Part 9

The narrative is remarkable in that it supposes a condition the reverse, in many respects, of life in ante bellum days. The _child_ rocks his _father’s_ cradle. He is frightened by a whole man. The wrecks of men, in the pictured setting, contrast sharply with the traveler, pages 363, 364.

THEME. State the underlying idea, and show how it is intensified by subsidiary ideas.

VENGEANCE IS MINE

THEME. Like “The Strange-Looking Man,” this story is pre-eminently one of idea. Written before the United States declared war against Germany, it none the less is of the Allied spirit. At the same time, it hints that Germany has an ideal. (See page 151: “a vision which it alone had understood.”) Would the same author probably hold in 1919 his original concept? Does his dénouement negate the ideal?

How is the “fear or desire” (page 145) bound up with the dénouement?

SETTING. What is the place of the dream? The time _of_ the dream? What outer occurrences emphasize it? (See, notably, page 152, where the place of emphasis is given to the “bold boom of the batteries.”) Give an external and an internal proof of the fact that “Christmas Eve, 1916” is the time _in_ the dream.

How much of the prophecy (pages 147, 148) has been fulfilled?

THE NARRATOR. In what branch of the service is the narrator? Value of his point of view? Why does he use the dream device? By what difficulties is the dream method usually attended? How successful has Mr. Jordan been in avoiding them?

THE ACTION. What is the chief incident of the inner action? How does it emphasize the theme? What relation has the outer action to that of the dreamed action? Compare the technical device with that of “Mr. Eberdeen’s House.” Wherein lies the power of the dénouement? Why does the narrator say, “I thanked God for the Germans”?

THE CALLER IN THE NIGHT

THE STARTING POINT. Mr. Kline is not sure of his beginnings; perhaps it came to him out of the ether “or whatever it is that niggardly generates ideas.” “If it had any starting point, perhaps it was in a talk I remember once having with Braithwaite. I kicked because the embattled farmers and others of New England never seemed to fire a shot but some ready recorder was instantly on hand to jot it down in a paean of praise; while Pennsylvania, with pretty good history of its own, too, and full of legend and lore, had gone totally unreported by comparison. Maybe I started out to hunt up its legends.”

After this pleasant admission, Mr. Kline confesses that “The Caller in the Night” is no rendering of an actual legend. “So far as I know there never was a Screamer Moll, and no skeletons. The thunderstorm probably happened. The rest is all made up.”

The statements are invaluable to one who sets out to judge a piece of work with due regard to the author’s purpose. His motive, in brief, is comparable to that of Washington Irving. Father Knickerbocker is the “created legendary” figure in which New York will take pride forever.

THE PLOT.

_The Dominant Features_: Fannie and George kill Ned. Fannie and Mollie escape to Pennsylvania. Later George joins them. He falls in love with the girl. The mother’s power returns. Occasion throws the girl with George. At his protests, Mollie understands he is trying to “make a fool of her,” as he has of her mother, Fannie. She runs from him. The incident of the storm. Mollie later finds Fannie and George. She (evidently) kills them. Long years after, she tells her story. She dies.

_Presentation_: The details as just suggested are woven in the lurid narrative Mollie tells Mrs. Pollard and Mrs. Reeves. Study the details--they are the essential “story”--and observe how skillfully the author has rearranged them. To illustrate, he necessarily begins with what formed the final step in the series above. What is the reason for the _incoherent presentation_ of the story Moll tells? Mark out the steps in the plot, Initial Incident, and so on to the Dénouement, using the scheme found throughout this book.

SETTING. What is the locale of Mrs. Pollard’s home? Is this setting in any way a part of the plot, or does it merely provide background for Moll’s story? Is it near the setting of the rehearsed narrative? Why does the thunderstorm form an essential part of the setting? How are the weather, the time of day, and the place harmonized in the atmosphere or mood of the entire narrative?

CHARACTERS. What characteristics of Mrs. Pollard and Mrs. Reeves make them especially desirable, for story purposes, as listeners?

