Structure

...

Beginning

The exposition introduces the setting and the characters of the story as the narrator begins to recount the events. George Lockhart is an insomniac who is kept awake by a noise at his door. This foreshadows his encounter with the homeless girl.

The setting is established as a flat on the third floor of a tenement house in Edinburgh (p. 146, l. 9). George Lockhart has trouble with the noise he can hear f…

...

Middle

The rising action depicts George hearing the noise at his front door again. It is revealed that George is a teacher of Communication and General Studies and desperately tries to fall asleep because he has a class discussion in the morning. The fact that his topic of discussion is “Problems of Modern Society” (p. 147, l. 29) foreshadows his direct encounter with the problem of homelessness.

A backstory tells us that George’s life has been affected by insomnia for a long time: he has had “yawning years of wrestling with his demons” (p. 148, ll. 2-3) and has not been intimate with anyone for months. He is unable to sleep even though he has a special bed designed for insomnia…

...

Ending

In the falling action, George is preoccupied with thoughts about the young woman, feeling angry that she does not take care of herself.

A tension point is created when the couple who live next-door to George return home and have an argument with the homeless girl, sending her away. George proves to be rather hypocritical, since he goes out of his flat only after the argument is done and he pretends he did not know about the girl being there.

The resolution depicts Georg…