Claire Morgan :: English Literature

‘The Signalman’ and ‘The Black Cat’ Mystery Stories. In my opinion the most important thing to make a good mystery story is suspense. The writer should have the reader wanting to read on and asking questions right from the start. The description of the setting and characters are vital to the mystery. It gives the reader the emotions to really understand the atmosphere of the story. I don’t think the atmosphere needs to be really obscured but some bizarre features are needed to get an eerie and suspicious feeling. A twist in the end throws the reader’s prediction off course, and brings the mystery together. The clues should be laid out subtlety in the story so at the end the reader can see what they missed as they were reading. If questions are left unanswered at the end of the story it keeps the readers thinking so they can imagine what happens. A death makes the story more tragic and far fetched yet realistic making the person wearier of what is going on. Being written in the first person makes the story feel more personal and emotional so the reader feels like they are actually in the story. Dialogue also adds to this affect. Having the words of a person gives you a better idea of their personality. I have recently studied ‘The Signalman’ written by Charles Dickens and ‘The Black Cat’ by William Wintel. They were both written in the 19th century. ‘The Signalman’ is a mystery story about a man getting involved with a signalman. As he first calls down to the signalman, he becomes part of the nightmare. The writer plays the part of the detective as the story is written in the first person. He starts off as just a passer by, but notices the strange, lonely man. He decides to go down and speak with the signalman when he realises he will be here again. He soon becomes very involved with the problems of the signalman. After the man told the narrator about his sightings the narrator tries to find explanations of the delusions. However the next evening he returns to find out that he was wrong. At first, he thinks he is seeing the exact same ghost that the signalman claimed to have seen, but he soon realised that this was not. When he reached the bottom of the cutting he was confronted by the dead body of the signalman. As he watched while the evidence of the accident was gathered the words of the driver echoed through his head. He had heard these words before. The signalman had told him them the previous