Introduction To The Novel
The Signal-Man Summary By Charles Dickens Charles Dickens was born the son of a naval clerk and spent his childhood in Kent, England. When Dickens was ten years old, his family moved to London and his father was imprisoned in debtors’ prison. Dickens dropped out of school and worked in a shoeshine shop to support his family. He returned to school, but dropped out at 15 and worked as a barrister, court reporter, and political journalist before devoting himself full-time to writing.
The Signal-Man Summary By Charles Dickens His books were hugely successful in both the UK and the US and include classics such as “Hard Times,” “Great Expectations,” “Bleak House,” and “Oliver Twist,” which remain popular today. Dickens also founded a theatre company and a magazine, All the Year Round. He was unhappily married to Katherine Hogarth, with whom he had ten children. Dickens continued to write when he died in 1870, and is buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.
The Signalman Summary
The Signal-Man Summary By Charles Dickens At the station, the unnamed narrator greets the watchman with a cheerful “Hello!” The watchman is initially surly and unfriendly, but reluctantly lets the narrator approach his post in the tunnel. The narrator soon realizes how poor the working conditions of the watchman are. The watchman can barely see sunlight and must wait all day for red lights near the tunnel. Having recently become interested in the railroad industry, the narrator questions the watchman about his job, but the watchman seems scared. The watchman believes he has met the narrator before, but the narrator denies it.The Signal-Man Summary By Charles Dickens The Signal-Man Summary By Charles Dickens
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The watchman then becomes more friendly and invites the narrator into his box (a small room where he works near the tracks) to explain his duties. The narrator wonders why the signalman has such a good education, and the signalman explains that he once studied natural philosophy but missed out on a career opportunity. He bears no grudge about this, explaining that “he made his bed and lay down on it.” The narrator watches the signalman at work and believes he is performing his duties “with precision and care.” However, the signalman also seems distracted and double-takes at a red light, even though there is no train coming. The signalman tells the narrator that he will explain the reason when he returns the following evening.
As promised, the signalman will tell him all when he returns. The reason for his surlyness when the narrator first appears and his assumption that they have met before is because the narrator’s greeting yesterday (“Hello! I’m below!”) is the same as that of the ghost who has been the signalman for months, and who has visited before. The ghost stood next to the red light in the tunnel and waved his arms in front of him, a gesture the narrator thinks is like “the signalman striking the alarm at the other station”. , replied that he was OK. However, just six hours after his visit, a fatal train accident occurred.The Signal-Man Summary By Charles Dickens
Six months later, the ghost appears again at the red light, this time silently covering his face, which the narrator describes as “an act of mourning”. The next day, a young woman falls to her death under a passing train. And the ghost isn’t over yet. It appeared again a week ago and the signalman has been “suddenly” haunted ever since. This explains why he was so distracted yesterday – he kept seeing the ghost near the tunnel.
The narrator, ever the logical one, tells the signalman that the ghost is all in his head, but the signalman is not convinced. Instead, he wants the narrator to help him understand what the ghost means, especially since a third accident is sure to happen. He is especially confused as to why the ghost comes to him. The warnings are never specific enough to prevent an accident, and any vague warning would get him fired. He believes it is a “cruel ghost.” He is supposed to know about the catastrophe beforehand, but is powerless to prevent it. As a result, he feels responsible for the deaths of others.
The narrator is convinced that the signalman has lost his mind and realizes that the man could be a danger to passengers on the track. If he becomes distracted and cannot do his job properly, an accident could occur. After parting ways with the signalman, the narrator determines that the signalman will offer to take him to a doctor the following evening “for reasons of public safety.” However, when he returns, a group of workers tell him that the signalman has been killed by a train passing near the tunnel. Just before the accident, the train driver Tom had called out to the signalman, “Down!” and “Please, make way!”, but the narrator is shocked to hear the description of these events and remember that he meant both. Related sentences: The first was a greeting when he first met the signalman, and the second was a gesture by a spirit. However, he never said the second sentence out loud; he just thought it looked like a ghost was saying it. He decides to end the story without “explaining the strange circumstances in detail.”
