How the Authors of The Signalman and The Red Room Use First-Person Narrative :: Charles Dickens H.G. Wells Narratives Essays

How the Authors of The Signalman and The Red Room Use First-Person Narrative In this essay two novels will be compared. The first written by Charles Dickens entitled, `The Signalman` and the second is H G Wells’ `The Red Room`. I seek to find out how first person narration is used to manipulate the thoughts and feelings of the readers and how the two are similar. The two poems are both similar in that they are both pre 1914 prose about ghosts and are based on the supernatural, the two tales also create suspense and tension in the atmosphere surrounding the characters. The stories are written in first person native for example, the authors of `The Red Room` and `The Signalman` both tell the story using speech as the main technique telling the story through the narrator, â€Å"Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?† this makes the reader feel closer to the character due to his personal experience. The Signalman ============= At the start of `The Signalman` the atmosphere is bizarre. The story begins in a deep, damp cutting adjacent to a tunnel with a railway running through it, which is described as `barbarous`, `depressing` and with `forbidding air`. The scene is set at twilight therefore because of the darkness the two men don’t get to see each other properly and this enhances the mysterious element of the story. At the point in which he’s just about to go down `the cutting`, a vibration shakes the ground, Dickens writes, `vague vibration in the earth and air`, which describes the movement, he also uses a lot effective adjectives like, `violent` and `pulsation`, which conveys fears and adds to the tension which is building up, but this time it was just a train passing and the tension is lost. Dickens describes the cutting as being, â€Å"Extremely deep and unusually precipitous† and â€Å"Solitary and dismal†, he uses the detailed description to give the setting an eerie edge. The story only takes place within the cutting. The two men meet at the cutting at night, â€Å"I will come at eleven†, Dickens says, this sustains the tension due to the darkness and our own knowledge that the supernatural experiences always occur at night. The narrator feels very sympathetic towards The Signalman, as he keeps revisiting him to find out more about his life and his experiences, â€Å"But I expressly intend to make you another visit†, the narrator also talks about an â€Å"infection in the mind† and â€Å"deception of his sense of sight† and recommends `The Signalman` to see a doctor, when he sees the ghost, which reveals his level of concern for his new