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A Good Nights Sleep

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A Good Night’s Sleep - A Scottish short story

The story deals with George Lockhart who is trying to sleep but has a hard time doing so due to the noisy city life and his insomnia. He lives on the third floor in a tenement building in Edinburgh. He is a teacher of Community and General Studies, and he misses his ex-wife Elaine “He tried not to think of Elaine, his ex-wife, sleeping in their old comfortable double bed – alone?” (p.1, l. 41), and has a son named Ben with her as well. He notices every sound from the people and cars out in the street to the neighbors. It makes him more frustrated and less tired. He finds a homeless adolescent girl on his doormat and who is geting some rest. Instead of staying humble when the homeless girl is being confronted by George, she gets irritated and has a rude tone every time she answer him back.

At the start of their conversation we feel that Georg is a bit shocked, and therefore asks a lot of questions because he is curious to know why there is a homeless on his doormat, which only gets her more upset and she sees George as an wealthy man (p. 3, l. 89-92) that only contributes problems in to her attempt to sleep, and he has to be dealt with somehow in a way that doesn’t end up in her having to leave and find another place to sleep. She doesn’t see him as one that could actually help her in some way. She has a very pessimistic attitude. The reader can clearly see from the start of their conversation that she is sure that he doesn’t care about her, even though he says it’s terrible for her (p. 3, l. 100) and expresses a bit of pity for her.

However Georg doesn’t get upset even though a homeless is sleeping on his doormat and she talks to him in a rude and arrogant way, but he considers letting her stay and eventually he asks her if she wants to stay. You could argue that he does this because he feels the need to do

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