The Signal-Man

“Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down.”

The oncoming train initially seems benign, but the closer it gets, the more “violent” it becomes. The narrator describes himself as having a “newly-awakened interest in these great works” (313)—i.e., trains—yet his first close encounter with one suggests a force that is ominous in its “greatness,” with a power to subdue (“to draw me down”) the very humans for whom it is built.

“I found a rough zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed. The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down.”

Having been invited down by the signal man, the narrator descends into the cutting for the first time. Though the path is stone, it becomes “oozier” and “wetter” as he descends, as if the stone were not solid ground. The increasingly murky nature of the setting portends the psychological confusion and ethical limbo that the signal man experiences as a result of the ghost’s confusing warnings, setting up the theme of The Supernatural and the Limits of Human Understanding.

“His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.”

The narrator’s description of the cutting emphasizes its darkness as well as his sense of it as imprisoning and suffocating (a “great dungeon”). Though the cutting is described as having an “earthy” smell, the narrator feels as if he is in a place that is not natural; the setting’s “forbidding air” evokes a sense of the supernatural, while the “gloomy red light” conjures up images of hell. Of course, the signal man is surrounded by rock and earth, so there is nothing unnatural about the physical characteristics the narrator describes. Rather, it is the railway man’s placement below earth that seems unnatural, as if his humanity were not being accounted for.

“He replied to my remarks with readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness and watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work—manual labour—he had next to none. To change that signal, to trim those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all he had to do under that head. Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only say that the routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had grown used to it.”

The narrator here draws attention to his assumptions about the signal man’s job (“Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much”) and then revises them (“the routine of life had shaped itself into that form, and he had gotten used to it”). This establishes him as a careful listener and reflective person—one who deserves the trust of both the signal man and the reader.

“In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen colour, turned his face towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being able to define, when we were so far asunder.”

It is one of the story’s ironies that the signal man’s sense of duty is what makes him unfit for his job (or at least appear so): He is so attentive that he attends to threats that may not even exist. Even taking the story’s supernatural events at face value, the moment dramatizes The Burden of Responsibility, as the signal man’s sense that he ought to do something, in a situation where he clearly cannot, plagues him. The narrator’s struggle to understand the signal man, whose manner is “inexplicable” and impossible “to define,” echoes the latter’s plight.

“‘With what? What is your trouble?’

‘It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell you.’”

The signal man’s inability to effectively read the ghost’s signals torments him, but his troubles also extend to communicating his trouble. However, the narrator has earned the signal man’s trust by this point, so he takes the risk of trying to articulate what seems impossible, placing himself in a vulnerable position in front of the narrator.

“I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand. ‘What is its warning against?’ he said, ruminating, with his eyes on the fire, and only by times turning them on me. ‘What is the danger? Where is the danger? There is danger overhanging somewhere on the Line. Some dreadful calamity will happen. It is not to be doubted this third time, after what has gone before. But surely this is a cruel haunting of me. What can I do?’”

The indeterminacy of the ghost’s warning terrorizes the signal man, as he cannot abnegate his responsibility in the face of an imminent threat but is helpless to act on the warning. The gothic horror of the story lies not in the presence of the ghost itself, but in the absence of actionable meaning in the ghost’s warning.

“His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life.”

The signal man is an ethical person who cares about life. This concern, however, has no outlet; unable to read any specific danger in the ghost’s warning, he cannot channel his ethical energy outward toward the care of others. At the same time, he cannot simply stop worrying or trying to figure out the specifics of the warning. As a result, his ethical energy turns inward, torturing him “beyond endurance.”

“‘When it first stood under the Danger-light,’ he went on, putting his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands outward across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress, ‘why not tell me where that accident was to happen,—if it must happen? Why not tell me how it could be averted,—if it could have been averted? When on its second coming it hid its face, why not tell me, instead, “She is going to die. Let them keep her at home”? If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its warnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn me plainly now? And I, Lord help me! A mere poor signal-man on this solitary station! Why not go to somebody with credit to be believed, and power to act?’”

The signal man experiences a distress that is visceral and embodied: He is “feverish,” on fire in his fervid and futile attempts to gain specificity in the warnings. Part of his “feverish distress” lies in his lack of power and credibility as a “mere poor signal man.” He has the ethical desire but not the “power to act,” which only frustrates him further.

“‘If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can give no reason for it,’ he went on, wiping the palms of his hands. ‘I should get into trouble, and do no good. They would think I was mad. This is the way it would work,—Message: “Danger! Take care!” Answer: “What Danger? Where?” Message: “Don’t know. But, for God’s sake, take care!” They would displace me. What else could they do?’”

While the ghost can vaguely signal “danger” without any specifics, the signal man cannot signal danger and “give no reason for it.” He has thought through various strategies only to repeatedly determine that there is no course of action for him to take.

“But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure? I had proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact; but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind? Though in a subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of his continuing to execute it with precision?”

The narrator, after listening to the signal man’s feverish revelation of his distress, begins to experience his own sense of responsibility toward the signal man and those under his care. The signal man is no longer entirely alone in his burden, but this is not enough to save him. He is doomed, thanks in part to the tensions inherent in his work; as the narrator notes, the signal man is in the impossible position of being a social “subordinate” responsible for “a most important trust.”

“I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his left sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.”

The narrator for a split second thinks that he spots the ghost when he is actually looking at Tom. This is one of several moments that blur the boundaries between the natural and the supernatural, beginning with the signal man mistaking the narrator himself for a spirit. Such episodes contribute to the story’s resistance to interpretation, as Dickens not only refuses to attribute the story’s events to either natural or supernatural causes but suggests that the lines between the natural and supernatural are imprecise. The “thrill” may also suggest the pleasure of being frightened, an experience that the horror genre is embedded in.

“Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left off calling to him. I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm to the last; but it was no use.”

Tom continues to try to save the signal man even as he anticipates the latter’s imminent death, covering his eyes so as not to see but also yelling and waving. The scene demonstrates the trauma of Tom’s helplessness and his (blinded) witnessing. Tom experiences, in fast motion, the dread that the signal man experiences in slow motion.