How Does Charles Dickens Create Suspense

In the following essay, I will be delving into Charles Dickens’s, The Signalman, and identifying some of the key features and techniques that were used to mainly create suspense. It was written in 1866, and was a representation of how Victorians felt about the new arrival of steam trains, but also showed how Dickens personally felt about trains himself; due to an accident he experienced involving one. Throughout this essay, there will be specific paragraphs focusing on certain areas. These paragraphs will fix onto mainly the setting description, characterisation, opening paragraphs, etc. The story has an eerie atmosphere, and many phrases and words help give the initial impression of death and ghosts, which allows the Gothic Horror theme that later appears in the story, to develop easier. …show more content…
Charles Dickens is clearly very clever with his choice of techniques, for example: similes, metaphors, dialogue and much more, as all seem to help him in making a great piece of writing. There are two main characters, the narrator, whose name is unknown, and the Signalman. They both meet near a tunnel for a train. The Signalman then discusses his interaction with multiple ghosts and the narrator gets a particular impression of the Signalman and then tells him to go and see a doctor. The narrator then comes back to the tunnel entrance and finds out the Signalman is … Dead. This is a very brief summary of the Signalman, just to give you a basis of the story. Now let’s dive into Dickens interesting piece of work and analyse what he has