Short Story By Charles Dicken

When the supernatural is seen in a story, it is thought that it is just there to have a scary element to the story. Today supernatural is most used to scare people and there is nothing more to it. Yet when looking close at stories that have supernatural elements, they seem to place there for more than just for a scare. An example of this is Charles Dicken’s short story that use element of supernatural for more than just a scare. Dickens uses supernatural elements, to help send a message along in his story, to give like to a story that without the supernatural would be rather boring and to comment on society. Charles Dickens uses supernatural elements in his short story to make comments on society and human behavior. One of the behavior that

In the story with Gabriel Grub the reader see that the world it not that bad of a place and it only is if they are a horrible, rude person. This story shows that the reader should be a kind and loving person. At the end of the story Dickens say, “This story has at least one moral, if it teaches no better one —and that is if a man sulky and drinks at Christmas time …let the sprints be never so good, or let them be even as many degrees beyond proof, as those which Gabriel Grub saw in the goblin’s cavern” (“Story of the Goblins,” Dickens 49). This story would be much more boring without the Goblins. To help pass “lesson” on to the reader, it is easier to disguise it, as with the supernatural, to make the story more interesting. Dickens even says that if the reader is like Gabriel Grub, then the sprits will find them for punishment. This helps to get the message across to the readers, because if they are a horrible, rude person, then they will be beaten up by Goblins. Dickens uses the supernatural to help express his “lesson” to the reader in a more interesting

In the story about the signalman, the reader sees that the signalman see a spectre three times. Each time after he sees that the spectre an accident occurs, yet the signalman is unable to stop any of the accidents from happening, he could not change fate. “‘What is its [the spectre] warning against?’… ‘If I [the signalman] telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or both, I can give no reason for it,’…Message: ‘Danger! Take care!’ Answer: ‘What Danger? Where?’ Message: ‘Don’t know. But for God’s sake take care!’ They would displace me” (“No. 1 Branch,” Dickens 87). Dickens uses the supernatural to give his character a hint about the future, but the man is unable to stop whatever happens. The reader gets the feeling that the signalman cannot change what is fated to happen. Dickens is playing with the idea that some people hold, that humans have a fate and they cannot change it. Dickens uses the supernatural to play with the idea of fate and what influences in can have to the human mind. By using, the supernatural Dickens is able to comment and play with beliefs that people