Fear and Tension in The Whole Towns Sleeping and A Terribly Strange Bed
The essay i have written is a comparison of two short stories. One written by Ray Bradbury in 1950's and titled "The Whole Towns Sleeping". The other was written by Wilkie Collins in 1856 and entitled "A Terribly Strange Bed".
"The Whole Towns Sleeping" is about a middle-aged spinster called "Lavinia" 37, who goes to the cinema with her friends while a mysterious killer, is at large. She is fully convinced that the killer would not strike again for another four weeks because a murder has just occurred, and they seem to happen at intervals when 'the moon is full', and superstitiously then 'men do strange things' because of
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"The Whole Towns Sleeping" is set in a small town in Illinois, U.S.A. A ravine runs straight through the middle "The ravine cut the town in two". The ravine is the mysterious area of the town like a 'black dynamo', surrounded by 'secret mists' and 'odours' of a "rank greenhouse". The description of the ravine creates tension and shows it to be a constant threat with its dark and gloomy images.
In "A Terribly Strange Bed" the main part of the story is set in the back street of a seedy gambling house in Paris. The atmosphere is described, "Here, there was nothing but tragedy - mute weird tragedy. The quiet in the room was horrible". This builds up tension effectively, and creates an effective image of the gamblers as they watch in silence, and their desperate need to win to survive.
Lavinia Nebbs the protagonist in "The Whole Towns Sleeping" is described as "very straight and slim", a typical spinster who has lots of confidence in herself, and quite sensible, but occasionally craves excitement, which inevitably will lead her to make errors in judgment.
She insists that she stays at her own home and declines several offers of a bed for the night, even though 'The Lonely One' is still on the loose, and despite warnings she insists she will still walk home alone. These
In What Night Brings, the author creates the character of Marci as this young girl with a very curious mind, which as a reader one could see that her intuition about life and the way people respond to her make her question honesty and the way adults try to hide things from children. This leads her to discovering the reality and the reasoning behind why adults act the way they do. Carla Trujillo writes this novel using a first person view, using the voice of Marci, who is an 11 year old pre lesbian, catholic. The author takes the reader on a journey of Marci’s development in discovering her sexuailty, to what her beliefs are, and the despise she has towards her father. Not only does the author express these feelings, she also indicates how
A mutual theme in the four literary texts Mrs. Shearn’s 2nd period class has read is humans can destroy themselves through each other and technology. Teasdale's poem states, “And not one will know of the war, not one will care at last when it is done” (stanza 4, lines 7-8). In Stephen Vincent Benet’s poem, ‘Nightmare Number 3,’ it talks about how humans created technology so advanced, that the humans were overpowered and demolished by their own creations (lines 16-19). In Stephen Vincent Benet’s other literary text, “By the Waters of Babylon,” the ‘Gods’ of the old world fought in a war and destroyed themselves. Through the ‘God’s’ own technology, they destroyed each other leaving only a few to survive (page 7-8). Ray Bradbury’s short story,
Bed Ten Bed Ten follows the experience of Sue Baier, a patient who was in the ICU for eleven months following Guillain-Barre Syndrome diagnosis. With this disease completely paralyzing every muscle in her body and dependent on the respiratory system, this real-life experience outlines Sue’s struggles. From her needs being ignored by the staff, to staff who lacked compassion or empathy, to being completely helpless, fearful, and unable to move, Sue tells us about this terrifying ICU stay. Though terrifying for Sue, we see hope arise from compassionate staff encounters, family and community support, and loyal friends. We follow Sue along in her journey to recovery, and hope to spread the message about how compassionate care, and support, can
Throughout the course of humanity, we have experienced terrible transgressions in our society. Although they took place sixty-one years apart, similar horrific events from the Holocaust (1933-1945) and the Rwandan Genocide (1994) occurred. In Night, the Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state sponsored persecution and murder of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The Nazis believed they were “racially superior” so they killed the Jews because they were deemed “inferior” and needed to be eliminated.
