The Tzvetan Todorov Plot

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

In The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Dr. Tzvetan Todorov differentiates between fiction that is fantastic, uncanny, or marvelous.

 

A story is fantastic, he says, if it cannot be resolved as either uncanny or marvelous. For example, at the end of Henry James's novel The Turn of the Screw (1898), it remains unclear whether the ghosts are real or simply products of the governess's hallucinations.

A story is uncanny if its seemingly fantastic incidents can be explained rationally or scientifically. According to this understanding, H. G. Wells's short story “The Red Room” (1894) is uncanny: the ghost that allegedly haunts the castle in which the protagonist has come to spend the night turns out to be the invention of his imagination, an effect of his fear.

A story is marvelous if its incidents cannot be rationally or scientifically explained. Stephen King's short story “1408” (1999) is marvelous, because the ghosts (or demons) that allegedly haunt the hotel room in which the writer spends the night are, in fact, truly supernatural.

Whether intentionally or not, Todorov offers a formula for plotting fantastic, uncanny, or marvelous fiction. It sounds complicated, but it's actually fairly simple. This is how it works:

1. Develop a single situation that can be understood in either natural and or terms or that can be interpreted by reference to the supernatural or faith.
2. During the course of the story, indicate that the situation may be supernatural.
3. Show that the situation actually is supernatural or natural in origin of character or that the situation cannot be resolved in either way.

Fiction provides many models of this approach. Here are a few:

Uncanny:“The Damned Thing” (short story) (1893) by Ambrose Bierce; “The Premature Burial” (short story) by Edgar Allan Poe (1844); A Tough Tussle” (short story) by Ambrose Bierce (1888)

 Marvelous: The Exorcist (novel) (1971) by William Peter Blatty; The Sixth Sense (movie) (1999) directed by M. Night Shyamalan; “Dracula's Guest” (short story) (1914) by Bram Stoker

Fantastic: The Exorcism of Emily Rose (movie) (2005) directed by Scott Derrickson;“The Birds” (short story) (1955) by Daphne du Maurier; Let's Scare Jessica to Death (movie) (1971) directed by John Hancock

By analyzing these stories and others that use the Tzvetan Todorov plot, we can see what specific techniques their writers use to create and sustain the ambiguity that results from the tension between the two opposite interpretations of the stories' incidents, that of the natural and that of the supernatural.

Uncanny: In writing “The Red Room,” Wells withholds the actual (natural) cause of the allegedly supernatural incident (the ghost's haunting of the red room) that the protagonist investigates. By doing so, Wells allows the extinguishing of the candles and the fire in the room's fireplace to seem to be the work of the ghost. His panic causes him to run through the chamber in the dark, seeking escape, which results in his knocking himself unconscious when he collides with a piece of furniture. It is only upon awakening that he realizes that the red room was haunted only by his own fear-fueled imagination.

Marvelous: In The Exorcist, Regan MacNeil's strange behavior causes her mother Chris to seek both medical and psychiatric help for Regan after Chris cannot rationally account for Regan's behavior. Both sciences fail to help Regan, who becomes worse. To help Regan, Chris eventually turns to a priest, Father Damien Karras, despite her own atheism. Through exorcism, at the cost of his own life, Father Karras rids Regan of the demon that possesses her. By postponing the revelation that Regan's apparent demonic possession is, in fact, genuine, Blatty creates and sustains ambiguity as to whether the possession is apparent (the result of a physiological or mental disorder) or real.

Withholding the cause of the seemingly fantastic, as Wells does in “The Red Room,” or showing the failure of both reason and science to account for a seemingly supernatural incident before revealing that the incident actually is fantastic, as Blatty does, introduces the possibility of the fantastic while establishing it as subject to natural or rational interpretation or as genuinely marvelous. 

Other techniques that writers using what is here referred to as the Tzvetan Todorov plot include:

• Swinging back and forth between the natural or scientific explanation of an incident that only at first appears to be marvelous and never explaining the incident's inexplicable mystery (i. e., implying its truly marvelous character).
• Explaining, eventually, that the apparently fantastic incident is the result of a trick; it is a hoax, a prank, or a publicity stunt.
• Explaining, eventually, that the apparently fantastic incident is the enactment of a rite or ritual performed by people who genuinely believe that the act is supernatural.
• Confusing one state of affairs (e. g., a cataleptic trance) with another state of affairs (e. g., death).

