The Frightful Accident in Black Heath Railway Tunnel

The Frightful Accident in Black Heath Railway Tunnel

This article is another example of an accident within the train system of England. This relates to Charles Dickens' short story "The Signalman." I chose this item because it adds another dimension to the short story. Sometimes since fiction includes such a large array of different subjects and occupies the entire spectrum of reality, ranging from realistic fiction to scientific or dystopian fiction or subjects even farther from reality, it feels like it is separated from our real lives. This article, though, offers specific and accurate evidence that, although "The Signalman" was only a fictional short story by Charles Dickens, there were still many instances of actual train accidents, and this was a reality for many men who worked as signalmen. By using peoples' real names, this adds a very important layer of reality for readers of the 21st century, and the fact that this is a factual newspaper article also invoked the emotions that we would feel if we read about an accident such as this today in our newspapers or online articles. This also added another dimension of darkness to Dickens' story. In class we discussed how some of the adjectives and descriptions used in the short story may also be alluding to race, but I think in this piece it is leaning more toward the metaphysical or emotional darkness that comes from working in such a literally dark place.

Anonymous

19th Century UK Periodicals

London, England: Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle

Saturday, December 24, 1864

NYPL

Octavo, 1 page

Newspaper