A Comparison Of ‘The Whole Town’s Sleeping’ And ‘A Terribly Strange Bed’ Focusing On The Techniques Used By Each Author To Create Suspense

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h she had put herself down there to enjoy the soft stars’. This is because ‘The Whole Town’s Sleeping’ was written in the ‘50s, which was the hey-day of cinema. Bradbury was a pioneer in the field of sci-fi films, so when he was writing he was aware of the visual imagery of his words, and this would be a help if his books where ever made into films.
The setting of the two stories are very different. ‘The Whole Town’s Sleeping’ is set in a “little town” in “the middle of Illinois country.” The first sentence tells you how vulnerable the town is, “The little town was deep far away from everything, kept to it’s self by a river and a forest and a ravine.” This town is a perfect town, with white picket fences and people sat outside on their porches, and where everyone takes an interest in everyone else’s business, “where are you going, ladies? Cried Grandma Hanlon“. Grandma Hanlon probably isn’t related to either of the ladies, but because it is such a close-knit town they will have know her all there live so call her Grandma. This is all part of the American dream. But then all this is destroyed by the presence of the ravine and The Lonely One. ‘A Terribly Strange Bed’ is set in a city, ‘Paris’, and the Narrator readily admits that it is not a perfect place. Both of these add suspense. The second one is more obvious, it isn’t a perfect place and the reader is well aware that there are dangerous and desperate people about, so they fear for the narrator’s safety and life. The setting adds suspense a different way in ‘The Whole Town’s Sleeping’. The initial description appears to be describing the perfect place, but there are subtle hints that this is not the case. The fact that the reader also knows that they are reading a horror story also helps to build up the suspense of what is it that makes this town different and wrong.
Although the settings are very different there i...