The Ingredients of the Thriller

Copyright 2012 by Gary L. Pullman

In Thriller 2, Clive Cussler introduces readers to the thriller, not as a novel but in its short story form. In fact the anthology contains twenty-three thrillers. By authors as diverse as Jeffrey Deaver, R. L. Stine, Lisa Jackson, and Ridley Pearson. One of the editor's intentions, he tells readers, is to introduce those who are “new to the world of thrillers” to the genre or to allow “the rabid fan” the “chance to discover another side” of his or her “favorite author.”

Another of the editor's purposes is to define the genre. However, Cussler doesn't so so in so many words. Instead, he offers clues. The stories in this genre are not easily pigeonholed, Cussler declares. They include “novels of suspense, adventure tales, paranormal investigations, or even police procedurals.” Thrillers “push their readers just a little closer to the edge of their seats,” he says; “they cost their readers sleep, get carried to the grocery store to be read while standing in line [presumably, the readers and not the thriller are “standing in line”] and are held tightly until the last page.” Thrillers stay with readers after the last page has been read. These stories, Cussler contends, may “shock” or “cause” the “heart to skip a beat” or “make” one “laugh and flinch at the same time,”and, many times, they will be “read again in disbelief,” as readers seek “the clues” they “missed the first time around.”

Cussler also provides additional clues in the headnotes that he provides for each of the stories. They have “high stakes”; the time that is allowed the protagonist to sort things out and set things right is apt to be “short.” Situations, invariably, are intense. The storylines may be suggested or influenced by the stories' settings. A thriller might be based upon the “short step from respectable citizen to flat-out criminal,” wherein “the lead characters bear a shocking resemblance to people we might know—even to ourselves—pillars of society crumbling in an avalanche of bad decisions that seemed perfectly rational at the time.” Other thrillers are tales of revenge. Often, the action of such stories is based upon “current events.” A thriller may include “an intricate puzzle.” Some such stories spring from seedy, real-life counterparts of the characters they depict. Natural catastrophes are sometimes the culprits: “Mother Nature is as much of a threat as the killers” some characters encounter; they “must confront not only the harsh realities of their situation, but also the brutal conditions of their environment.” Occasionally, thrillers spring from the actual experiences of the writers who write them. The protagonists of thrillers may be amoral by society's standards, but they, nevertheless, usually live by “their own code of honor.” Other thrillers investigate their characters' “personal histories,” focusing upon what makes their characters tick or what motivates them to perform the dangerous feats they do. Humor is the wellspring of some thrillers. Sometimes, thrillers mix “history and science.” The action is often global in scope, and even in a world wherein science reigns, mysticism can coexist with empirical methods. Philosophical issues are not off limits to thrillers; some discuss such questions as to whether we are the masters of our fates or the fates' playthings. Politics, betrayal, dystopian futures, and patriotism can become the elements of a thriller that involves government intrigues and conspiracies. Thrillers also take their readers into the criminal underworld, showing them how hired killers view the world. Spies come in from the cold in many a thriller, and good guys protect the innocent. Romance—especially unrequited love—can set a thriller's plot in motion, and a woman scorned—well. . . . Villains include hit men, sociopaths, enemy agents, serial killers, rapists, and sadists.

Any story should start with a hook, and thrillers are no exception. These are a few from Thriller 2:

“A new weapon.”

The slim man in a conservative suit eased forward and lowered his voice. “Something terrible. And our sources are certain it will be used this coming Saturday morning. They're certain of that.”

“Four days,” said retired Colonel James J. Peterson, his voice grave. It was now 5:00 p. m. on Monday. (Deaver, Jeffrey. “The Weapon,” 16).

Bijoux Watson's body slipped underneath the muddy waters of the Brazos River without a sound, a mangled pile of flesh that had once been the biggest purveyor of black tar heroin in all east Texas (Hunsicker, Harry. “Iced,” 55).

Every time I think back on that night, I can see myself poised at that exact moment in time. I watch the story unfold—it's like watching a movie, you know?--and I wish to God I could relive that instant when I did the unthinkable (Stewart,. Mariah. “Justice Served,” 73).

What happened to Leon is a dirty shame (Stine, R. L., “Roomful of Witnesses,” 111).