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The Signalman Themes
Responsibility and Guilt
In “The Signalman,” the unnamed narrator meets a signalman whose job it is to watch the trains passing through the station. The narrator admires the signalman’s efforts to keep people safe, but feels guilty about the accidents that happen while on the job. Although these tragedies seem to happen by chance, he feels somehow responsible for them.The Signal-Man Summary By Charles Dickens
Helplessness, Fate and Death
Throughout the story, the signalman feels helpless. It is his job to ensure the safety of train passengers, but he has been unable to prevent the mysterious accidents that have recently occurred on the railway. In contrast, the narrator believes he can help both the signalman and the train passengers who depend on him. However, the narrator soon learns that he has always been just as helpless as the signalman.
The Supernatural and the Unknown
The titular signalman in the story is responsible for keeping people safe by watching the trains passing through the station. However, two mysterious train accidents occur before the events of the story, which the signalman believes were caused by supernatural forces – a ghost is said to have warned him about the accidents in advance. The narrator, however, does not believe the signalman’s ghost story, and instead assumes that he has lost his mind.
The Signalman Characters
Narrator
The nameless narrator, a cheerful and logical man, befriends the signalman at the beginning of the story. Having been sheltered most of his life, the narrator is now interested in
The Signalman.
The Signalman is a “dark and pale” man who reluctantly befriends the narrator, but he watches the trains passing through the tunnel. He is responsible for guiding the trains safely and preventing any serious accidents.
The Ghost
The Ghost is a mysterious figure who haunts the signalman (at least that’s what he claims), always appears at the red light near the tunnel, always with his face covered,
Tom
Tom is a train driver. The Signalman kills him. Tom tells the narrator that he tried to warn the signalman of the approach of the train by yelling loudly and waving his arms.
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FAQ:
1 How did Dickens’ historical context influence his decision to write The Signalman?
The British passenger rail system, one of the oldest in the world, was established nearly 40 years ago when Dickens wrote The Signalman in 1866. Having grown up in an era of rapid rail expansion, Dickens was familiar with modern technology, including its spectacular disasters. Five years before he wrote this story, the Clayton Tunnel disaster of 1861 killed 23 people and injured 176. The cause turned out to be a signaling error. The signalman at the south end of the tunnel waved his flag too late, and the driver of a second train did not notice the warning and ran into the train already ahead of him. At the time, it was the worst rail disaster in British history. Dickens himself narrowly escaped death from a train accident in 1865. The Staplehurst disaster claimed ten lives and Dickens survived but was devastated. He avoided rail travel for the rest of his life. The Staplehurst disaster was also caused by a signalman’s error and no doubt influenced Dickens when he wrote The Signalman.
2 What is the meaning of the first line of the story?
The first line of “The Signalman” is a recurring motif throughout the story, taking on new meaning each time it is uttered. We hear the phrase “Good day!” Though it sounds friendly and harmless at first, the sentence seems to have startled the signalman and made him dream. The haunting nature of this sentence is further developed when the signalman asks the narrator if he said “There you are!” because the sentence was supernaturally delivered to him. The narrator is upset by this strange question, but complies with the signalman’s request not to call downstairs when he visits the next day. The signalman later reveals that the ghost called out to him, “Down!” The narrator understands this repetition as a strange coincidence, but the actual meaning of the sentence is revealed when he describes how the train driver yelled, “Down!” before running over the signalman. Thus, as the paranormal story progresses, the opening line goes from innocent to sinister to tragic.
3 What role does helplessness play in “The Signalman”?
As one of the story’s main themes, the concept of helplessness plays a key role in The Signalman. In contrast to the story’s preoccupation with responsibility, a sense of helplessness haunts both the signalman and the narrator. When the ghost visits the signalman to inform him of the disaster, the signalman has no tools to decipher the cryptic message. He can only anxiously wait to see what tragedy will occur next. Similarly, the narrator feels responsible to help the signalman, but is helpless and unsure how far he should believe the signalman’s story. He wants to think that the ghost’s appearance is a coincidence, but he cannot shake the eerie feeling that the signalman’s story and the red light next to which the ghost appears give him. In the end, the signalman is incapacitated by a train and the narrator is unable to help him. Both are powerless before the supernatural forces that foretell the signalman’s death.
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