On the Orient, North story
A nurse decides to assist a ghastly passenger to reach his destiny before some unusual illness ends him. Directed by: Frank Cassenti. Story by: Ray Bradbury.
10 total · 1 choice · 5 major · 4 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| ghost | choice | It seems the point of the story was that the ghastly passenger was, in fact, a ghost of some sort (albeit visible and mostly corporeal) and that his nurse companion, Minerva, died and became one as well. |
| medical occupation | major | The story concerns a traveling nurse, Minerva, who was called on to exercise her profession when a fellow passenger aboard her train fell ill. |
| superstition in society | major | The Ghastly Passenger, a ghost, was migrating to Britain because belief in his kind was waning on the continent, leaving him with a lack of vitality. |
| the desire to get away from it all | major | The Ghastly Passenger could not stand most people ad desired seclusion above all else. |
| the need for companionship | major | Minerva and the Ghastly Passenger found they needed each other's companionship in the end. |
| what it is like to travel | major | The story imagines what it might have been like to travel across Europe by train in the late modern era. |
| creative writing | minor | In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing. |
| life in late modern Britain | minor | The Ghastly Passenger and his nurse companion, Minerva, suitably hauntably castle to inhabit. |
| religious occupation | minor | A trembling priest visited the Ghastly Passenger's train cabin, offering to administer the last rites. The Ghastly Passenger declined, remarking sardonically that he'd gotten his last rites "years ago". |
| the nature of creativity | minor | In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it. |