The Night the Ghost Got In

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Consider the symbol of the ghost in the story.

• What does the ghost symbolize? (topic sentence)
• Identify 2-3 examples in which the narrator explains why he believes a ghost was in his house.
• How does Thurber’s use of the ghost connect to the larger theme of The Unknown and Meaningless?

2. My Life and Hard Times was published in 1933, but “The Night the Ghost Got In” takes place in 1915.

• How might the effects of WWI have influenced themes within the narrative? (topic sentence)
• Find 2-3 examples in the story where war or the effects of war are referenced, and discuss their connection to the pre-WWI setting.
• What point is Thurber making about War’s Effect on the Social Conscience?

3. Thurber was mostly blind at the time of writing the story due to a childhood accident.

• How might Thurber’s near-blindness relate to the role of light in the story and to the tenuous relationship between fact and fiction? (topic sentence)
• Find 2-3 examples where the senses, including the use of light, may connect to Thurber’s visual impairment.
• How does the blurring of lines between fact and fiction speak to Thurber’s larger theme that Truth Is Subjective?

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Consider the characters referenced in the story who are not a part of the Thurber family. What might the Thurbers’ interactions with them reveal about the community as a whole? How does this relate to the larger theme of community and social consciousness?

2. While most of the characters in the story suffer from the fear of the unknown, grandfather’s fear is different. Why does the author juxtapose grandfather’s “flashback” and the other characters’ fears? How do they treat him and rationalize his behavior? What comment might Thurber be making about the treatment of people with lived experiences of war?