In what ways is the portrait of Moll given? What is the significance of the fact that she is _introduced_ by her “unearthly cry”? (Page 369.) The main image of her person is given (page 371) as “the tall and thin but heavily framed figure of an old woman.” Is this picture emphasized, for cumulative effect, or is it left to stand alone? Are Moll’s first words well calculated, as her initial speech? Why?

Through Screamer Moll’s story, the story of an insane woman, Fannie and George appear striking in certain details; dim in others. Is this both a necessary fact, under the circumstances, and also better for the author’s purpose? Describe Fannie.

DETAILS. Mr. Kline used the rehearsed method of telling the main story as an unconscious effort, no doubt, to heighten the effect of legend, of “something by and gone, all shadowy as recalled.”

Where, in the finished story, does the author first sound his legend idea?

Why does he introduce the thunderstorm? Even if Moll had not died, would it have had logical place in the story? That is, would the repetition of the storm scene cause a reaction from her crazed brain which would impel her to speech? Does the duplication of the storm (the one of the inner story echoed by the one of the setting) increase the totality of effect?

Why is the place of emphasis (the end) given to the finding of the two skeletons?

What are the chief sound effects? Are they in harmony or contrast?

GENERAL VIEWS OF MR. KLINE. He thinks Mr. Braithwaite is right. “The only test of a short story is, ‘Has the writer something interesting to say, and does he say it in a manner to interest me?’” (See, by way of comparison, Mr. Donn Byrne’s statement.) Mr. Kline further believes that the great writers have never had to thrash the air with “plot”--“from Hawthorne and Poe and Bret Harte, from Balzac and Gautier and Maupassant, from Tolstoy and Turgenev and Dostoievsky, down to our own O. Henry.” According to his statement and illustrations, how is he probably considering the word plot? What difference is there between plot invention and plot presentation? Does De Maupassant show skill in arranging the plot _order_ in “The Necklace”? What would have happened to the story had he not created the surprise? What would be the loss in these stories of O. Henry had he not carefully constructed his plot--“The Gift of the Magi,” “A Double-Dyed Deceiver,” “The Furnished Room”?

Mr. Kline thinks that the only way to learn to write is to write and keep writing, under wise and kindly criticism of course. And he adds that if one can be severe and honest enough one’s own criticism is best. “To be a real writer, one must master himself, master the world, and master his art.”

IN THE OPEN CODE

PLOT.

_Initial Impulse._ George Roberts, freight engineer, drinker and fighter, on the way to ruin and discharge, falls in love.

_Steps toward the Dramatic Climax_: He passes every day the home of his sweetheart and toots his whistle in a musical code fashion, “to let her know he’s safe.” The whistle has a softening effect on a crowd of woodsmen, engaged in restoring a Virginia manor house and grounds. “The world seemed a bit better for it.” The signal ceases. The cynics say the engineer is probably drunk again. But one of the men, Gordon, makes a special trip to the village to find out.

_Dramatic Climax_: The engineer and the girl, he learns, are married; they are away on their honeymoon.

_Steps to the Climax of Action_: The signal is resumed farther along the line, where the engineer and his wife have set up a home of their own. For three weeks the signal is faithful; then it ceases, again, abruptly. After four days Gordon goes again to the village. Just as he returns, the men hear the signal fainter and farther away.

_Climax of Action_: Gordon tells the men that the wife is dead and is buried farther down the line; he whistles “to let her know he’s safe.”

PRESENTATION. “It made a neat little story,” Mr. Kline says of the engineer’s reclamation and present custom of signaling. But without the supporting band of workmen to throw it into relief it would hardly stand alone. The group becomes, then, an integral part of the 1,500 word narrative which is given to the reader.

CHARACTERIZATION. The girl, whose name is not even mentioned, is the most potent character--or, perhaps, love as expressed through her makes her, symbolically, dominant. The engineer is the most important, by virtue of his active rôle; the workmen are the background characters, as they come under the influence of the simple demonstration of affection; they are the foreground characters, as the story is presented. What traits are manifest in various individuals of the group? How do these traits sharpen the dénouement?

