Written by: ashchap
A Comparison of Writer’s Techniques in ‘The Whole Town’s Sleeping’ by Ray Bradbury, ‘A Terribly Strange Bed’ by Wilkie Collins and ‘The Landlady’ by Roald Dahl
In this essay I will be comparing three short stories: ‘The Whole Town’s Sleeping’ by Ray Bradbury (1950), ‘A Terribly Strange Bed’ by Wilkie Collins (1856) and ‘The Landlady’ by Roald Dahl (1960). These three texts are all from the fear genre. Fear Stories are stories that make us feel fear (or are supposed to), they make the reader scared or frightened. Stories that make us frightened have been popular with people for hundreds of years, with children because they are exciting and make you so caught up in the story that you become genuinely scared as if you are actually the person in the story, and adults because the stories become quite emotional and often very memorable. This makes it much more interesting than a lot of other stories. I chose these stories because they would be easily comparable as they all have the same purpose, which is so scare you. I am going to compare the way Ray Bradbury, Wilkie Collins and Roald Dahl use figurative language and how they create tension and suspense, and mood and tone, during the openings of their three short stories.
In the first few lines of 'The Whole Town's Sleeping', the author describes the setting for a typical fear story, “the little town was deep far away from everything, kept to itself by a river and a forest and a ravine”, but before that he mentions another thing that is necessary for a typical fear story, the fact that it is night time. All three of the stories I am studying are set at night. This is because it was set in the daytime it simply wouldn’t be scary. The whole town wouldn’t be sleeping, the narrator wouldn’t need a terribly strange bed to sleep in, and Billy Weaver wouldn’t be looking for a landlady. Collins has a different approach for the beginning of 'A Terribly Strange Bed', he describes the characters and what they were doing, which gives a different impression of the story, it doesn't seem like a scary story at first, because there are no obvious signs like in 'The Whole Town's Sleeping’. 'The Landlady' is similar to Collins’ story, because of the description of the main character (‘Billy Weaver’), but is also similar to Bradbury’s story because he mentions that it is night and says the word ‘deadly’ which gives the reader a clue about the genre of the story.
The opening of a story is meant to make you interested in a story, and all three writers do this by using interesting, descriptive language. Ray Bradbury instantly creates a picture in your head of a lonely town in America, the perfect setting for a scary story, you can see what the author is describing in detail because of words that make the story more interesting. Rarely used adjectives such as “scorched”, “vanilla whiteness”, “rococo” and “snow white” and detailed verbs like “whispered”, “whined” “breathed” and “twinkling” make the picture in the readers head more vivid and detailed, and make the reader want to carry on reading the story. Roald Dahl makes you understand Billy, and you feel as if you are a personal friend of his, following him around while he is telling you what he thinks and chatting: “Briskness, he had decided was the…” “The big shots up at Head Office were absolutely fantastically brisk all the time.” This makes the reader feel like they want to read on, like a good friend is telling them a story, which is bound to be interesting, because their friend is interesting. This helps you get into a false sense of security, you are lulled into thinking that it is just going to be a normal star in a bed and breakfast. You carry on reading because you want to know more about your friend Billy and what he does, you want to know how he feels and how he responds, You don’t feel like you are reading the story, you feel like you are being told the story, or even that you are there, and if you are there, you cant stop, you need to know what happens, what happens to Billy. In my opinion, Wilkie Collins did not do such a good job as Bradbury or Dahl in getting the reader to continue reading his story, mainly because although he did use a lot of interesting words, the story didn’t start moving as quickly as in the others, he talks about his friend and their conversation, and you only work out what is going on by the second page, whereas in the others, the plot starts moving halfway through the first page. I don’t think that Wilkie Collins is a worse author, but I do think that the opening of his story does not appeal to me, and would probably not appeal to my piers as much as the other authors’ openings.
Both Ray Bradbury and Roald Dahl use personification in the openings of their story to create interest and variety to the stories: “In the downtown drugstore, fans whispered in the high ceiling air”, “Screen doors whined their springs and banged” “the air was deadly…”. They also use metaphors and similes such as “There were two moons: a clock moon with four faces…” and “the wind was like a flat blade of ice on his cheeks”. Without these extra parts, the stories would be slightly empty, and not as exciting or interesting. They also help the reader to create vivid images in their minds whilst reading the story. But they don’t just create images, they make you imagine other senses like sound and touch. Having said that though, 'A Terribly Strange Bed' does not have any personification, metaphors or similes in its opening, but still manages to maintain interest and create equally vivid mental images. However, I do believe that the opening of Collins’ story is its weakest part, when the story starts going, I become more involved with it and the narrative makes up for what I believe is a lack of a good opening, because it is a good story which ‘pulls back’ your attention and interest after it is lost during the opening. Others might have different opinions, and might like to hear a bit more about the background of a story instead of ploughing straight into the main storyline.
