The Signalman - 8L's Agenga by Miss Squire

Group 1

pmhsquire — 2020-03-24 08:52:56 UTC

Movement
Violence .
Trains .
Timings
Repetitive .
Placing - location .
Nature- forces- the elements
Colloquial narrative voice
They seem to be alone in the railway station- deserted station? .
Reoccurring events over a number of days.
Supernatural occurrences.
Mystery surrounding the figure at the tracks.
The narrator being tricked
Hallucinations.
Betrayal of trust
A warm climate??
Unable to speak
A curiosity to keep returning to the train station.
(Ideas with dots are accurate predictions)

Correct predictions

The fact that the signalman seems to ignore the narrator or not hear.
The signalman is mysterious
There is a lot of emphasis on the supernatural figure being foreshadowing of tragedy and disaster. The tunnel seems to symbolises evil and darkness.
It starts in a train station which continues to be an important setting throughout the story
There is an isolated setting throughout the story
Summary

Group 2

pmhsquire — 2020-03-24 08:53:24 UTC

Visions- ghosts/spirits + Hallucinations
Unable to speak?
Worried
Eerie/unnatural
Feels almost supernatural, as if it is not a real place to be?
Uncertainty
Madness
Darkness
Possibly night/shaded space
Deserted railroad
The tone of the story is eerie
Spooky
Underground hideout/lair/tunnel
Villain
Death/parallel universe
Being observant or hopeful is unnatural?
Solitary/isolated
The narrator is in an unfamiliar environment and he doesn’t know much about it.
Mystery
Spirits
Darkness
Mysterious characters
Scary
Pain is a theme
Someone who’s there but is not at the same time?
I think that there are two signalmen, one of them is the human one, and the other is the spectre. The human signalman is the signalman for the train, and the spectre is the signalman for misfortune or death. This makes me wonder which signalman Dickens is referring to in the title.

Summary

The story is a fist person narrative and a horror genre. It is about a man who is walking by a rail line. The man spots another man down by the tracks and gets curious. He goes to talk to the man, but the man appears to be rather curious. The next day, the man goes to see the other man, and the other man describes to him a terrible vision that he saw of a ghost. The other man explains that it always appears before something tragic happens. The narrator is concerned and promises to Thais the other man to the doctor the next day. However upon the next day, the other man has died.

Which predictions came true?

Hallucinations- the signalman has been seeing apparitions.
Solitary/isolated- it seemed that the signalman was not used to company

By Aggie, Carla, Kate, Jazzy, Amelie

Group 3

pmhsquire — 2020-03-24 08:53:29 UTC

Agenda and Predictions
Light and Moonlight- some sort of hope?
Worried and troubled- something on their minds
The elements - “fire”
Darkness
Recalling a story from the past/Some sort of a flashback
Box
tunnel- some sort of a mysterious setting
Voices and a figure- something there that cannot be seen
Youth and an Older person
Some kind of journey to a reveal
Narrator curious narrator
The narrator has been taken somewhere
Spookiness
Unknown
Spirits or something magical
Confusion

What is the story about?
The story is told by a narrator and is written in 1st person. The story starts in an abandoned train station where he spots a signalman and comes down to meet and help him. The signalman seems to recognise the narrator but doesn't. The signalman takes the narrator into his office where they talk about his troubles and what troubles him, and the narrator insists to meet him the next day, persistent in finding answers to his questions. After much urge, the signalman reveals he has been haunted by a phantom, who waves at him in the red light. The narrator asks when the signalman has last seen the phantom (which was the day before) and the narrator realises that the signalman has been hallucinating. The narrator promises the signalman to take him to a doctor the next day, only to awaken to the dreadful news that the signalman has died.

Which of our predictions came true?