SETTING. Why is Virginia chosen?

DETAILS. What contribution is made by the choice of “Annie Laurie”? On what thought does the final bar end? Did you, as you read, notice this sinister clue? Why not?

LITTLE SELVES

STARTING POINT AND STRUCTURAL PROCESSES. “You were right,” Miss Lerner says, “about my knowing ‘the prototype of old Margaret.’ And every one of her storied recollections is a real one, told for the most part in her own words. She still insists so stoutly on the reality of the ‘little old man with the high hat,’ the bewitched churn, the fairies’ chairs and tables, that one ends by believing in them, too. So you see the material came ready to my hand. All I had to do was to vivify it, and cast it in the most dramatic form possible.

“Old Margaret is not dead, however. She reads and re-reads ‘Little Selves,’ and says she can smell the peat fire and hear the kettle humming on the hob. It was an old friend of hers who died--of cancer, as the story ran; and Margaret used to spend many an hour talking with her those last days. Their reminiscences, however, were of the time of their young womanhood; they did not meet in the old country.

“All this cherished material had long lain in my mind. Its greatest appeal to me perhaps depended on the fact that I, too, had always been an inveterate ponderer of moments of my extreme childhood. Even at eight or ten, I used to re-live isolated moments of particular interest from my ‘past,’ which even then seemed bathed in a ‘livelier light.’

“The final impulse came one day on hearing Stevenson’s phrase, ‘Nothing matters much that happens to a boy after he is seven.’ At once I saw the whole story. Margaret must die, of course, and dying revisit the scenes of her childhood. That bit of manipulation would heighten and intensify the whole tale. She must be a single woman, too, instead of a wife and the devoted mother of a difficult but promising daughter. She must be considerably older. She must retain her skill with the needle, and her piety. So I simply jotted down half a dozen words to name the several incidents of her dream, then began to write, visualizing the opening scene as I went. It was like transcribing at some one else’s dictation matter already an intimate part of one’s spiritual life. Isn’t that the way one’s best things come? I wrote only one rough draft, then the final copy. Hardly a word was changed. The title, oddly apt, I think, came to me when I wrote the line, ‘She recreated her earlier selves and passed them on, happy in the thought that she was saving them from oblivion.’”

This full description of the constructive process renders almost superfluous either questions or further comment. It should be compared closely with Mary Brecht Pulver’s similar résumé of her “Path of Glory.”

“Little Selves” constitutes a happy cross between the “evoked ghost” story, such as one finds in Kipling’s “They,” and the pictures frankly labeled as memories, in a multitude of stories. For as Margaret says, the earlier selves “is realer” than the children of flesh-and-blood who surround her.

THEME. In what does the merit of the narrative lie,--theme, characterization, or plot? In connection with your own answer observe that Miss Lerner says, “As for plot versus theme, I think theme usually dominates. I have some idea I wish to expound--to illustrate by means of interplay of character and action. Idea, I feel, is really _The Thing_, rather than mere complication or rapidity of action.”

In how many stories of these collections, do you feel the dominance of the underlying idea? In which, if any, is it lacking? In which do you feel the predominance of idea to such an extent as to swamp the story values?

PLOT. Show that the sentence on page 224, “Her voice choked with sudden tears,” is a sort of dramatic climax.

Why is it more artistic to leave the climax of action, the old woman’s death, untold?

CHARACTERS. In what sense is the narrative a “character story”? Is a whole life really re-constructed? Is the author’s chief object this re-living?

How is Margaret best visualized for _you_?

What is Anna’s chief characteristic and what her main place in the plot?

SETTING. In what respects is the story a national representative? How do the two larger settings, as indicated, aid each other? Which is thrown into subjection? Why?

