischief: Playful misbehavior or troublemaking, esp. in children

• she'll make sure Danny doesn't get into mischief

•

• Rough: Having an uneven or irregular surface; not smooth or level

• take a square of sandpaper, rough side out

• Heed: Careful attention

• if he heard, he paid no heed

• Dwell: Live in or at a specified place

• groups of gypsies still dwell in these caves

GROUP MEMBERS

Juana Miguens

Pilar Olaizola

Guido Ciccone

Santiago Roldan

Agustina Subira

Lucila Lafuente