In "The Signalman," the narrator meets a signalman frightened about the apparitions he has been seen. After every apparition he sees, a disaster happens on the Line. The signalman wonders what the apparition means. A look into how the narrator perceives the signalman, the conflict of the story and the narrator's awareness of the meaning of the signalman's apparition will help understand "The Signalman.".
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In their first meeting, the signalman made the narrator feel awkward. The signalman spooked the narrator out; "there was something in the man that daunted me" by the way he acted. He seemed to be afraid of something, which caused the narrator to believe that he (the signalman) had an "infection in his mind". Despite the first impression the signalman left on the narrator, the narrator wanted to believe that the signalman was O.K., but the signalman kept doing odd things, "In a word, I should have . . .". .
In the second meeting, the narrator learns why the signalman acted strangely during their first meeting. The signalman tells the narrator that he has been seeing "apparitions." Unconvinced about the signalman's story, the narrator tells the signalman how the senses can be deceiving sometimes, "I showed his how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of sight". The narrator continues his uncertainty by telling the signalman that the events that occurred after the apparitions were simply coincidence, "this was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind". The narrator tries to disprove everything the signalman tells him with logical/scientific information. The disbelieving narrator offers to take the signalman to the best medical practitioner in the area to give his opinion of the signalman.
The signalman agrees.
In most stories, the conflict can simply be comprehended. However, in "The Signalman," the conflict is not very clear. A possible conflict can be "Man vs.
