"A Terribly Strange Bed" and "The Whole Town's Sleeping"

Throughout this essay I intend to compare and contrast the effectiveness of the different narrative styles used in the two short stories, A Terribly Strange Bed and The Whole Town’s Sleeping. The stories were written about one hundred years apart, The Whole Town’s Sleeping in 1950 and A Terribly Strange Bed, much earlier in 1856. This means that not only will the portrayal of the stories vary based upon the individual styles of writing of the authors but also the social history of the times of writing will be quite different.

A Terribly Strange Bed is a story written in the first person narrative, which means it is written as a personal account of the events within the story from the point of view of the main character. It is usually written as a character recalling the story to someone else after the events have taken place. The Whole Town’s Sleeping on the other hand is a story written in the third person narrative which means it is written from the point of view of an ‘invisible’ bystander who plays no part in the actual story.

It is written as the events take place and is much like a fly on the wall kind of perspective. The outline of the story in The Whole Town’s Sleeping is that there is an air of tension building in a small town as a man nicknamed ‘the lonely one’ is going around killing women “But the others – strangled – four of them, their tongues sticking out of their mouths, they say.

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” The main theme of the story is about the reactions and feelings of three maiden ladies as they walk through the town in the dark of night to visit the cinema.

The tension and fear of the story is increased as the women find the body of a friend who has been missing, Eliza Ramsell, and their response is not to return to the safety of their homes, but is to continue with their plans to walk on, to the cinema. The ladies even flout the advice of the police to return home immediately after the film showing and end up walking through the town at midnight when ‘nearly all’ the other residents are safely locked up in their homes asleep.

The climax of the story comes when the ladies have to separate as they reach their individual homes and Lavinia Nebbs is left to walk the last five minutes alone through the “deep, deep and black, black” ravine. The story ends with a twist as Lavinia finally reaches the ‘safety’ of being inside her home. A Terribly Strange Bed is a story about a gambler who visits, “as blackguard a place, by all respect, as you should ever wish to see. ” This is a dirty gambling house where the subject of the story has an astonishing run of good luck and is fortunate enough to break the bank.

Whilst playing he is befriended by a “rather suspicious specimen of an old soldier. ” This soldier later gets the subject drunk and leads him to a room where the ‘terribly strange bed’ is situated. As the subject tries to sleep he becomes aware that the bed he is lying on is closing down upon him, threatening to suffocate him. He just manages to escape with his life, by rolling from the moving bed and leaving the gambling house via his bedroom window and then slipping down a water pipe into the street below.

The plots of the two stories are quite different but the themes of creating an atmosphere of fear and tension are very similar. In both stories there is a protagonist who is domineering and who is confidant of themselves and the moves that they take. They do not listen to their peers and don’t accept advice very well. However, the tension of the two stories is developed in quite different fashions. In The Whole Town’s Sleeping there is a slow accumulation of many events each adding to the tension before the climax is reached when Lavinia, the protagonist, crosses the ravine.

In contrast, in A Terribly Strange Bed there isn’t as much build up of tension and less events happen prior to the moment when the antagonist attempts murder on the protagonist. However, there is a greater use of language and dialect making the story as long as The Whole Town’s Sleeping, but less busy. From the very start there are clues as to what the stories are about, A Terribly Strange Bed starts to build a disturbing atmosphere with a very detailed description of the gambling house which the protagonist and his friend visit.

Phrases like,”here there was nothing but tragedy” and “the spectacle was something to weep over”, suggests a perfect setting for harm to befall the character. The use of these phrases in the first person shows both opinion and emotion. This is an effective way of setting the scene because an image of a dirty, dimly lit room with badly dressed, unshaven ‘tramps’ sitting and leaning against walls is immediately thrown into the mind of the reader, creating a sense of trepidation. In The Whole Town’s Sleeping the first hint of fear is suggested by the title of the movie the ladies are to attend ‘Welcome, Danger!