THE WILLOW WALK

PLOT. In constructing his plot, the author devised a plan whereby a robber might escape with stolen money. Having invented it, he tested each part to make it _seem_ detective proof; and in following up this process he created a novel variety of the detective story genre. Similar stories have effected a resolution of the complication by a pull at some loose end left hanging through inadvertence of the criminal, and have so conserved justice. Mr. Lewis, avoiding this usual device, has requisitioned the peculiar advantages of dual personality to bring about the downfall of his criminal. (Compare with this _motif_, the one found in Frederick Stuart Greene’s “Galway Intrudes,” a story which has much in common with “The Willow Walk.”)

A thief, therefore, who plans his get-away by first _inventing_ and then _pretending_ to be his own “brother,” ultimately becomes the brother. The transformation is made plausible through the histrionic gifts attributed to the robber whereby he _is_, rather than merely _acts_, the represented character.

To the end that ultimate confession will occur, the brother must be religious; to the end that punishment is efficacious, the confession must be received with incredulity. These are necessary, if unconscious, preliminaries to this representative of the series which begins with Poe’s “William Wilson,” and which includes “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

PRESENTATION. The author first sets forth details that lead to the beginning of the action, the most important of which convey that Jasper Holt is acquiring a new hand-writing, that he is a respectable paying teller, that he is a good actor.

_Action Antecedent to the Present_: Read the story, and find under its superstructure the groundwork of Jasper’s plan. How much preparation has been necessary? How long has it required, probably, to accomplish it? Has the author begun at the best point possible in the story action?

_Incidents of the Complication Leading Immediately to the Dramatic Climax_:

1. Jasper Holt prepares the hiding place.

Taking his car from the garage, Holt starts toward Rosebank, but turns aside to buy candy, which he has packed in boxes that imitate books. He purchases two novels. To one who recognizes him, he pretends he is looking after bank property. He reaches Rosebank; he enters the house of the willow walk, removes the candy to the paper wrapper, and places the two imitation books, with the novels, on the bottom shelf of the book-case. (Incidentally, he makes use of the principle exploited by Poe in “The Purloined Letter.”)

2. Jasper establishes his identity as “John Holt.”

He takes down a religious work, from which he selects a name to “spring”--Philo Judæus. He changes his clothes and becomes his own brother, hermit and religious fanatic. Downstairs he speaks to a neighbor; he makes purchases at the drug-store and the grocery; he visits Soul Hope Hall, speaks on Philo Judæus and prays for his brother Jasper.

3. He removes signs of his recent preparations, and re-establishes himself as Jasper Holt. (Note the significance of the Community Theatre scene.)

Jasper changes to his own clothes. On his way to town he throws out the candy and gives away his groceries. He burns the wrapper, later, in his boarding house. He takes part in theatricals; it is significant that he is a good actor, really becoming the part he plays.

4. Jasper prepares for the robbery and his sure escape.

Five days later, he complains of a headache. He takes a day off. John calls at the bank and emphasizes the contrast between himself and Jasper. Jasper afterwards suggests that in the event of his robbing the bank John would undoubtedly aid in bringing him to justice (dramatic irony, here).

* * * * *

5. He completes his preparations outside.

“Persuaded” to go away for a week-end, he drives south to Wanagoochie, but circuits back to St. Clair. Two miles from Rosebank, he investigates a lake. En route to St. Clair, he puts his machine out of order and leaves it at a garage, giving his name as Hanson. Arriving by train at Vernon, he says his car is at Wanagoochie. He announces to his landlady that he is taking two suit-cases to Wakamin.

6. He robs the bank. (Minor climax.) He escapes.

With the road clear for flight, he transfers the parcels of bills to his suit-case. He takes the train to Wakamin, but gets off at St. Clair and retrieves his car from the garage. He drives toward Rosebank; spreads his lunch near the lake. At nightfall he runs his car over the cliff into the water. With his suit-cases, he walks into Rosebank, and at the house of the willow walk destroys all evidence of himself as Jasper. He stores away $97,535 in the empty candy boxes. He goes to bed as John Holt.

_Dramatic Climax_: “I suppose John would pray,” etc. Jasper Holt ceases to exist; John begins to exist as a constant entity.