The story Night shows Elie Wiesel's own experiences in the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel's 'Night' vividly describes the suffering he went through during the Holocaust. His experiences as a teenager in Nazi concentration camps are shown in the book, including the loss of his family and his struggle to hold onto his faith in the face of unspeakable horror. Exploring the journey of a young Holocaust survivor and the impact of life in concentration camps. Eliezer recounts the violence and abuse he witnessed and experienced in the Nazi concentration camps.
In the book “night” written by Elie Wiesel, the reader is able to catch a glimpse of the holocaust and how it dangerously impacted not only the Jewish, but the whole world. Written for everyone and anyone, “Night” is an emotionally draining book designed to help the reader understand just how devastating the holocaust was.
Fear brings forth a certain atmosphere which compels us to act upon it. The era in which the book was published allows us to see how common these fears were. Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is an excellent portrayal of how fear controls the human mind by using the characters as examples. In the book Eleanor, Theodora, Luke, and Dr. Montague have all been influenced by fear in the story, whether it be the fear of love, the unknown, family, rejection, expression, or loneliness. These different types of fear plagued their minds, causing their actions to reflect upon them. Jackson explores the theme of fear in The Haunting of Hill House by creating a cast of characters that in turn are manipulated by the inner workings of their minds and the malevolent manifestations of Hill House.
The bedroom can be substituted for the female body, and thereby represents "the enigma and threat generated by the concept of female sexuality in patriarchal culture" ("Pandora" 63). Concealing sexuality but also reifying the female body as and in the forbidden space of the bedroom, John invokes spatial and bodily associations of enclosure and mystery.
Horror Stories are a very popular genre of books. Some can be exceptionally malicious and gruesome in nature while others are tamer and rely on suspense. People tend to read these stories for the adrenaline rush, to explore the unknown, and to conquer their own adversities. Studies show that us as humans like to experience fear. We read and view scary stories so we can experience artificial situations of “fight or flight.” These scenarios, whether real or imagined, get your body ready for action by giving you an extra dose of adrenaline. The thrill and suspense that hangs over us while reading, is a welcomed feeling. Scary stories also allow us to explore the unknown. In books there are boundless supernatural realms, where wonder and horror walk side by side- realms were people rise from the dead, and fight their own
While the narrator recognizes the great care with which her husband is treating her she seems to constantly feel that she is being ungrateful. She calls herself out in her journal for being a “comparative burden” (Gilman) The room in which the narrator resides has a sturdy bed that is nailed to the floor. The narrator notes that there are bars on the windows and rings hooked into the wall. She wrongly assumes that this room was used as a nursery or gymnasium by the previous owners. As the reader, we are able to instill our own thoughts that this room was in fact built to house someone with a mental disorder. This begs the question of what the house really is, to contain such a room away from decent society.
While, the narrator refers to the room as a nursery, the circumstances suggest that the room was really used to “treat” women like the narrator from similar illnesses. The room has a bolted down bed that “is fairly gnawed” (Gilman 517), which the narrator bites a piece off of in frustration, suggesting it was under similar circumstances that the bed came to be gnawed. Therefore, the narrator’s creeping inside the room is the only way for her to be part of society, as in the room she can “creep smoothly on the floor, and [her] shoulder fits... so [she] cannot lose [her] way” (Gilman 518). She has to suppress and hide her true self in front of others, even her husband, as many women had to during those times.
We all think children are all innocent and cute, but is that really true? We always give excuses for children’s misconduct, distracting ourselves from the real truth. Kids are capable of terrible things that adults quickly ignore. Children can be very scary because of their capabilities that most adults believe to be innocent mistakes. One story that explores this fear is Ray Bradbury’s “The Man Upstairs.”
It was the summer of 1983; I was reading my first Horror novel by Jay Anson “The Amityville Horror”, it was the scariest thing I had ever picked up. Despite the late hours I continued to read into the early morning hours until my eyes burned for relief. Whenever I got up to use the rest room I would stand on the end of my bed lean over and open the door and jump so not to be grabbed by monsters that might be laying in wait under my bed. This started a long love affair for horror stories.
William Shakespeare is a successful playwright as he uses the style of history, tragedy and comedy which is an entertaining aspect that is in all his plays.
Another detail that seems irrelevant when reading the story is when the narrator talks about the woman that she sees in the wallpaper. She says this on page 8.