The Signalman

by

Charles Dickens

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Signalman makes teaching easy.

The Red Light

The red light that the ghost stands by whenever it haunts the signalman comes to represent the unavoidability of death. The signalman explains to the narrator that the first time he saw the ghost, it…

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The Train

Every death in “The Signalman” is caused by a train-related accident—though trains are meant to serve as a means of transport, in the story they represent the crushing power of industry. (While many Victorian writers…

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The Box

Because the signalman has to spend his days and nights below ground watching for approaching trains, he lives and works out of a structure that the narrator calls a box, which represents the signalman’s…

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