Literary notes about bed (AI summary)
Throughout literature, the word “bed” is employed in a variety of ways that extend far beyond its literal meaning as a place for sleep. In many diary narratives—for example, Samuel Pepys’s recurring notes about going “home to bed” ([1], [2], [3], [4])—it marks the routine closure of daily activities. At the same time, the bed functions as a stage for dramatic transformation and vulnerability: in stories like Pinocchio, it ushers in the world of dreams ([5]), while in works such as Dracula it becomes a somber setting for death and loss ([6]). Authors also use the bed to explore themes of intimacy and personal reflection, as seen in the tender moments in Anne of Avonlea ([7]) and the domestic struggles in Little Women ([8]). Even in more symbolic or metaphorical contexts—ranging from epic allusions in Homer ([9]) to subtle character studies in Dickens and Dostoyevsky ([10], [11])—the bed embodies a liminal space where the boundaries between rest, desire, and fate are profoundly blurred.
- At last we broke up; and by and by comes in my Lord Sandwich again, and he and I to talk together about his businesses, and so he to bed
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys - Afterwards to my Lord’s lodgings, and so home to bed, having not been at my father’s to-day.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys - Thence to the office and there sat late, then I to my office and there till 12 at night, and so home to bed weary.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys - At 12 o’clock home to supper and to bed.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys - As soon as Pinocchio was in bed, he fell fast asleep and began to dream.
— from The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi - They lifted off the body of my dear mother, and laid her, covered up with a sheet, on the bed after I had got up.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker - “No; but I ain’t going to bed for ever so long yet,” said Davy comfortably.
— from Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery - Six children are huddled into one bed to keep from freezing, for they have no fire.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - They brought out a strong mule-waggon, newly made, and set the body of the waggon fast on its bed.
— from The Iliad by Homer - I picture myself going up to bed, among the unused rooms, and sitting on my bed-side crying for a comfortable word from Peggotty.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - Go to bed and sleep it off, my good woman, do you hear?
— from White Nights and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