“This is where they died?” (Neggers, Carla, “On the Run,” 169).

When the man he'd killed a year ago walked into the bar, Joe Dogan was surprised, So surprised that he fell off his stool (Light, Lawrence. “The Lamented,” 217).

“Give us the manuscript or we'll kill your wife” (Maleeny, Tim. “Suspension of Disbelief,” 271).

It's time to kill my husband. Izaan Bekkar. The forty-eighth president of the United States (Antrim, Kathleen. “Through a Veil Darkly,” 351).

Cussler identifies the key ingredients of the thriller. He provides twenty-three examples. There is no single formula for this type of story, but there are suggestions. Place a protagonist in an intense situation, perhaps in an isolated setting, with what little time remains before a catastrophic event fast running out, and see whether he or she can escape, avert the catastrophe, or otherwise save him- or herself and the day (and maybe the whole planet!) In the process, suggest something about human nature or, at least, a specific specimen of humanity and why life is important, especially when it is lived on the edge.

Fever Dream’s Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 1 through 20: Recap)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

The opening paragraphs of Chapters 1 through 20 of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Fever Dream (like the rest of those which introduce the novel’s other 60 chapters) use a variety of techniques to accomplish several purposes. As I have observed in previous posts concerning this topic, these techniques and purposes include:

• Setting the scene
• Using figures of speech, such as similes, metaphors, images, and personifications to create atmosphere or tone
• Involving the reader in the action
• Beginning the narrative in media res
• Creating a sense of immediacy (or “you-are-here”) for the reader
• Generating, maintain, or increase suspense
• Contrasting nature with civilization
• Linking action to characters’ emotions
• Identifying points of view
• Characterizing characters by associating them with particular places
• Introducing new or recurring characters
• Alluding to past events in characters’ lives
• Planting clues or red herrings
• Describing places important to the action or theme
• Linking one distant location to another, both of which are scenes of the story’s cosmopolitan action
• Creating, maintain, or intensify conflicts
• Posing rhetorical questions, both explicit and implicit, for the reader’s consideration

Creating and Maintaining Suspense

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

After summarizing the plot of The Song of Roland, the editors of The Bedford Anthology of World Literature suggest that “the poet, apparently uninterested in creating suspense, repeatedly reminds the listener of the plot of the story as the action unfolds” (Book 2: The Middle Period, 100 C. E.-1450).

Truer words were never spoken. For writers who are concerned with creating (and maintaining) suspense, The Song of Roland offers an example as to how not to do so and, curiously enough, also of how to do so, which is why it is the subject of this article, even though the poem is not of the horror genre per se.

By outlining the entire plot, a writer can be sure to stay on track and avoid holes in the plot as he or she narrates the story’s action. Summarizing all of the story’s plot also suggests opportune moments for foreshadowing or the planting of false clues, or red herrings. However, in actually writing the story, the author should take care not to include details that, should the reader be aware of them too soon, would destroy the tale’s suspense. The withheld information must be supplied at some point, of course (probably near the end of the story), but at a later time, when its revelation will not ruin the suspense. Some information may also be supplied little by little, or piecemeal, at appropriate times, and, occasionally, with red herrings and plot twists tossed in to keep the reader guessing.

The Song of Roland might be summarized in the following manner. In the summary, the text in blue indicates information that kills suspense. Again, in the initial plotting of the story, such information should be included in the summary or outline of the plot; however, in actually writing the story, the information should be revealed only little by little or withheld entirely until the end of the narrative.

Charlemagne has been in Spain for seven years and, with the help of his nephew Roland, a knight commander, he has vanquished much of the country; only Saragossa, held by the Saracen king Marsilion, remains undefeated.

Knowing that he is unable to defeat Charlemagne, Marsilion asks the counsel of his nobles. (At the very outset of this meeting, the poet warns the audience, the council is problematic.) Blancandrin recommends that Marsilion present Charlemagne with gifts and treasure, vow to become his ally, and promise to come to France, during Michaelmas, to convert to Christianity, if Charlemagne will but return to France and leave Spain in peace. As a pledge of his good faith, Marsilion will give Charlemagne ten of his own men as hostages to kill if Marsilion betrays his word. Once Charlemagne has returned to France, however, Marsilion will renege on his promises, remaining in Spain, unconverted and at enmity against the French ruler, even though Charlemagne will then kill the Saracen hostages. Agreeing to Blancandrin’s scheme, Marsilion sends his ten worst criminals to deliver his proposal for peace to Charlemagne at Cordres.