Monstrous Signs

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Haunted houses are easy. Well, the signs that a house may be haunted are easy to spot, anyway. Things seem to move of their own accord. Last night, your car keys were on the dresser; this morning, they’re on the kitchen counter, beside last night’s leftover Chinese takeout meal. You hear strange noises. Slime oozes down the walls. There’s a foul stench--and it’s not coming from the leftover Chinese food. Ghosts are seen--or something that could be ghosts.

The signs of the presence of a monster are not so easy to spot. But there are some, for those who have the eyes to see them. In his short story, “The Damned Thing,” there are signs aplenty of a monster’s presence. Invisible, its presence is known by its effects upon vegetation and, indeed, human beings. During a fishing and hunting expedition with his friend Hugh Morgan, Harker, who witnessed Morgan’s death, says the two men heard “a noise as of some animal thrashing about in the bushes, which we could see were violently agitated.” Morgan aims his shotgun in the direction of the noise, and when Harker asks what has made the commotion, Morgan replies, “That Damned Thing.” Harker then sees a peculiar sight, which he describes, to the coroner’s jury investigating Morgan’s death, in the following manner:

"I was about to speak further, when I observed the wild oats near the place of the disturbance moving in the most inexplicable way. I can hardly describe it. It seemed as if stirred by a streak of wind, which not only bent it, but pressed it down--crushed it so that it did not rise; and this movement was slowly prolonging itself directly toward us.

A few moments later, Morgan is attacked, and, as he looks on in horror, Harker hears

“. . . Morgan crying out as if in mortal agony, and mingling with his cries were such hoarse, savage sounds as one hears from fighting dogs. Inexpressibly terrified, I struggled to my feet and looked in the direction of Morgan's retreat; and may Heaven in mercy spare me from another sight like that! At a distance of less than thirty yards was my friend, down upon one knee, his head thrown back at a frightful angle, hatless, his long hair in disorder and his whole body in violent movement from side to side, backward and forward. His right arm was lifted and seemed to lack the hand--at least, I could see none. The other arm was invisible. At times, as my memory now reports this extraordinary scene, I could discern but a part of his body; it was as if he had been partly blotted out--I cannot otherwise express it--then a shifting of his position would bring it all into view again.

"All this must have occurred within a few seconds, yet in that time Morgan assumed all the postures of a determined wrestler vanquished by superior weight and strength. I saw nothing but him, and him not always distinctly. . . . “

One way to recognize the presence of a monster, then, is by its effects upon its environment. Other stories in which invisible or nearly invisible monsters may be recognized by such signs include the short stories “The Horla” by de Maupassant and “What Was It?” by Fitz-James O’Brien and the motion picture Predator, directed by John McTiernan.

Monsters are sometimes recognizable by their unique signatures, or distinctive marks. For example, vampires are often suspected when it is discovered that the throats of human corpses bear puncture wounds such as those that a large snake--or a bloodsucking fiend--leave as a result of slaking their thirst. There are a number of other ways by which to recognize vampires, according to The Vampire Hunter’s Guide, including:

• Fangs
• Red eyes
• Long nails
• Paleness
• Reluctance to enter house without invitation
• Hairy palms
• Aversion to bright lights
• No appetite
• Never seen during the day hours (not always true with some species)
• Possesses remarkable strength
• Has quiet footsteps
• Possesses knowledge about botany, with a large collection of soil in a house or in a vicinity
• Resides in an abode deemed evil by others
• Strange clothing habits
• Evidences enormous sexual appeal
• People who know him/ her frequently die
• Rarely, if ever, discusses religion
• Really bad breath

It’s hard to miss a demon: the claws, horns, tail, and cloven hooves are sure giveaways. However, a demon that takes up residence inside a person, possessing him or her, may be more difficult to detect, especially when he or she can be confused with the effects of organic or mental illnesses. In fact, until quite recently, the mentally ill were often considered to be people possessed by demons. A movie, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, makes it clear how difficult it can be, even for a priest who has been trained as an exorcist, to make the distinction between madness and demonic possession. This film also makes it clear how tricky the terrain becomes, legally speaking, when one seeks to exorcize demons that may or may not actually exist and the mad (or possessed) person dies in the course of the exorcism. It’s best to leave exorcisms to the exorcists or psychiatrists, but, for those who are too willful or stubborn (or stupid) to do so, these may be signs, according to the website Demonbuster, of the presence of an indwelling demon:

