The « Signalman » de Dickens – ou le crime sans châtiment
In this short story, Dickens is commonly supposed to have tried his hand at the fantastic, writing a ghost story both gripping and enigmatic: a nightmarish atmosphere, the fatal encounter of a middle class narrator visiting a working class signalman, a pathetic ending, the hand of fate itself… We ch...
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| Veröffentlicht in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse, |
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Sprache: | Français |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Journal of the Short Story in English
2004
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| Online Zugang: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Zusammenfassung: | In this short story, Dickens is commonly supposed to have tried his hand at the fantastic, writing a ghost story both gripping and enigmatic: a nightmarish atmosphere, the fatal encounter of a middle class narrator visiting a working class signalman, a pathetic ending, the hand of fate itself… We choose to follow the clues that Dickens gives with impeccable and implacable precision and which transform this horror story into a detective story with moral and political warnings. In this light, this improbable encounter turns into the destruction of a gullible working class martyr by his better, as the visitor/ narrator complacently pictures himself. Inexorably Dickens sets into motion a terrible narrative mechanism, ending on the sacrifice of the signalman by an executioner understanding too late his role as the helpless representative of a modern vision of hell. |
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