The characteristics of the short stories

The characteristics of the short stories that show the horror genre is the way in which they have been constructed the short sentences, the punctuation such as the over use of exclamation marks, the suspense, and the description of mental and physical torture.

what Dickens achieved is making a known scene, a railway station, scary and unknown.

The Signalman’ (1866) is partly based on Dicken’s personal experience of a fatal train crash.

In June 1865 a team of workers were working on a railway line in Kent, England. Because they didn’t expect a train for several hours, they lifted the track inside a tunnel. A few minutes later a train arrived. The driver received no warning and the train derailed, killing the driver and nine passengers.

Dickens was travelling on that train. He escaped without injury but the crash had a big psychological impact on him. Though he loved railways, he was a nervous traveller for the rest of his life

‘The Signal

signalman - person controlling trains on railway lines

his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would

have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not

have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking

up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head,

he turned himself about, and looked down the Line. There was

something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not

have said for my life what. But I know it was remarkable enough to attract

my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed,

down in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so

steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with

my hand before I saw him at all.

“Halloa! Below!”

From looking

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