The Room In The Tower
The story starts with the protagonist narrating his story of a weird and spooky dream. The narrator has been seeing a particular dream for sixteen exhausting years. In his dream, the narrator goes to his friend Jack stone's house to attend a party. He doesn't know Jack much except being his schoolmate.
The narrator feels something off with this party because the atmosphere of the party seems quite gloomy. As he is taking in his surrounding, he spots an old looking tower. He hears Mrs. Stone telling his son to show the room to the narrator, although the narrator has never been to his friend's house. His heart sinks just thinking of sleeping in that creepy room in the old tower.
The narrator's dream becomes more lucid and, the characters in his dreams age, and eventually, he stops seeing Mrs. Julia in his dreams. The narrator visits his friend John Clinton who lives in Sussex. After reaching there, he finds everything eerily similar to his dreams. He tries to relax but gets chills after hearing John's mother saying that she has given him a room in the tower to rest. In this story, the writer has created an enigmatic dilemma for the narrator because he's confused if he's awake or still in his dream.
At the end of the story, readers get to know that Mrs. Julia had committed suicide, and probably that's the reason her ghost didn't leave her favorite room in the tower. The ending is quite confusing for the readers because the writer doesn't clear the reason why Mrs. Julia's ghost is haunting the narrator and leaves it as an unexplained mystery.
The China Bowl
In The China Bowl, the narrator goes to see a house which he intends to buy from Sir Arthur Bassenthwaite, whose wife died recently. The owner of the house wants to get rid of the house as soon as possible.The writer heightens the curiosity of the readers because the narrator thinks that the house is too cheap.
The narrator starts living in the house when he encounters the ghost of the heiress eating porridge in a china bowl. This event repeats until the narrator's friend Hugh understands the reason behind this recurring incident.The narrator and his friend find a china bowl buried in the garden with the residue of porridge in it. In the end, it reveals that the porridge consists of arsenic, which was the cause of Mr. Arthur's wife's death.
The writer starts off the story purely of the horror genre, but in the end, it turns into a mystery thriller. The Feeble looking ghost of Sir Arthur's wife doesn't scare the readers but awaken a curiosity for the possible reason for her ghost's lingering in the house. The narrator's friend suspects that maybe the ghost is giving them a sign and wants justice for her untimely demise. Lastly, it proves that Sir Arthur is the culprit, and he also dies in an accident.