Charlemagne assembles his nobles, asking their counsel concerning Marsilion’s proposal. Roland advises the king to reject it, reminding Charlemagne that Marsilion made a similar proposal earlier, and when Charlemagne sent envoys to discuss the enemy’s proposal, Marsilion killed them. Charlemagne should continue to prosecute the war and avenge his slain envoys, Roland argues. However, Ganelon, Roland’s stepfather, urges Charlemagne to accept Marsilion’s plan for peace, saying that enough Franks have died already in the war to extend it unnecessarily. Charlemagne asks his nobles to nominate a man to bear his reply to Marsilion, and Roland names Ganelon. The other nobles second the nomination, but Ganelon, supposing that Roland seeks to get rid of him, vows vengeance, going so far as to tell his stepson that, during his visit with Marsilion, he will do whatever he can to settle his score with Roland.

On their way to Saragossa, Ganelon and Blancandrin agree to betray Roland so that he is killed. Ganelon delivers Charlemagne’s message to Marsilion: the Saracen king must convert to Christianity and surrender half of Spain in fief. If he refuses to do so, Marsilion will be taken by force to France, in chains, and be put to death in shame. Charlemagne’s reply enrages Marsilion to the point that he seeks to slay the messenger, but he is held back by his men and, instead, retires to an orchard to take counsel among his nobles. Blancandrin tells Marsilion that Ganelon has sworn his loyalty to the Saracens’ cause, and, upon Marsilion’s orders, Ganelon joins the enemy in plotting treason against Charlemagne.

They decide that Marsilion will agree to send gifts, treasure, and twenty hostages to Charlemagne, who will then return to France, leaving Roland and another trusty knight, Oliver, to guard the rear. Then, Marsilion can attack the rear, killing Roland and leaving the knight’s grief-stricken uncle, Charlemagne, so dismayed that he will be incapable of retaliating.

Charlemagne has two disturbing dreams, or visions, one suggesting Ganelon’s betrayal, the other of the loss of his right arm to attacking animals. (Earlier, Roland has been called Charlemagne’s “right arm.”)

The next morning, Charlemagne asks his nobles to choose the commander of the rear guard (which is needed to prevent Marsilion from attacking Charlemagne as Charlemagne marches through narrow mountain passes), and, according to the plot that he has worked out with Marsilion and Blancandrin, Ganelon volunteers Roland. Although Charlemagne distrusts Ganelon, he accepts the recommendation, naming Roland the commander of the rear guard, with Oliver and Archbishop Turpin to assist him. There are only 20,000 men in Roland’s command (the same number as
Marsilion commands), and Charlemagne offers to leave Roland with half the entire army, but Roland declines, insisting that he needs no additional troops. As Charlemagne rides toward France, Marsilion, his own force having grown to 400,000 (or 20 times the size of Roland’s army), secretly gathers in a forest atop a mountain, awaiting the chance to attack Roland’s men.

Charlemagne now understands the meaning of one of the visions that, he believes, angels brought to him while he slept: Ganelon will bring about Roland’s destruction.

As Marsilion’s army advances upon Roland’s forces, they blow their trumpets, and, alerted of Marsilion’s presence, Oliver accuses Ganelon of treason, but Roland silences him, refusing to hear anyone speak ill of his stepfather. Oliver recommends that Roland blow his own horn, thereby signaling to Charlemagne his need for reinforcements so that Charlemagne may return and rout the enemy, but Roland, concerned about his honor, refuses to do so, saying that he will attack Marsilion as the Saracen king approaches. Twice more, Oliver makes the same suggestion, and twice more Roland rejects it.