Hallucinations- the signalman hallucinates a ghost... or does he?
A mystery- what is troubling the signalman and is the phantom real
Supernatural- the phantom that is haunting the signalman
Worried and troubled- the phantom that is haunting the signalman
Tunnel and trains- where the signalman lives and remains
Voices and a figure- the phantom that is haunting the signalman
Youth and the elderly- this isn't really a prominent idea in the story but the idea of what the signalman has become.
A journey to reveal- What is troubling the signalman
Curious narrator- the narrator is very curious as to the troubles
Spookiness- there is some sort of a creepy attribute to the story as we don't know who or what this phantom really is and we don't find out.
Confusion- there is a lot of confusion as to whether this phantom is actually real

What other things would we add to our agenda now?

Red light and waving
Death and tragedy
Senses and stimulations
A connection between the signalman and the narrator
Agitation and confusion and fright

By Ines, Eliza, Aratrika

Group 4

pmhsquire — 2020-03-24 08:53:33 UTC

- Fear - The signalman is scared of what might happen when he sees the spectre and the consequences.
- Screaming and crying
- Something needing finishing
- Coldness/ iciness in atmosphere
- A connection with a man / care - The narrator tries to help the signalman by taking him to a doctor and worries about him and his visions.
- Deception
- Agitated - The signalman is nervous about the ghost, who has put him on edge.
- Chilling silence - "Did it cry out? No. It was silent." ; "...(but without sound)"
- Senses (Noise especially)
- A (silent) figure of illusion / hallucination? - The ghost is a key element and a foreboding however only the signalman can see it so the narrator suspects it to be a hallucination on the other man’s part.
- Begging (for life?)
- Incompleteness
- Resistance
- Something supernatural or not human ~ a ghost, unnatural cold - the ghost
- Repetition (in a way there is repetition when narrator comes back again and again)
- Overall, in the dark ~ metaphorically ( unknowing ) - Set in the night. The darkness of the tunnel, they do not understand the ghost.
- Inquisitive
- Figures
- Braveness
- Careful
- Nervous narrative voice
- Questioning

Italics - Correct predictions

The narrator, who describes the story from a first person perspective, is walking along when he sees a signalman working below. He attempts to greet him, but the signalman is clearly frightened but gradually relaxes and tells him to come down to where he is. The narrator climes down where the signalman is working and is invited into the hut with him. The signalman seems afraid and invites him to meet again tomorrow. When he comes the following day, the signalman tells him of the ghost he has seen, who on several occasions had appeared before tragedy struck. Though the narrator cannot see the ghost he describes, he sympathises with the other man and - as he is concerned about his mental health - promises to take him to the doctor the next day. When the day arrives however, the man is greeted with dreadful news; the signalman is dead.

Group 5

pmhsquire — 2020-03-24 08:53:38 UTC

-ghosts/spirits that harms other people - comes and goes - evil - sad?
-representation of things you can’t have
-pain
-mystery (not normal for someone to put their sleeve over their eyes)
-not real ~ dream?
-someone being taken?
-excited to see a specific person
-ghostbusters
-if you look for the spectre, you don’t find it but if you don’t you can see it.
-contradictory language ~ pain, then love all of a sudden?
-fear
-signalman for other universes..???? That’s what the flag is for - and the train
-detective/detecting
-night
-stressed narrative
-cliff or mountain
-magical force
-first person, past tense
-someone dying
-the spectre is someone the narrator knows?? someone dead??

Summary:

The narrator seems to have arrived to help the signalman, rather than being the spectre. We were correct in that, someone dies in the story. Both the girl from a previous train and the signalman die by the end of the story. The spectre always torments the signalman before a bad incident happens on the train line. At the beginning, the signalman was wary of the narrator, because he displayed the same attributes and traits as the spectre. Eventually, the signalman guides the narrator down, where they agree to meet the following day. The next day, the signalman tells the narrator his experience with the spectre, and how he feels his mind is in a bad place. The narrator wants to help him and so agrees to take him to see a doctor the next day, however when the narrator arrives the next day, the signalman is dead. As it turns out, the spectre does indeed harm people, as shown by how the signalman may have died.