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Personification
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
“The Signalman” is set in a Victorian-era train station, tunnel, and signal box. Dickens’s chosen setting surrounding a train likely draws from his own experience surviving a rail crash, as well as from the infamous Clayton Tunnel crash. This industrial setting is a common feature of Victorian literature, especially for Dickens, who often portrayed the dismal labor conditions of many urban workers. These depictions brought attention to and highlighted the harmful effects of class disparity to his mostly middle-class readers. Dickens portrays these conditions through the narrator’s description of the signalman’s post as “as solitary and dismal a place as ever [he] saw,” which had a “deadly smell” and made the narrator feel as if he “had left the natural world.” These gloomy and dark descriptions simultaneously invoke sympathy in the reader for the signalman’s conditions and add to the ominous tone of the story.
Furthermore, the Victorian era was a time of rapid technological change, which impacted seemingly every aspect of everyday life. Trains were one of the newest and most disruptive of these technologies. With their ability to move people vast distances quicker than ever, trains can incite a feeling of wonder, as is the case for the narrator at the beginning of the story. However, train travel completely changed the natural landscape, required rail workers to suffer cruel conditions, and put people at risk for railway accidents, which were quite common in the 19th century. Dickens uses the train to explore the horror of the new dangers and changes these technologies brought to his Victorian readers. While technology offered Victorians greater control in some aspects, such advancement also became an uncontrollable and unpredictable force that disconcertingly changed the landscape of everyday life.
Related Themes:
