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Dickens's 'The Signalman.' (Charles Dickens)

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From: The Explicator
Date: 19940922
Author:Tytler, Graeme

Charles Dickens' 'The Signalman' has been the subject of critiques on the supernatural, psycho-metaphysical and other possible meanings. It is posited that Dickens could be using mental illness to suggest that the supernatural and insanity result from failure in human communication. Dickens suggests that language is a universal signalling system and that the lack or absence of it leads to irrationality. Also, the symptoms of monomania, of which Dickens was familiar, can be seen from his description of the signalman.

Charles Dickens's short story "The Signalman" (1866) has elicited a good ...

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