Literary Focus
The Night the Bed Fell
by James Thurber
A humorous
essay is nonfiction written for the purpose of amusing an audience.
Often in a humorous essay, the amusement is based on irony—a situation that is the
opposite of what might be expected.
In “The Night the Bed Fell,” irony exists because each member of the family had a wrong
impression of what was actually happening at the time of all the chaos and confusion. For
example, Mrs. Thurber believed that her husband’s bed had crashed when, in reality, it was her
son’s bed that had fallen.
Directions:
Use the following chart to record all the contrasting views of events in Thurber’s
story by writing what the character in question thought was happening.
What Grandfather thought
What Briggs thought
What Mother thought
278-279
281
281
What the narrator thought
281
What Really
Happened
What Herman thought
281
281
What Father thought
What Rex, the dog, thought
What Roy thought
282
282
281-282