Marsilion’s nephew, Aelroth, leads the enemy, taunting Roland by implying that Charlemagne is a coward who has abandoned his rear guard to the enemy so that he can save himself. Outraged, Roland kills Aelroth. During the battle, an eclipse seems to portend Roland’s death. Roland now agrees with Oliver that Ganelon has betrayed
both Charlemagne and them, for which, he tells Oliver, Charlemagne will certainly avenge them. Roland’s and Oliver’s roles are reversed again when Roland three times expresses his desire to blow his horn to summon Charlemagne’s help and Oliver argues against this course of action, insisting that Roland must conduct himself with the sound judgment and restraint that befits an honorable servant to the king. It’s too late now to summon Charlemagne, although, Oliver says, Roland should have done so when Oliver had first suggested that he do so, as Roland would have saved lives had he done so then.

The Archbishop advises the knights not to quarrel and recommends that Roland blow his horn to summon Charlemagne--not to help them against Marsilion, but to avenge their deaths at the hands of the Saracen king. Roland does so, bursting a blood vessel in his temple, in the process, and Charlemagne hears it. Riding with
Charlemagne, Ganelon insists that the horn does not mean that Roland is under attack and is seeking aid; Roland, Ganelon says, blows the horn merely out of vanity, the same way he does when he is hunting rabbits, simply as a way of boasting. However, another of Charlemagne’s nobles, Naimon, is just as adamant that Roland is blowing his horn to signify that he is under attack and to summon Charlemagne; Naimon also insists that Ganelon has already betrayed Roland once and now seeks to do so again by persuading Charlemagne not to turn back and come to Roland’s aid.

Roland laments the deaths he has caused by failing to summon Charlemagne earlier. While he is walking the battlefield in grief, Marsilion attacks, killing several more of Roland’s men, and Roland responds by cutting off Marsilion’s right hand and beheading the enemy king’s son, Jurfalen. So fiercely do the Franks defend against the Saracen attackers that 100,000 (one fourth) of Marsilion’s men abandon the battlefield in headlong retreat. However, when the remainder of the 400,000 enemy see that Roland’s force numbers only 20,000, they are heartened and press their attack. Oliver is dealt a fatal blow, although he survives for a while.

Again, Roland laments the deaths of the men he might have saved had he summoned Charlemagne when Oliver had suggested it, Oliver, blinded by his own blood, but hearing Roland approaching, strikes Roland’s helmet. However, he fails to injure Roland, and Oliver dies soon thereafter. Roland again blows his horn, but so feebly that, hearing it, Charlemagne assumes that Roland must be near death. He orders his men to blow their trumpets in response, and the Saracens, hearing the trumpeting of 60,000 horns, panic, realizing that Charlemagne has returned.

Roland climbs a hill, where, weak from blood loss, he faints. A Saracen, having been pretending to be dead, sees Roland fall and seizes the opportunity to kill him, but, as he draws Roland’s sword, Roland awakens, killing the enemy with his horn, which he
bashes into his attacker’s skull. He is outraged that a mere warrior would have sought to kill a man of his own rank. Having gone blind, Roland seeks to destroy his sword by shattering the blade against a rock so that it cannot fall into enemy hands. Although he repeatedly strikes the boulder, the sword won’t break, because it is of divine origin: an angel gave it to Charlemagne to give to a captain, and Charlemagne presented the sword to Roland. With the weapon, Roland has conquered many lands for Charlemagne (which suggests that God is on Charlemagne’s side, since an angel presented the blade to Charlemagne).

Feeling that death is near, Roland stretches out upon the hill and turns his head toward the enemy. Confessing his sins and asking forgiveness for them, he dies on the hilltop, facing the foe, and angels bear his soul to heaven.

Charlemagne arrives upon the battlefield, lamenting his subjects’ deaths. He rides ahead, by himself, in search of Roland, whose corpse he finds atop the hill. Roland has turned his head toward the enemy so that he would be reckoned to have died as a conqueror.

Charlemagne gives Roland, Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin heroes’ funerals and an escort to their burial places.

