Twilight Zone Analysis

This episode of The Twilight Zone, entitled Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, is written by
Richard Matheson, an American novelist best known for his novel I Am Legend. This book was
later transformed into a 1974 film starring Charleton Heston, The Omega Man. The Twilight
Zone was an extremely successful American television program that explored questions of
morality, reality, and paranoia. Nightmare at 20,000 Feet is often considered among the best of
The Twilight Zone episodes, but is also rich with material about its context and themes.
Modal and Dramatistic Analysis
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (hereafter, Nightmare) is in the Epic Mode. It is a combination
of the lyric mode, having an unidentified narrator (who looks a lot like Rod Serling!) and the
dramatic mode, with a significant amount of dialogue among Bob, Julia, a flight engineer, a
stewardess (later revealed to be named Betty), and a gremlin, seemingly a supernatural
creature of some type. On a surface level, Bob and Julia are returning home from Bobs stint in a
mental hospital due to his mental breakdown some six months earlier. As Bob and Julias flight
continues, Bob spots a gremlin attempting to sabotage the aircrafts engines, which would
presumably kill all aboard. Bob then attempts to warn Julia and the flight crew, but is dismissed
as a raving lunatic. However, on a deeper level, the plot revolves around Bobs ability to discern
reality from fantasy. Although Bob is convinced that the gremlin is tampering with the planes
engines, the rest of the characters believe Bob is experiencing another mental breakdown.
Almost all of the action takes place in the airplanes cabin, at some point in the early 1960s,
according to the script. At the end, Bob is loaded into an ambulance on an airport tarmac, though
the final shot shows that he was correct. Bob primarily attempts to thwart the gremlin through
informing the flight crew and his wife, but by the end, simply takes to stealing a policemans

revolver and shooting the gremlin until it falls off the wing. The authors purpose for Bobs
increasingly frantic dialogue is not immediately clear, but it appears as though Matheson wants
to blur the line between fantasy and reality. Or, more accurately, between reality and the Twilight
Zone, a ubiquitous theme through the series (hence the name The Twilight Zone).
Transtextual Analysis
With regard to intertextuality, it depends on what one means by intertextual. The script
stems from a short story Matheson wrote, also titled Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. However, this is
more of a hypotext and should be characterized as such. In terms of the presence of other texts,
there are none. Paratextually, the script holds a good number of camera instructions, scene
instructions, and stage instructions. These instructions are designed to heighten the feelings of
suspense, as the plot is rather dry and dull without them. For example, one would never know
that Bob is shooting the gremlin without these stage instructions, as it is never directly stated in
the dialogue proper. The metatextual aspect of Nightmare is particularly interesting, as on one
hand, it is considered one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone; moreover, it has been
remade and, in one case, adapted into an episode of The Simpsons, an American animated
comedy program. Hypotextually and hypertextually, as mentioned above, this piece rests on an
earlier short story by Matheson. This earlier story is the hypotext. This story has been further
transformed in a Simpsons episode, the first segment in Treehouse of Horror IV, Terror at Five
and a Half Feet.
Finally, in terms of architexts, this piece falls in the literary genre of drama, and more
specifically, drama or thriller subsections of drama. Bob represents an archetypical character in
that he knows that something is wrong, but nobody else will believe him. Julia is a stock
character, who, while sympathetic to her husband, does not believe him. Similarly, the crew

members represent these stock characters as well. Obviously, Bob is vindicated at the end, but
only after he is persecuted and taken away (presumably back to a mental institution) for his
extreme actions in saving the aircraft.
Analysis Through Rehearsal
This section could prove particularly lengthy, but I will try to keep it as short as I possibly
can. I am working as the narrator in a script that requires a huge amount of narration.
Accordingly, for my own sanity, I have had to cut substantial portions of what I would say, with
the intention of a) reducing what I have to memorize and b) making the material clearer. As the
narrator, it is particularly difficult to find opportunities for gesture, movement, and even vocal
variation. Yet, I have tried to employ significant vocal variation during particularly tense or
action-packed scenes, but return to a more measured tone when reading something fairly banal.
In terms of group work, I must admit that rehearsing as a group can be difficult, and some of my
groups choices are not ones Id personally make (e.g. having two characters sit the majority of
the time). Yet, my hope is that, as long as it is consistent, it will work to some degree.