pleasure of keeping awake, eyes half-closed, listening to the other patients’ conversation…” It obviously appears the man doesn’t want to fall asleep, but sleep is supposed to be peaceful and he rather not has it. Again, the man wakes up from his dream and is a little more intense. This time he shows, “…sleep began to take over again, to pull him slowly down.” That is a miniature war between him and sleep; it begins to show him fearful of his dream and what is going to happen next. The third time, the same thing occurred and he says, “…a face whose eyes wanted not to see it, were closing and opening desperately…”
Even though it was all a bad dream, the author was able to turn just a bad dream into a story itself. In “The Night Face Up”, Cortazar uses harsh imagery and repetitive details to create a dark tone. The author uses diction like being pinned down, darkness, and icy stone to create a captive image. Another approach the author used was the detail of the man being afraid to go back to his dream because it was so dark and frightening. He repeats this pattern every time before he was slowly going back to sleep. With this being said, a reader can now apply tone to different writings, different people, and life itself.
At this point he is fighting sleep the most and dreadfully wants to stay awake. Generally, people don’t fight sleep this bad especially in a surrounding that is supposed to be safe. Stating this detail three times made this important to pay attention to. It leaves suspense, mystery, and fear to the tone.