_Incidents of the Solution Leading to the Climax of Action_

1. Jasper “acts” John.

John learns of the theft, calls on the bank president and begs that his house be searched. President gets rid of him. He calls on the detective, who finally searches John’s house. John directs attention to the shed where Jasper kept his car. The police refuse to search. Jasper has thus further entrenched himself, outwardly, as John.

2. Jasper changes, subtly, to John.

John prays for Jasper. He plans a trip south, but continues his religious studies. It is obvious that this modern Frankenstein is rapidly becoming the monster of his own creation. At the end of one and a half years, he has sloughed off most of his Jasper nature and acquired that of John.

3. He endures a period of final struggle.

The John part of him wishes to confess; the dying Jasper refuses to take him back to the bank. But at the Soul Hope Fraternity, he confesses that he stole. For a week he stays at home; then he goes out. On his return he discovers that the money is missing.

_Climax of Action_: He goes to the bank and confesses; his story is not believed. He has changed natures, completely.

_Dénouement_: The jail refuses to take him. He finds work at the sand pits.

For parallelism of the final situation, read Edith Wharton’s “The Bolted Door.”

CHARACTERIZATION. Bear in mind that the diverse personalities of Jasper and John are bound up in Jasper, that although “John” was originally invented and then assumed, he finally dominated. The dramatic climax marks the point at which the outer Jasper disappears; the climax of action marks the disappearance of the inner Jasper. The man who goes to work at the sand pits is, essentially, John.

DETAILS. Suspense, one of the best features, in the earlier two-thirds of the story, operates progressively, the cause shifting with the various steps of the action. For example, perhaps the first important question aroused is, “What is Jasper doing all this for?” The second, “Will he succeed in carrying out his well-laid plans?” Meantime, subordinate questions arise, to be satisfied by the author in the unfolding of the narrative. Show that suspense works of necessity less forcibly toward the end, where the outcome becomes more and more inevitable.

Do you know what became of the stolen money? Should that trailing thread be gathered up, or is it better left as it is?

Mr. Lewis declares that “The Willow Walk” has, so far as he can remember, no history at all. But he contributes the following by way of his views on the short-story:

“Technique defeats itself. The more nearly perfect it becomes, the nearer it is to stagnation. This rule holds true whether it be applied to ecclesiastical ceremony, to that humorous art known as ‘the manners of a gentleman,’ to the designing of motor-car bodies, or the practise of the arts. Once your motor-body designer has almost approximated the lines of a carriage, an innovator appears who boisterously ridicules the niceties of that technique, and, to the accompaniment of howling from the trained technicians, smashes out a new form, with monstrous hood and stream-line massiveness. Within two years he has driven out all the old technique, and is followed by a ‘school,’ neatly developing a new technique, in its turn to be perfected--then destroyed by some vulgarian who is too ignorant or too passionate to care for the proprieties of design.

“Once the technique of the academic school of painters of still life and landscape and portraits was practically perfect, a noisy, ill-bred, passionate crew of destroyers appeared, under such raucous labels as ‘futurists,’ ‘vorticists,’ ‘cubists,’ and despite the fact that their excesses have not become popular in plush parlors, these innovations have forever ruined the pleasure of picture-gazers in the smooth inanity of the perfected old technique. And now their followers in their turn----! As I write, the perfect militarist technique of the German empire has cracked into socialist republics. In time those republics will build up a perfect technique of bureaus, and be ready for the cleansing fire.

“Technique defeats itself. I have repeated the word ‘passion’ because that is the force that starts the rout. The man who is passionate about beauty or scientific facts, about making love or going fishing or the potentialities of Russia or revolt against smug oppressors, is likely to find himself cramped by the technique of the art which he chooses as a medium, to discard it, and to find a technique of his own. Austin Dobson could endure the triolet for the expression of delicate inexactitudes regarding French curés, but when Shelley was singing a world aflame, he made for himself a new mode of expression which, to formalists, seemed inexpressibly crude.