The Night the Ghost Got In

The opening paragraph of the story sets the reader’s expectations and creates a sense of intrigue. Thurber draws the reader in by summarizing the events to follow without divulging too much at the outset, all while maintaining the pretense of a casual, apologetic tone.

The regret Thurber displays in the first paragraph also sets up the juxtaposition between the absurdity of the events with the maturity of hindsight. As the narrator, he recognizes that the situation is, at its core, his fault—if he had “just let [the ghost] keep on walking,” (32) the night’s events may have never gotten so out of hand—but he admits fault not as an expression of guilt but instead as a humorous reflection on an inexplicable family mystery.

There is another, more subtle way that Thurber sets his reader’s expectations. In the second paragraph, he casually mentions that his grandfather is sleeping “in the old walnut bed which, as [the reader] will remember, once fell on [his] father” (32). This seems at first to be Thurber’s attempt at establishing familiarity with his reader, referencing the incident as if in conversation with an old friend. The incident actually refers to the first story in the collection, “The Night the Bed Fell.” In that story, Thurber’s mother believes that the walnut bed is too unstable, and will inevitably fall on his father, killing him. When Thurber falls out of bed in the middle of the night, his mother erroneously believes her prediction has come true, causing unnecessary panic. By slipping in the comment about the bed, Thurber hints that the events about to transpire are headed in the same direction.