An Arrest, Napoleon and the Spectre and Signal Man Essay Example

trying to get as far as possible from the jail, he realises that he could be going round in circles.

Even though Brower knows a herd of people will be soon on his tracks like bloodhounds sniffing their way to him.Brower thinks all this is worth it even for an hour's freedom. Finally Brower transpired from the forest and appears on an old road. Looking in front of him he sees a distinct figure of a man standing before him, "indistinctly, the figure of a man, motionless in the gloom". These lexical choices, "indistinctly", "motionless", "gloom" is all used to add to the supernatural feeling of the story.

The figure of a man directly points in a direction, Brower looks at the figure and submissively obeying his orders Brower heads off in the direction indicated.While Brower and this mysterious figure are walking in this direction sneakily Brower quickly turns his head while the figure sails through the moonlight. This allows Brower time to realise the figure standing behind him is Burton Duff his former jailer. The figure was pointing a way back to the country jail were Brower was until recently a prisoner at. On the way to the jail Brower and this figure walk through a ghost like town, it is a ghost like town because all the men have been called to the prison to look for Brower and all the women and children have been safely locked up in their houses.

Brower walks up to the front gates of the jail were a few armed guards are preparing to start searching for him. They are crowed around a small table were a lifeless

corpse was lying. On a second glance Brower notices that this man lying on the table is in fact the body of dead Burton Duff. When looking back over his shoulder where the figure should have been standing, he immediately realises that the figure could only have been some sort of evil ghost like creature coming back to haunt him for killing Burton Duff. This leads Brower's mind too far into insanity to ever come back.Strangely this leads the reader to feel sorry for Brower as the only kind of life anyone can live after that kind of experience can only be a bad one.

In the next story "The Signalman" is set in a pit down by a tunnel alongside a train track. This light deprived space is where the signalman lives his life. This adds to the effect of loneliness because most readers would fear to live in a place with "dripping wet walls of jagged stone on either side of him". The story begins with an unfamiliar stranger at the top of the "extremely deep cutting" shouting "Helloa!Below! " You later learn that these few words become very significant in the story. The man then takes the "zigzag descending path notched out" down to the signal man, who seemed confused by the words which the stranger had spoken because they are the extract same words that a person before him, standing in front of the danger light, had shouted before a devastating accident occurred.

This man had one arm across his face and the other was "violently waved". After seeing this figure for the third time the signal man dies.This is very

ironic as that railway was such a big part of his life but in the end was the undoing of him and his mind. This makes the reader wonder what it would be like to live such a boring life; always in the same place; never meeting new people. The final story is called "Napoleon and the Spectre" by Charlotte Bronte. It is set in Napoleon's bedroom where he is settling down for the night and going to sleep.

When all of a sudden he starts to feels thirsty. This adds to the supernatural effect of the story as Napoleon suddenly begins to feel thirsty as soon as he lies down.Napoleon is known as a strong hero who is mostly confident but can be cowardly at times. Napoleon lies back down when he is disturb by a "rustling noise" which moves around his bedroom. The spectre appears and takes him along "long, vaulted passage" to the streets of Paris. They enter a house and are greeted by a group of beautiful young women except for their masks which represented death heads.

To the reader this scene seems unusual because most people would feel uneasy in a place with beautiful young women wearing such ghastly death heads.The emperor then notices that he is in his wife's "private drawing room" which she had invited a couple of people to a ball she was hosting. Napoleon thinks he is going mad and falls into a "fit of catalepsy" which continues for the rest of the night and into the next day. This makes the reader wonder what happened to great Napoleon. The main characters in all three stories

have experienced something supernatural happen to them.

For example in "An Arrest" the figure guides him back to the jail from which he broke out of.In "The Signalman" there is a stranger standing at the bottom end of the track in front of the danger line, and in "Napoleon and the Spectre" the spectre appears and takes him down a long passage to a house which his wife in holding a ball at. In "An Arrest" the main character is called Orrin Brower. He is in jail as a result as "murdering his brother-in-law". Orrin Brower has not had a very pleasant life as we can tell from the opening paragraph. Brower is a very good gothic character as he is very dark and mysterious because we know what he is capable of.

In "The Signalman" there are two main characters. One of these characters is the signalman himself. The other is the stranger who meets the signalman early in the story. The signalman has a scary appearance with his "a dark shallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows". I think that he is a very good example of a gothic character as he looks very dark and mysterious.

"Napoleon and the spectre" is different to all the others because unlike "An Arrest" or "The signalman" Napoleon is known for good reasons.Napoleon is the emperor and is a strong hero, but in the "An Arrest" Brower is known for the wrong reasons, such as murdering his brother-in-law. Also in "The Signalman" he does not know any people apart from the one person who comes down to visit him and the strange male standing

in front of the red light. Napoleon is not the same as the other two charters as he is not a typical gothic character. All three of these stories are linked through the appearance of a strange figure, although all of the stories have completely different plots, the figure seems to have a focal role in all stories.