Essay The Whole Town's Sleeping and Terribly Strange Bed

Roald Dahl uses foreshadowing to create a suspenseful and ominous short story that engages the reader. In The Landlady, when Billy is going to the Bell and Dragon, the paint on houses lining the street he was walking on were “peeling from the woodwork on their doors and windows, and the handsome white facades were cracked and blotchy from neglect”(Dahl 1). Dahl’s vivid description of the dilapidated buildings is an effective way of foreshadowing the unpleasantness that lurks there. It triggers the readers to think about where Billy might go, to the Bell and Dragon or live in one of the unpleasant houses. Later in the short story, when Billy and the landlady are talking about her two previous tenants, the landlady says “‘I stuff all of my little

To begin with, Bradbury utilizes word choice to communicate the setting to his audience. After establishing the peaceful operations of the house with words such as “warm”, “gently”, and “soft”, Bradbury all of a sudden uses words such as “rubble”, “ashes”, and “ruined” (Bradbury 1). The contrast between the light-hearted and the desolate diction gives the impression that though the house may seem calm, something terrible

The first paragraphs you are brought to have a sense of what some view as “slow, and/or boring”, since it doesn’t have much going on right off of the bat, you start off with a suspenseful introduction, by the author giving you what is perceived to be as a “gloomy/muggy” setting. You are brought to a theme with an increasing pace also included in the first paragraph with a small excerpt of “ Here and there through the city, machine guns and rifles broke the silence of the night, spasmodically, like dogs barking on lone farms. Republicans and Free States were waging civil war.” (O'Flaherty 1)

Bradbury starts out by saying in line 35 through 39 "....dark spiral stairs..sorcerer's tower...thunders and visions. Ritual magic". Here the author uses diction in the semantic field of mystery, in order to take a creepy turn of what looked to be a lovely place to something dark and unexpected. As the " house lights winked.. and a sprinkle of windows came suddenly alight", the author personifies and compares to make the town more vivid and more relatable again as it was when the story began, and bringing the town back to life

The first paragraph vividly describes the harsh conditions and builds up the ominous tone. The fact that it was a bright cold day creates confusion, as usually cold days are accompanied by cloudiness, and bright days are usually accompanied by heat. When the clocks strike thirteen, it is obvious that this place is not similar to our present world, building ambiguity. The vile wind and gritty dust create even more description on the setting; a bright cold windy dusty day in April. The extreme conditions of the setting causes the reader to infer that the current setting is not fit for human life, although that is exactly what it turns out to be. This adds on to the already increasing ominous tone of the

The author begins the essay with a tone that is kind of spooky which puts the reader in an unsettling mindset. “There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sand storms out along Route 66, drying the hills and the nerves to flash point.” Here she uses imagery to assist her audience in becoming as engaged in her surroundings as she is. Doing this also helps her audience feel the same way as the speaker, who seems to be frightened and anxious about what could happen next. She is told stories of how the natives responded to the wind changing the way it is currently. As she is listens to the stories of the town it’s as if she is listening to stories that go along with a haunted house

The setting of the story helps to magnify its impact on the reader because it is set in a small town similar to the one many of us may know of, and that is symbolic of everything that we consider to be right in America. The story begins on a wonderful summer day in a small town. The author describes the day as very joyful but strikes a contrast between the surroundings of the town and the atmosphere of the people gathered in the square. The atmosphere is sober, where the adults ?stood together, away from the stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather then laughed."(268) This, in just the third paragraph, is a

Suspense Many authors create suspense in their stories to entertain the audience reading it. Suspense adds zest to any writing. The question is, “How do authors take stories like ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and ‘The Pedestrian’ and create suspense?” Suspense draws the attention of any literature.

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In this case, suspense which is a mood can be implemented throughout an entire piece of literature and is an effective medium for creating interest in the reader. Carson creates suspense in her story by leaving many details out when she abruptly changes the tone or mood. In the beginning of the story, Carson describes a beautiful town that “seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings” (Carson). This depiction of a beautiful town, along with vivid details of the wonders in it creates a sense of tranquility and peacefulness in the reader’s mind. However, soon after Carson introduces this peaceful state of the story, she develops a new phase which is much more darker in its mood. The town that was once depicted to be beautiful was faded away when a “strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change” (Carson). This strange phenomenon that occurs to this town is then further elaborated by Carson, but the reason behind all these mishaps remains unknown. To the extent of her elaboration, Carson describes mishaps such as the disappearance of birds and other animals in the town. According to the

Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night” is written in Terza Rima, a very uncommon form first used by Dante Alighieri, the famous Italian poet. Terza Rima is a very cyclical form, with the unusual rhyme scheme interlocking the stanzas. Frost uses this form to represent the cyclical nature of his night time journeys to the edge of town, as well at the cyclical nature of depression and suicidal ideation. The most interesting thing about this poem is how ambiguous it is, and how Frost goes about creating the ambiguity. It is extremely straight-forward, and is not hard to interpret literally.

How do writers create suspense in ‘The Signalman’ and ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’? Gothic literature and its both sub-genres, contemporary and traditional are looking for strange, eccentric, the supernatural, the magical and the sublime. Sometimes subtly intermingled with the realistic representation and stimulation of fear and horror within the context of a general focus on the emotional rather than the rational it frequently has an exotic setting and locations which creates more suspense for the reader and in large his imagery. We can see these functions more in the traditional literature such as Charles Dickens’ ‘The Signalman’ the writer used the darkness in the tunnel and the ghost that appears every night to create suspense and gives the

The setting in a story is often used to define the time and place of the narrative. However, the setting can also exhibit a conflict to the protagonist of the story. Two examples of this are in Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” and in James Joyce’s “Eveline.” In the case of “To Build a Fire,” the harsh Yukon cold presents a life and death situation to the protagonist. Meanwhile, the setting of “Eveline” causes a mental conflict in Eveline, about whether she can leave her home of Dublin to run away to Buenos Aires. Although both stories use their settings to introduce conflict, “To Build a Fire” presents the conflict in a physical sense while “Eveline” demonstrates it in a psychological sense. This is evident in the plot, themes, and protagonists

In Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and Sandra Cisneros’s “The House on Mango Street”, the authors describe their feelings towards the settings in a similar way. In Hemingway’s short story, two waiters at a café describe the differences in their lives and how they see life before them. In Cisneros’s short story, the narrator explains her past, present, and future places of residency and the impact it has in her life. Both settings in each story are different, but also very much alike, because of the people in the stories and the feeling of want and betterment that you get from both the waiters in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and the narrator in “The House on Mango Street”.

The scenic beauty of the village charmed me greatly. It was very sweet to me to took into the fair and open face of the village from the bus. A vise saying then came into my memory, ‘god made the village and mane made the town.’ It was now evening. The sun was going down. It looked like a large boll of fire. The cow boys were found moving home ward driving their cattle. Birds were seen returning to their nests by rows. The last rays of the setting sun fell on the green fields and produced an unforeseen sight. It filled my heart with great joy and excitement. I could enjoy the majesty of the setting sun and the pathos of darkness and patches of cloud floating in the sky were all very charming. I thought, I got myself almost lost in a dreamland and forget the world around