By including the information that Marsilion will renege on his promises to ally himself with Charlemagne and convert to the Christian faith after Charlemagne returns to France, even at the cost of the hostages’ lives, the poet gives the audience too much information too soon, thereby destroying the suspense which could have been created by having the audience assume that Marsilion would keep his word. In other words, such information destroys the potential for situational irony, which is one of the ways, as I point out in a previous article, of maintaining narrative suspense, because the reader assumes that this is the same thing that Marsilion will do to Charlemagne. This information telegraphs the action that is yet to come, so to speak, alerting the reader to incidents that would have been better left unknown until their occurrence. The same is true with regard to Roland’s reminder to Charlemagne of how Marsilion made a similar proposal earlier, only to kill the envoys whom Charlemagne sent to discuss the enemy’s proposal and Roland’s suggestion that Charlemagne continue to prosecute the war with Marsilion so that the envoys’ murders can be avenged.

The audience also does not need to be made privy to Ganelon’s plan to seek revenge upon Roland or to his intention of doing whatever he can to settle his score with Roland as he confers with Marsilion. Instead, Ganelon should do so as the opportunity arises in his conduct as Charlemagne’s emissary to the Saracen king, allowing the reader to surmise on his or her own the duplicity and motives of Ganelon’s treachery.

The eclipse that seems to portend Roland’s death is also both unnecessary and too early. The descriptions of Roland’s increasing weakness, his fainting, his blood loss, and his confused states of mind are sufficient to suggest his impending death; the eclipse is too strong a clue, too early in the action, and its inclusion, therefore, deadens the story’s suspense. It would have been better left out altogether.

There remains but one point to discuss--the difference between foreshadowing and divulging too much information too soon. Foreshadowing is effective in generating suspense, because it whets the reader’s appetite, so to speak, without giving away too much of the action to come. Foreshadowing teases by suggesting something in vague and general terms. Because it is vague and general in its intimation of things to come, foreshadowing does not destroy suspense but, indeed, creates it. When the poet warns the audience that the counsel between Charlemagne and his nobles went wrong at its very outset, he does not say how or why it went wrong, only that it did so. Therefore, left to wonder how and why the counsel went amiss, the audience is in suspense, eager to learn the answers to these questions.

Charlemagne’s dreams, or visions, also create suspense for similar reasons. They are presented in images and symbols, rather than being directly stated, and are, therefore, more spectacle than they are exposition; they are also vague and general, rather than clear and specific, suggesting, rather than declaring, that something injurious or even fatal may transpire. The dreams tease the audience; in doing so, they create, rather than destroy, suspense.

By plotting the story in full, from beginning to end, the writer can keep his or her story on track while avoiding plot holes. At the same time, he or she can identify opportunities to include suspense-generating foreshadowing, red herrings ,and plot twists while avoiding the tipping of his or her hand by giving away too much information too soon. The trick is to identify what information should be withheld until later in the narrative so as not to destroy the story’s suspense. One way to do so is to use the technique I employed in summarizing the plot of The Song of Roland, which is to mark this type of exposition by coloring it blue (or some other color). The colored text may need to be included, as explanation, at some later point in the narrative, but its presentation too early in the course of the action will have the unintended effect of destroying the suspense which is vital in maintaining reader’s interest in the story. It is far better to keep readers on a need-to-know basis, dribbling out explanatory information only when it is needed to make things clear or (usually at the story’s end) entirely comprehensible.

In short, it may be helpful to remember that, if Christopher Columbus had explained lunar eclipses to the hostile natives of Jamaica before threatening to make the moon disappear the next night unless they cooperated with him and his crew, the natives would have not been impressed to see the moon apparently vanish as it passed into the shadow of the Earth, for they would have understood the cause of the phenomenon and would have understood that the moon would reappear as soon as it had passed out of the Earth’s shadow. Since they did not know the cause of the eclipse, they were terrified when it occurred, assuming that Columbus himself had caused this wonder to happen, and they were anxious to put things right with this powerful sorcerer. By withholding explanatory information (indefinitely, in this case) from his audience--the Jamaicans--Columbus generated suspense as the natives waited, watching, to see whether their visitor’s “curse” would transpire; when it did, they were terrified.

