218p
Charles Dickens
The Gothic novel: some devices & motifs from the genre he did use (supernatural occurrences,
mysterious events, characters): surrealistic elements of dream, sharp contrasts btw. light & dark
worlds & btw. country & city (esp. Bleak House), themes of imprisonment & death (esp. Little
Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend), ruined & horrifying houses (esp. Great Expectations but also Bleak
House, Little Dorrit) ~ Presence of a “gothic substructure” may be argued (GE originally to have a
gothic plot as one of its 3 plotlines)
The short story as a separate genre yet unformed: little interest in technical issues
(concentration & unity of effect), some tales in The Pickwick Papers may have influenced Poe
(influence of “A Madman’s Manuscript” on “The Tell-Tale Heart”) but CD holding to looser, more
traditional notion of short fiction – Deborah L. Thomas: concept distinguishing his idea of the
short story: “concept of oral narration” ~ such stories seen as connected to tales told in family
circle & at Christmas gatherings by convention & implications of narrative situations of oral
storytelling
Differentiated from his sketches: presence of characters & plot but many fall in between:
sketches & essays/articles use techniques of storytelling, stories taking up didactic / illustrative,
descriptive qualities of essayistic prose
Several stories examples of oral traditional storytelling: Sam Weller’s anecdotes, PP’s other
interpolated tales, Mrs Lirriper, Doctor Marigold (cockney narrators) in the Christmas story
sequences published in CD’s two magazines Household Words & All the Year Round
Most notable late stories: “George Silverman’s Explanation” confessional narrative,
“Hunted Down” murder mystery
The ghost story: fascination all his life, sceptical of their truth, knew their appeal – already in
interpolated tales in PP, then Christmas Books: blending fantasy & realism to give higher form to
oral tales, nursery tales ~ Conceived of as belonging in the tradition of oral stories told at
gatherings at Christmas hearth – continuous tradition of oral narration in the genre!! ( Henry
James, The Turn of the Screw), ghost stories published regularly in his magazines’ Christmas
numbers – became his trademark by this time (1866)
(usage of conventional motifs from ghost stories in novels: most memorable in GE and BH,
otherwise novels cast in modes of realism)
Carlyle:
Dickens, “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton” (Ch. 29 of The Pickwick Papers 1837) ~
‘first British ghost story’ immediately associating the genre with (Christmas) seasonal features
of periodical printed media & linking it up with (the significance of) the convention of
representing narrative situations of oral storytelling
“The Baron of Grogzwig” (Ch. 6 of Nicholas Nickleby 1839)
218p
Fred Kaplan:
“The Trial for Murder: To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt” (1865)
Article by David J. Greenman inThe Dickensian:
Narrative tone – impassivity, insensitivity, matter-of-fact qualities (what about those of his
introductory remarks? ~ also aligning the story about to be narrated with putative real-life
sightings) ~ Any suspicions about reliability (being unwell, monotony)?
Too rational, too careful to rule out own mental instability/abnormality – too frank
(open, defiant of reticence) in publicizing own experiences
Excessive precision – effort at establishing & sustaining credibility?
Harvey Peter Sucksmith:
Why the narrator singled out for the visitation? Why to be Foreman of the Jury?
Feat of language: he “prepossessed” against the murderer; then: he already become the
greatest spectre of all – narrating to make readers stand in awe of him
Sober realistic documentation / tale itself to be taken with a grain of salt
218p
- “The Signalman” (1866) (last ghost story)
Oral narration? Functions & effects of the story’s being told (of what in the story is being told) by
a character? (Narrator (retired London broker setting up new life at Mugby Junction)) why
questioning him?)
Why castigating him as mentally unstable? Questioning the authenticity & import of his
story? Narrator distancing himself from its uneasy implications?
Narrator encountering the Sm.? Reactions of a traumatised person? Mentally unfit, imbalanced?
Psychotic? Paranoid? Unconsciously / wilfully self-destructive?
Ghost stories good for “illustrating particular states of mind and processes of the
imagination” ~ What & whose illustrated (not only described but performed, enacted!
(also literally by conductor)) here? – Trauma & agony of railroad worker powerless
within ordinary professional means to avert disaster but preternaturally aware of it (not
only its potential) (not supernaturally, not aware of sg. larger than human, that would be
out of his ordinary professional range, inconceivable) – Disturbed more out of normal
course of (also mental) life by awareness of sg. that should be avoided that is within his
range & responsibility, yet unable to reach full consciousness of it ~ Analogy with
troubling thoughts or rather feelings within oneself that one cannot explain to oneself,
characteristic of traumatised states when the mental-emotional effects of trauma cannot
be attributed by the traumatised subject to the trauma itself, it cannot be located within
oneself.
Paradox of signalman receiving signals – yet unable to decode them – the “language” he “had
taught himself” was not sufficiently learned (could it have been?) ~ May be ground for universal
extrapolation on ordinary human inability to interpret signs of fate & modify courses of one’s life
– or this a simplification? (origins in CD’s real-life railway trauma the previous year)
Or he just incapacitated, inapt outside of his professional domain (~ Or necessarily so,
his professional identity being founded on giving signals as oppose to interpreting
them?)
Ethical implications – partly also resulting from identifications prompted by affective structure
of first-person & oral narration: narrator’s & by proxy readers’ (sense of?) responsibility?
“Cultural materialist” (or simply Marxist) reading: Symbolic representation, “powerful and
suggestive image” of “man’s alienation by technological progress”? – CD was for which, in the
large picture ~ the railway its most ambiguous (in the implications technological progress has
for individual lives) symbol in his works – He mostly negative about the impact alienating
developments had on people’s natural processes of imagination (fancy being dulled) – But here
that of the signalman only too vivid – yet he cannot make any use of it, put it in the service of life
(Why?)
218p
Significance of setting & characters’ positioning(s) – narrator (always above, knowing more):
‘descent into hell’ motive, encountering a lost soul – why cannot he be saved?
Points of deliberate ambiguity? Questions left open for interpretation, at least speculation?
(Signalman has really seen a spirit? Either the Signalman or the narrator himself are ghostly
visitors?) ~ Suggestions of all these? Rational & scientific explanations of the world not sufficient
to explain the scope of human experience? – More to it than that?