“The Night Watchman’s Occurrence Book” Essay
In the short-story, “The Night Watchman’s Occurrence Book,” V.S. Naipaul illustrates with satire - through accounts of the Night Watchman, Charles Ethelbert Hillyard, and the manager’s, W.A.G. Inskip, responses - the struggle between a manager and an employee as many events take place at night at a hotel, named C-Hotel. According to the manager, the previous Night Watchman of C-Hotel did not fulfill his duty correctly, and was therefore replaced by Charles Ethelbert Hillyard, who seems to be a bit inexperienced. At first sight, Hillyard seems less educated than his manager and tries to appear so, but the Night Watchman is actually quite intelligent (a lot more than his Inskip) and mocks Inskip cunningly. The author suggest that Charles Ethelbert Hillyard wants to please his manager as best as he can and tries to do everything Inskip says; but Inskip always finds something to reproach Hillyard for,…show more content… Hillyard then follows these orders, but in the wrong way. For example, in the end, Hillyard directs an angry man to the manager office (because he was told to do so for callers and strangers) and causes the beating of the manager because a woman was hiding in the annexe. In addition, the Watchman in his reports, notes, as the days pass by, more and more detailed information - following Inskip’s directions - especially about the people, and a lot less about the important events. To these events, which are unusual and violent, he heeds as much attention as he does to what the people say, and doesn’t act on them. With this story, the author describes the difficult relationship between a manager - who reproaches the employee for everything - and the employee, who follows the