Summary
Narrated from a first-person, past-tense perspective, Charles Dickens’ short story “The Signalman” begins with the unnamed narrator calling down to a man standing at the entrance of a railway tunnel cutting.
The man he calls to is a signalman, a railway employee in charge of operating a signal box that communicates with other signal boxes along the line and directs the movements of trains. Instead of looking up at the narrator calling to him, where it would have been obvious the voice was coming from, the signalman stands holding his signal flag and looks into the tunnel. Something about the way the man stares into the darkness attracts the narrator’s attention.
The narrator asks if there’s a way to walk down to him. The signalman looks up without replying. A powerful train rumbles past. The narrator asks again once the line is clear and the signalman points to a path down to the cut. The path is steep and slippery; the narrator realizes in hindsight this is why the signalman may have appeared reluctant to invite him down.
At the bottom, the saturnine signalman is waiting with an attentive and watchful air. The narrator can see his skin is sallow and he has a dark beard and eyebrows. The signalman’s post at his signal box is gloomy, miserable, and otherworldly, situated among wet jagged rock and the abyss of the black dungeon-like tunnel, from which emanates an earthy smell reminiscent of death.
The narrator finds opening conversation with the man daunting. He suspects he doesn’t have many visitors. The narrator looks at his fixed eyes and gloomy face and wonders if the man is in fact a spirit—a ghost. In hindsight, he wonders if there “may have been an infection in his mind.” The narrator forces a smile and says that he looks at him as though he fears him. The signalman says he wondered if he had seen him before. The narrator asks where, and the signalman points to the red light (i.e. a candle or flame behind red glass) near the tunnel’s mouth. The narrator, confused, assures him he was never there.
They grow comfortable enough with each other to talk. The signalman says little is required of him other than watchfulness and attention. The only physical labor involved is changing signals, trimming lights (i.e. cutting candle wicks), and turning an iron handle occasionally. But he is used to his routine, and has used his time to learn some languages and arithmetic. The narrator asks if he never leaves the shadows, to which the signalman says whenever he leaves his post he grows anxious that his electric bell might ring, and so there was little relief in taking in the sun.
Inside the signalman’s box is a fire, an official logbook, and a telegraph. The narrator learns the man used to study natural philosophy but had squandered his chances and took up a railway job for which he was over-educated. Speaking quietly and gravely, he says he is resigned to his fate. They are interrupted while they talk by the telegraph bell going off; the signalman reads the messages and sends replies. At one point he stands outside with a flag to communicate something to the driver of a train. He is exact and vigilant in his work. However, the narrator notices that twice the man breaks off mid-sentence to stand outside and look at the red light for a moment before coming inside without remarking on why he went out when the bell didn’t ring.
Analysis
Dickens begins “The Signalman” by establishing the motif of the line “Below there!” A seemingly friendly and innocuous greeting from the narrator to the signalman, the signalman’s peculiar reaction—i.e. staring into the abyss-like tunnel instead of looking up—sets the story’s eerie tone. The signalman’s reaction simultaneously foreshadows his eventual disclosure about the apparition and provokes the narrator's interest.
The opening pages also see Dickens pay particular attention to physical description. The rail cutting is steep and removed from sunlight. The zigzag path down to it is treacherous, and the fact that the narrator has to ask the signalman how he can get down suggests the path is hidden, emphasizing the isolation inherent to the signalman’s post. The “unnatural” valley of the rail cutting produces eerie whistling sounds when the wind moves through it, and the tunnel itself is imbued with deathly connotations—darkness, jaggedness, dampness, and earthy smells.
As the solitary living being who inhabits the bleak setting, the signalman’s physical health has deteriorated. The narrator notes the man’s “saturnine” (i.e. gloomy) countenance and sallow (unhealthy, yellowish) skin. The narrator has the troubling thought the man is a spirit—a ghost, already dead. In hindsight, he wonders if the man had already gone insane by the time they met. The signalman’s physical appearance in combination with details of the setting contribute to the story’s ominous mood and suggest that the tunnel is a portal to the world of the dead. Through insinuation, Dickens lays the ground for the story’s thematic preoccupation with the supernatural.
The opening pages also see Dickens introduce the themes of responsibility and decoding messages. The signalman’s sole responsibility is to wait for telegraph messages to come through and then perform signaling actions to ensure the steady movement of trains. His body, isolated in the inhumane setting, acts as a mechanical extension of the technologies that surround him.
Though the narrator observes the signalman perform his duties with care and exactness, he notes how the signalman twice responds as though the telegraph bell has wrung when it in fact hasn’t. At this point, we begin to see how the supernatural seems to be pressing in on the signalman’s predictable, mechanical reality, which precipitates his deterioration into utter helplessness.
