The Signalman In The Signalman the way that Dickens is writing makes the story more interesting. He is writing about the sightings describing the light and the circumstances of when the ghost appeared. At the end when everyone is expecting to discover the truth from the story Dickens makes one last sudden twist by the sudden death of the signalman, so at the end the story still keeps a mystery and doesn’t reveal anything which makes the reader think more about what is written in the text. In the story the signalman asks a lot of questions for example “ who is saying this” this creates mystery straight away as the reader can not understand it unless they read on. When the signalman shouts to the man, the man looks round to face the tunnel “looked down the line” most normal people would have looked up if they heard something again Dickens is creating the unexplainable which builds up the tension and suspense. The fact that he looked down the tunnel also creates suspension this makes the reader ask the question why did he look there, is there something down there? The tunnel is described as “barbarous, depressing and forbidding” the smell and surroundings make him more reluctant to decend “Air of reluctance” . Also at this time we the readers don’t know who any of the men are which makes us ask ourselves questions which creates suspense. He goes on to describe the man below him “ there was something remarkable in his manor of doing so” what’s being said is creating even more mystery for the reader which is effective to create suspense. In addition there is know physical description of the signalman so theres know telling what he is or who he is and we cannot just make an assumption on thing to do is to read on. The scene is set at near darkness so this makes you concerned for the narrator because you are not sure of the signalmans intensions, it gives you the “don’t go there” feelings so tension gets built up more