Mood and tone are very important in a story, especially in fear stories. It is one of the main parts of being scared. If the mood is right, a story will be much more scary, it has to be dark and mysterious. If it were happy and bright, the story wouldn’t be scary at all. Using certain adjectives, like “warm summer night”, “deep far away”, “kept to itself, scorched”, “solemn black courthouse”, “dark east” and “invisible people”, creates this mood and tone in ‘The Whole Town’s Sleeping’. 'The Landlady' and 'A Terribly Strange Bed', however, are different, as they seem to create a different mood and tone in the openings to the main story, they use words like “rather a wild life”, “delightful city of our sojourn”, “idling about”, “splendid city”, “feeling fine and “briskly… briskly… briskness… absolutely fantastically brisk all the time… amazing”. The repetition of the word ‘brisk’ emphasizes the fact that Billy is happy as he walks down the street, but also makes you start to wonder what's going to happen next. Bradbury's story gives you an image of two happy people wondering what to do, not worrying about anything, looking for more excitement (which is exactly what they got in the end) and Dahl's story again is sort of in between the other two stories, the main character is happy, but the setting doesn't seem to be so friendly, you can tell something's up.
In 'A Terribly Strange Bed' and 'The Landlady', the cities in which the stories are set are praised in the story, although not really mentioned much “delightful city of our sojourn” and “splendid city”, they don’t seem to play a large part in the story and don’t seem to be anything special. However in 'The Whole Town's Sleeping', quite the opposite is the case, the first two paragraphs (half the page) are all about the setting and this is very important to the mood and tone of the story, without it, you might not be as scared or believe that a madman could run around killing people for months without being caught, because you might think its set in a city or some where that isn’t in the middle of nowhere, and if Lavinia had been running past houses in broad daylight, someone would simply stop it. The setting is very important, and is a large part of the story in 'The Whole Town's Sleeping', but in the other two stories, the storyline/plot remains scary enough without the added fear of being alone in a small town with no one to call for help.
Another main part of fear in a story is tension and suspense, without it, the fear is diluted throughout the story, whereas with it, all the fear is built up and concentrated into one moment and then there is a relief period after the climax of the story, often where the mystery is revealed, or alternatively when the story ends on a ‘high note’
Tension is built up a little at the beginning of 'The Whole Town's Sleeping', before the women find the body, but it is unexpected, and so it is a sudden shock rather than a slow buildup, which can be very effective as well, but the main excitement of the story is at the end, when Lavinia is running through the ravine. The tension is build up using sentences that get shorter and shorter, so that you read them faster and faster until the last sentences are only a couple of words long and the reader is getting really excited, all that matters is the story. Then when Lavinia reaches the house and locks the door, the reader feels the relief that the character is feeling. I think this part of the story is very good, how it makes you think that the ordeal is over, but then Lavinia hears the man clear his throat, the reader holds their breath, and wants to know what happens, but can only do so using their own imagination. This ‘cliffhanger’ idea is used a lot, especially in television, in soap operas such as ‘Eastenders’, or continuous television series. This is because it makes the viewer want to watch the next episode really badly to find out what happens. But it is a bit different with a book (unless it’s a series of books), the reader has to actually think a little, not just sit in front of a box, the story is totally interactive after that high end point. 'A Terribly Strange Bed' also uses a build up to a big fear climax, but not to the same extent as 'The Whole Town's Sleeping' does. The excitement of the gambling, the strangeness of the drinks afterwards and the anti-climax of the end of the night, just as the reader calms down from reading about everything that has happened, the final shock starts to set in as it does with the narrator, at first it seems strange and nonsensical, but then as the narrator describes his thoughts, you feel like he did, you feel scared, but still compelled to read the end of the story. After the narrator frees himself of the horrible bed, the terror isn’t over yet, he still had to escape, at this point, the tension is high, but it doesn't reach such a dramatic climax as in 'The Whole Town's Sleeping', it is a more slow and painful story, like the actual subject of the story, a suffocating bed. When the narrator reaches the police station, the suspense is relieved, and in thins story, you read about the aftermath of the event, unlike the other two stories where you don’t know what happens next. In Collins’ story, you are told what happens next, and you finish the story quite pleased, like the narrator would be, instead of still scared like you are in the other stories. Roald Dahl has only made one large build up in tension and suspense in 'The Landlady', but this story doesn't revolve so much around the tension, it is a slow realization rather than a simple primitive fear, in 'The Whole Town's Sleeping', the main character is running from a murderer, in 'A Terribly Strange Bed', the main character is about to be crushed, but in 'The Landlady', the main character has to realize what is going to happen to him, and so its harder to just run, he is confused, and struggles to grasp the problem for quite a while, until right at the end of the story in fact. This story leaves the most to your imagination, the message at the end isn’t quite so clear in 'The Landlady' as it is in the other stories, they tell you that a man is in the room and is going to kill you, and they tell you that the mystery has been solved, but they don’t tell you that you are going to be stuffed, you have to figure that out yourself.
The three stories that I have studied are similar and different; the authors use different methods to make the reader scared. Some of the stories have some similarities and others have differences. Ray Bradbury describes the scenery whereas Wilkie Collins describes the characters, and Roald Dahl is in between the two. I believe that Bradbury and Dahl have made better openings because I find them more interesting, and the storyline starts moving quicker. Bradbury makes the opening tone like it is for the rest of the story, whereas Collins and Dahl lead you into a false sense of security, Collins more so than Dahl. Setting seems to be more important in 'The Whole Town's Sleeping' than it is in Collins’ and Dahl’s stories, and tension and suspense is used very differently in the three stories, Bradbury uses a sharp shock and then a steady buildup, then a false relief before a final cliffhanger. Collins uses a strange buildup to what seems like somewhat of an anti-climax and then re establishes the tension, for a gentle relief and a settled ending. Dahl makes the reader use their head, in order for the slow realization technique to work, and he finishes on a slightly more unclear cliffhanger than that in 'The Whole Town's Sleeping'.