As the title of the story suggests, the setting is mainly
one of the cars on a commuter train from Manhattan to the suburbs. The very commonplace
nature of the setting makes the incident more nightmarish. The viewpoint character can
hardly believe what is happening to him. It seems like a bad dream. The entire story has
a dreamlike quality about it.
It was time to go home, time for a drink, time
for love, time for supper, and he could see the lights on the hill--lights by which
children were being bathed, meat cooked, dishes washed--shining in the
rain.
What brings the
nightmare into this familiar suburban setting is the madness of the antagonist, Miss
Dent. She doesn't belong here. She has brought her own confused world into Blake's
orderly world and created chaos.
"I've never been here before," she said. "I
thought it would look
different."
She thinks it
looks shabby. Blake is not a wealthy business tycoon, but one of the smaller cogs in the
great wheels of commerce. The fact that it doesn't look as posh as she imagined it may
contribute to her sparing his life. He seems less like a rich aristocrat abusing a poor
working girl.
What will Blake actually do about this
incident? He cannot tell his wife, and he probably cannot report Miss Dent to the police
without having to explain why she did what she did. Blake is lucky that he will be able
to keep this a secret in a community like Shady Hill, where everybody knows everybody
else's business. Miss Dent has dissolved into the multitudes who inhabit this great
megalopolis, but she could turn up again at any time from out of
nowhere.
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