1. Disturbances in the emotions which persist or recur.
2. Disturbances in the mind or thought life.
3. Outbursts or uncontrolled use of the tongue.
4. Rcurring unclean thoughts and acts regarding sex.
5. Addictions to nicotine, alcohol, drugs, medicines, caffeine, food, etc.
6. Many diseases and physical afflictions are due to spirits of infirmity (Luke 13:11).

 Of course, when a writer finds it difficult to determine the signs of a particular monster--perhaps the fiend is one of a kind--the author can just make up an invention that has the amazing capability of detecting monsters, somewhat as Professor Xavier’s Cerebro can detect the presence--and, indeed, the location--of mutants among the human population centers of the world. Indeed, a machine isn’t even necessary id a writer becomes desperate enough. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy (often aided by Willow Rosenberg, a witch, or her mentor, Rupert Giles, a practitioner of the mystical arts) often identified or located various monsters and demons through the use of supernatural spells. Buffy also has a sort of “Spider sense,” which enables her to detect the presence of vampires the way homosexuals are sometimes alleged to identify others of their kind by using “gaydar.” In one episode, in which Giles was turned into a demon, she is even able to recognize, by his look of utter exasperation, the man in the monster! Still, it’s kind of cool, one must admit, to develop a mythos concerning demon spoor and how to detect it.

"The Damned Thing": Commentary, Part 2

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

As I indicated in my previous post, Ambrose Bierce’s short story “The Damned Thing” depends, for its effect, upon a fragmented and out-of-sequence timeline, the piecemeal exposition of facts that prevents the establishment of a context sufficiently clear to allow interpretation, the withholding of certain items of information, and the misdirection that results from Bierce’s incongruous, often tongue-in-cheek chapter titles, which have no bearing upon the chapters they introduce and, in fact, may suggest lines of thought that are themselves absurd and irrelevant.

However, Bierce accomplishes more than the generation of mystery and suspense through the use of these techniques. By employing these strategies, he also creates a metaphor by which he implies the theme of his story. The lack of context can be read as the vague, uncertain, and finite understanding of reality that derives from human perception that is itself limited to the phenomena that it perceives.

Bierce’s story’s reference to science is not accidental, for science is the primary and predominant means by which modern individuals ascertain knowledge, if not always truth, and it is science--the science of optics, to be precise--that allows Hugh Morgan to understand the nature of the Damned Thing as being of a color imperceptible to the human eye and thus invisible. However, since science is empirical, resting upon the senses and their perception of phenomena (including colors), it is itself limited to the perceptible world, and, in the final analysis, the nature of the Damned Thing must, therefore, remain essentially mysterious.

Bierce’s fragmented and vague narration, as it occurs in “The Damned Thing,” despite the presence of his omniscient narrator, is deliberate, symbolizing the limits of the scientific method’s reliance upon empirical data and emphasizing the finitude of human perception, cognition, and knowledge by underscoring his story’s victim’s inability to see the invisible adversary that ultimately slays him. Without a context, interpretation is difficult, if not impossible, and Morgan’s (and Harker’s) inability to see the Damned Thing prevents them from understanding it, just as it also prevents the pedestrian and unimaginative “farmers and woodsmen” who make up the inquest’s jury from accepting Harker’s account of the creature’s existence as true. They conclude, despite Harker’s eyewitness testimony, that Morgan was killed by a “mountain lion.” In short, they are unable to think outside the box, so to speak, that the accepted model of reality, based upon science, provides as the basis, or context, for interpreting perception and experience. Therefore, they conclude that Harker’s story demonstrates his madness.

Science tells us how to interpret the things that we perceive (see, hear, smell, taste, or touch), but limits upon human perception and the ignorance that results from such limits make certain knowledge problematic even under the best of circumstances and can (and has) resulted in erroneous and fantastic conclusions concerning even everyday matters. For example, before the invention of the microscope, bacteria and viruses existed, but, unaware of these germs or their functioning, human beings regarded demons, not microbes, as the causes of diseases and mental illnesses. Likewise, the Hubble space telescope has increased astronomers’ understanding of the universe exponentially since its launch in 1990.