Had Columbus related this story to an audience who was unaware of the cause of lunar eclipses, his listeners would have been in suspense as well, and, after he explained why the moon had seemingly vanished, his audience would have felt satisfied because they would have learned something significant about the cause-and-effect universe in which they live. The fact that there is a cause behind this seemingly wondrous event would reassure them that, in fact, apparently capricious incidents do not take place and that there is order in the universe. Confidence in such order gives them security. However, by first disrupting this sense of security, by making them feel unsafe, by casting doubt upon their belief in the orderliness of their universe, by making them wonder whether nature is, in fact, ruled by laws, writers of horror can (like Columbus) deliver a delicious jolt of fear to their audience, helping to keep readers from becoming too complacent. In horror fiction, fear is created through suspense, and supplying too much information too soon deadens this all-important effect.

Ray Bradbury's "Love Potion": Learning from the Masters

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Ray Bradbury’s “Love Potion,” one of the flowers of evil in his Summer Morning, Summer Night anthology, is a deceptively simple tale, the unexpected twist at the end of which not only horrifies, but also delights.

Reclusive sisters, “large as sofas. . . and stuffed with time,” Miss Nancy Jillet and her sister Julia take “the air at four in the morning,” when there is no one in the sleeping town in which they live to see them except the policeman walking his beat. While the two old ladies are rocking in the chairs on their front porch at two o’clock in the morning, eighteen-year-old Alice Ferguson, unable to sleep, “happened upon the Jillets.”

The women, after identifying their visitor, both by name and by age, tell her that she’s in love but that “he doesn’t love you,” which is why Alice is “unhappy and out walking late.” Nancy, however, assures her that she has come “to the right place.” Alice says that she “didn’t come,” but the woman shush her, saying that they will help her by giving her a “love potion.” They give her a green bottle, the contents of which Nancy describes as harmless ingredients:

“White flowers for the moon, summer-myrtle for the stars, lilacs for the rain, a red rose for the heart, a walnut for the mind. . . . Some clear water from the well to make all run well, and a sprig of pepper-leaf to warm his blood. Alum to make his fear grow small. And a drop of white cream so that he sees your skin like a moonstone.”

When Alice asks whether such a potion will “work,” Nancy assures her that it will; she and Julia have spent many years determining “why we never courted and never married,” and the results of their long investigation into these matters “boils down to” the potion they’ve given to her. Alice will be the first ever to try the potion, Nancy assures their visitor, because “it’s not just something you give to everyone or make and bottle all the time.” The sisters have too many interests, Nancy implies, for them to spend all their time on any single pursuit, even the manufacture and bottling of a love potion:

“We’ve done a lot of things in our life, the house is full of antimacassars we’ve knitted, framed mottos, bedspreads, stamp collections, coins, we’ve done everything, we’ve painted and sculpted and gardened by night so no one would bother us.”

It was while they were gardening, in fact, that they’d first seen Alice, “looking sad,” and had surmised that she was so “because of a man.” That was the moment that the sisters had resolved to try to help Alice, and they’d straightaway picked flowers from among the plants of their garden. All Alice needs to do to win her beloved is to add three drops to a beverage, “soda pop, lemonade or iced-tea.” Visiting the man of her dreams, he tells her, “I do love you.” Alice replies, “Now I won’t need this,” and shows him the green bottle which contains the sisters’ love potion. Perhaps she has already mentioned the topic, in a joke, to him, because he is not surprised by her production of the bottle and even advises her to “pour a little out. . .before you take it back, so it won’t hurt their feelings.” She does so, returning the rest to the Jillet sisters, assuring them, in answer to their question, that she administered a dose to her beloved. The women surprise Alice by announcing that they themselves will sample the potion, so that they will “have beautiful dreams and dream we’re young again.” The next morning, sirens awaken Alice, and she runs to her window, looks out, and sees “Miss Nancy and Miss Julia Jillet sitting on their front porch, not moving, in broad daylight, a thing they had never done before, their eyes closed; their hands dangling at their sides, their mouths gaping strangely.” They have about them the look of death, and the green bottle is set before them:

There was something about them, something that suggested sheaths from which the iron blade is gone. This, Alice Ferguson saw, and the crowd moving in, and the police, and the coroner, putting his hand up for the green bottle that glittered brightly in the sunlight, sitting on the rail.