Nevertheless, to some degree, we can (and do) hypothesize about experiences, even when knowledge about what we perceive (or do not perceive) is uncertain. For example, no one has seen an actual tyrannosaurus rex, but paleontologists claim to know quite a bit about this dinosaur (even if their “knowledge” is tentative and subject to change in the wake of new discoveries and conjectures). These gigantic animals are considered to have been carnivores with extremely powerful jaws, binocular vision, a bipedal posture, and a highly developed sense of smell. The young, some believe, possessed prototypical feathers, although more as insulation than for flight. In addition, they were believed, by some, to have been scavengers and even cannibals. Although they were once considered too slow-moving and “cold-blooded,” because of their massive size and weight, to be good hunters, scientists later revised this conception and suggested that the tyrannosaurus was more likely than not a fleet-footed predator.

One may argue that some features and abilities of the Damned Thing could likewise be determined by observing its effects on its environment. It is likely to be fast and physically powerful. It is obviously predatory. It is apt to be large, for Morgan’s diary reports that its passing momentarily blocked out the stars. Nevertheless, any ideas concerning the nature of the Damned Thing must remain as vague, uncertain, and finite as humanity’s understanding of reality that derives from perception that is itself limited to the phenomena that it perceives. Bierce’s fragmented and out-of-sequence timeline, his piecemeal exposition of facts that prevents the establishment of a context sufficiently clear to allow interpretation, his withholding of certain items of information, and the misdirection that results from Bierce’s incongruous, often tongue-in-cheek chapter titles, which have no bearing upon the chapters they introduce and, in fact, may suggest lines of thought that are themselves absurd and irrelevant all conspire, as it were, to symbolize and reinforce the epistemological limits of an intelligence that is informed by perceptions of phenomena that, as a rule, cannot be confirmed independently of the senses that detect them.

"The Damned Thing": Bierce's Exercise in Existential Absurdity

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

The plot of Ambrose Bierce’s short story “The Damned Thing” is simple--so simple, in fact, that the author must rely upon a piecemeal presentation, in chopped chronological progression, of the narrative’s incidents. Bierce gives vague, and therefore intriguing, hints of something that has happened that is bigger, so to speak, than what is currently taking place, at the same time withholding details to keep the reader guessing as to what’s going on--and what has already gone on. The first paragraph introduces the reader to nine men, one of them a corpse, who have gathered in a small room. One of the men, seated at “a rough table,” reads from a book, by candlelight. There is an expectation, on the part of the men, other than “the dead man,” who is alone “without expectation.” The men, the reader learns, are locals, “farmers and woodsmen.”

By throwing together, as it were, a group of local men who seem to have nothing in common but their vocations, and informing the reader that something seems likely to happen, and soon, but otherwise withholding details that would create a context by which the action, such as it is at this point, could be interpreted, Bierce creates suspense. In addition, he characterizes the men as unimaginative and pedestrian, which will prove important, given the extraordinary incident that will soon be related by William Harker.

Only the man who reads from the book is unlike the others, a “worldly” man, a coroner, in fact, and the book he reads belonged to the dead man. It is, the reader will learn, the dead man’s diary, which was found in his cabin, which is the location in which “the inquest” concerning his death is “now taking place.” The casual manner in which Bierce presents the purpose of the local men’s gathering--an inquest into a man’s death--makes the revelation all the eerier.

Harker makes his appearance, his manner of dress marking him as a city dweller. The reader learns that he is a reporter; he arrives late to the inquest, he says, because he had “to post" to his newspaper "an account” of the incident concerning which he has been summoned to testify. Harker’s statement that he posted the account as fiction because it is too extraordinary for readers to accept as fact piques the reader’s interest, as does his declaration that he will, nevertheless, swear “under oath” as a witness at the inquest, that the story he tells is “true.” Again, Bierce provides just enough vague clues to keep the reader guessing--and reading.

As Harker begins his testimony, the reader learns that he had been visiting the deceased, Hugh Morgan, with whom he was hunting and fishing. In addition, Harker, admits, he was also observing Morgan, having found “his odd, solitary way of life” intriguing and supposing him to be “a good model for a character in fiction.”