Because of the apparent kindliness of the aged sisters and their seemingly sincere desire to “help” their beautiful, young, lovelorn neighbor, Bradbury deceives his reader, as it were, into believing the elderly sisters to be harmless. Reclusive spinsters, the may seem a bit eccentric, believing, as they do, in love potions, but they are also apparently harmless, even lovable, old women. However, the reader’s realization that the “love potion” that they gave Alice was really the same poison that they drank as a means of committing suicide shows that the women were anything but the kindly old ladies they appeared to be. Believing themselves to have committed murder, by killing the young man for whom Alice mooned, but who did not love her in return, the women next kill themselves, apparently to put themselves beyond the reach of the law. Bradbury’s story ends upon an eerie note, and the shock of the ending makes the reader reread the short story for clues as to what would motivate two seemingly nice old ladies to take their own lives after attempting to murder a stranger. It would be disappointing if Bradbury had taken the cheap way out by leaving the story a mystery, but he is too good a writer to rely upon a dues ex machina. His story does, indeed, contain clues that make the sisters’ monstrous deeds intelligible. The women are reclusive. They avoid others, keeping company only with one another. When they go outside their house, it is early in the morning, when the town is “undercover.” Upon meeting them, “in the milky dark of 2 a.m.,” Alice recalls “the tales of their solitary confinement in life,” a phrase which suggests not only isolation, but also punishment. If their self-imposed isolation from others is a form of punishment, for what offense are they enforcing it? Their intuitive understanding of the cause of Alice’s unhappiness is a clue. Upon seeing Alice walking past their garden, “looking sad,” they recognize the cause of her unhappiness, as being “a man,” perhaps because a man, in their past, had caused one or both of them to feel similar sorrow. They have spent a good many years, Nancy tells Alice, trying to “figure out why we never courted and never married,” and, having done so, they have concocted their “love potion.” Although it may be “too late” for them to “help” themselves, they can “help” Alice, who seems to suffer from the same heartache that had such a devastating effect upon their own lives. Whatever the reason for the failure of romance in the days of their youth, it seems that the spinsterish sisters blame themselves, for they have, as it were, sentenced themselves to “solitary confinement in life,” becoming recluses whose only company they keep is one another’s. They have spent the long years, “since 1910,” as they confide to Alice, when, possibly, their hopes for love were dashed, in activities that seem to have been designed to sublimate their sexual drives:

“We’ve done a lot of things in our life, the house is full of antimacassars we’ve knitted, framed mottos, bedspreads, stamp collections, coins, we’ve done everything, we’ve painted and sculpted and gardened by night so no one would bother us.”

Possibly to spare Alice such a lonely and unfulfilling life as theirs has been, despite the many hobbies and pastimes with which they’ve attempted to fill their lives--lives which, nevertheless, the narrator characterizes as “stuffed with time and dust and snow”--they gave her a potent poison to administer to the object of her unrequited love. It is a gesture of kindness that is anything but kind, but the spinsters have apparently long since passed beyond rationality, supposing that the murder of the young man who doesn’t share Alice’s love would be justifiable if it brings Alice relief after her initial grief. Believing themselves to have accomplished their mission, they drink the poison themselves, thus adding the crime and sin of suicide to that those of murder. Their own unrequited or failed love, it seems, has twisted them, and, over the years, the lonely spinsters, unable to find fulfillment in one another’s company or in the many activities they have tried to pass the time over the years during their self-imposed “solitary confinement,” have come to see their young neighbor’s own unrequited love as a long-lasting torment which may give some purpose to their lives if they can deliver Alice from the hell that they have had to endure since 1910. Instead, they would have caused Alice untold grief by such an action, since, as the young man confides, he already does love Alice. Their romance, which could lead to marriage, almost ended before it began, in the death of the man of Alice’s dreams, and, blinded by their own torment and grief, neither of the sisters were capable of imagining that their reading of Alice’s unhappiness and its cause was a result not of special insight, as they might have supposed, but of a projection of their own experience onto the life of another person. Their solipsistic self-exile from life and the irrationality that preceded and follows from such “solitary confinement” is the horror that makes them monstrous and villainous, despite their appearances as harmless old ladies to the contrary. Bradbury’s masterful writing allows the horror and the delight that rear, shockingly, at the end of this compact, deceptively simple story of heartache, madness, and seclusion. By emulating Bradbury’s technique, other writers can accomplish similar results.