In the second chapter of the story, Harker relates “the circumstances of” Morgan’s “death”: As they hunted quail, they heard “a noise as of some animal thrashing about in the bushes,” and saw that the vegetation was “violently agitated.” Morgan appeared frightened and immediately “cocked both barrels of his gun. . . holding it in readiness to aim.” As the men watch, “wild oats near the place of the disturbance” begin to move “in the most inexplicable way. . . . as if stirred by a streak of wind, which not only bent it, but pressed it down--crushed it so that it did not rise; and this movement was slowly prolonging itself directly toward” the two men. Morgan fires and flees, leaving Harker to fend for himself. Harker is “thrown violently to the ground by the impact of something unseen in the smoke,” and something knocks his own gun from his hands. As Harker looks on, Morgan seems to wrestle with an invisible creature. Before Harker can run to his friend’s aid, Morgan is killed, and the ripple and movement of the vegetation betrays the path of the invisible creature’s flight.

In the story’s third chapter, the condition of Morgan’s battered and bloody body is described as the coroner pulls the sheet that covers the corpse away; the dead man's clothing is “torn, and stiff with blood.” Despite the witness’ testimony, which the jury finds incredible, Morgan’s death is attributed to a mountain lion’s attack. Although Harker requests permission to peruse his dead friend’s diary, thinking that the public would be interested in Morgan’s writings, the coroner denies his request, claiming that it is irrelevant to its author’s demise, since “all the entries in it were made before the writer's death.”

Harker may not have been privy to the entries in Morgan’s diary, but the story’s omniscient narrator is, and he reveals to the reader that the journal contains “certain interesting entries having, possibly, a scientific value as suggestions.” Morgan had become convinced of “the presence” of an invisible intruder, and he had been terrified of the creature. However, he had resolved not to be chased away from his own home, believing, also, that God would consider his fleeing from the creature an act of cowardice. Thinking that he may be going insane, Morgan invites Harker to visit him for “several weeks,” to go hunting and fishing, thinking that, in Harker’s reactions to his own behavior, Morgan may find evidence to support either his own sanity or his own madness.

As if by “revelation,” Morgan discovers “the solution to the mystery” of the creature’s invisibility: just as there are sounds that the human ear cannot hear, there are colors that the human eye cannot see, and the invisible creature, or “the Damned Thing,” as Morgan has come to refer to the monster, “is of such a colour!”

A simple tale, “The Damned Thing” depends, for its effect, upon a fragmented and out-of-sequence timeline, the piecemeal exposition of facts that prevents the establishment of a context sufficiently clear to allow interpretation, the withholding of certain items of information, and the misdirection that results from Bierce’s incongruous, often tongue-in-cheek chapter titles, “Chapter I: One Does Not Always Eat What Is On The Table” (a corpse); “Chapter II: What May Happen In A Field Of Wild Oats” (an attack by an invisible creature!); “Chapter III: A Man Though Naked May Be In Rags” (an aphorism that suggests wisdom but introduces the final existential absurdity of death); and “Chapter IV: An Explanation From The Tomb” (the incongruity of the dead offering an elucidation of a text addressed to the living). Like the titles of Rene Magritte paintings, Bierce’s chapter titles have no bearing upon the chapters they introduce and, in fact, may suggest lines of thought that are themselves absurd and irrelevant.

Another way that Bierce withholds information, at least for a time, is to use synonymous phrases in lieu of characters' names or occupations.  For example, he refers to "a man [who] was reading," to "the man with the book"; to "the person reading," instead of to "the coroner"; he refers to "eight men," to "that company," to "farmers and woodsmen," rather than to the jurors of the death inquest; and to "a young man" instead of the inquest's witness.  In doing so, Bierce withholds, for a time, the nature of the enterprise in which the party is involved, thereby maintaining the mystery of the story and the tale's suspense.

Bierce’s reference to science is not accidental, for science is the primary and predominant means by which modern individuals ascertain knowledge, if not always truth, and it is science--the science of optics, to be precise--that allows Morgan to understand the nature of the Damned Thing as being of a color imperceptible to the human eye and thus invisible. However, since science, which is empirical, resting upon the senses and their perception of phenomena (including colors), is itself limited to the perceptible world, the nature of the Damned Thing must, in the final analysis, remain essentially mysterious.