Hop-Frog: A Story of Reversals

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

 

As a rule of thumb, a writer introduces his or her story’s protagonist before the antagonist makes an appearance. One reason for doing so is that people respond most strongly to the person they meet first, especially if the individual seems to be a decent sort of a soul, as protagonists, even self-conflicted ones, usually are, just as readers tend to most remember whatever they read first. After all, since the narrative is the story of the main character, it makes sense to introduce the protagonist first, before any other character takes the stage (or the page). Another reason for introducing the main character first is to establish clarity. Introducing the protagonist first makes it clear to the reader, from the outset, whose story is being read or told. 

Occasionally, however, this rule is violated, as is the case in “Hop-Frog,” Edgar Allan Poe’s short story of humiliation and revenge. Poe starts his tale by introducing its antagonist, or villain, a nameless, sadistic king who delights in abusing his fool, Hop-Frog.

An example of the monarch’s cruelty is the jester’s nickname. In an apparent attempt to curry favor with their liege, the king's “seven ministers,” aware of the ruler's delight in unkindness, named the jester “Hop-Frog” to make fun of his peculiar style of locomotion: “In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional gait--something between a leap and a wriggle--a movement that afforded illimitable amusement, and of course consolation, to the king.”

Such a problem would elicit pity and sympathy from a nobler person, but the king is obviously well pleased with the wittiness of his ministers’ naming the fool’s for the effect of his unfortunate disability. The king also enjoys tormenting Hop-Frog directly. The dwarf and a fellow citizen, Tripetta, also a dwarf, were abducted from their homeland and given, as if they were but things, rather than people, “as presents to the king, by one of his ever-victorious generals.”

Aware that Hop-Frog misses the friends whom he was forced to leave behind and aware, furthermore, that the fool is unable to drink wine without suffering from near madness as a result, the king directs his jester to drink to in the honor of his “absent friends.”

When the wine and the thought of his “absent friends” has the effect upon Hop-Frog that the king has anticipated, the king thinks the jester’s grief and miserable state of intoxication amusing: “It happened to be the poor dwarf's birthday, and the command to drink to his 'absent friends' forced the tears to his eyes. Many large, bitter drops fell into the goblet as he took it, humbly, from the hand of the tyrant.”

The king responds with cruel laughter: "'Ah! ha! ha! ha!' roared the latter, as the dwarf reluctantly drained the beaker. 'See what a glass of good wine can do! Why, your eyes are shining already!'"

The king’s malice is also seen in his abusive treatment of Tripetta. When she intercedes with the king on the behalf of Hop-Frog, upon whom the monarch seeks to force still more wine, the king “pushed her violently from him, and threw the contents of the brimming goblet in her face.”

The vulgarity of the king and his sycophantic courtiers, vis-à-vis the grace Hop-Frog and Tripetta, is a second reversal in the story. Not only has Poe introduced the villainous king before he’s introduced the heroic fool, but he has also traded the stereotypical natures of these two characters, making the noble king vulgar and the low fool courteous.

These reversals effect much of the story’s irony. Customarily, a reader would suppose the king, rather than a jester, to be the refined and cultured sophisticate. In fact, the comedy of the fool is often ribald and crude, involving the same sort of humiliating practical jokes, at times, as those that the king performs.

The king’s humiliation of Tripetta is the story’s inciting moment, for it is this act of outrage upon her that inspires Hop-Frog’s plan for revenge, as, ironically, he tells the intended victim: “just after your majesty had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face--just after your majesty had done this...there came into my mind a capital diversion .” Thus, the king, in a sense, is undone by his own sadistic nature, for it is one of his acts of mindless cruelty that inspires Hop-Frog’s scheme to kill him in a fashion that is at once both spectacular and horrible.

Traditionally, regardless of the king’s character or the morality of his deeds, if he orders the execution of one of his subjects, for any (or no) reason, the subject would be killed, no questions asked. In “Hop-Frog,” however, it is the fool who, in another reversal, becomes the executioner of both the king himself and his toadying courtiers. What’s more, Hop-Frog accomplishes his vengeance of Tripetta’s honor with impunity, thereby further humiliating the monarch and his noble friends, since he escapes punishment for having, in essence, assassinated his own and Tripetta’s tormentors. Each of these reversals heightens the story’s irony.

Hop-Frog’s revenge is extremely violent and horrible. Had Poe not prepared the reader to accept this act as just, albeit appalling, the reader’s sympathy for the crippled dwarf and his beloved Tripetta would likely not withstand the gruesome deaths that he causes the king and his courtiers to suffer. Instead, the immolation of the nobles would have been regarded, in all likelihood, as being too extreme and it would suggest that it is Hop-Frog who is the true monster, rather than his adversary, the king’s own cruelty notwithstanding.

The reader accepts the justice of Hop-Frog’s execution of his tormentors for several reasons. First, the odds are against Hop-Frog. He is a mere court jester. His adversary is a monarch who enjoys absolute power. Readers support an underdog. 

Second, the king is cruel. He is, in other words, a sadist. Many times, he has abused Hop-Frog simply for his own amusement and, perhaps, to show off in front of his courtiers. He is not above insulting even someone as beautiful, kind, and harmless as Tripetta, although he must know that doing so will both hurt her and offend Hop-Frog. He has no regard for their feelings.

Third, Hop-Frog outsmarts the powerful king, and readers favor one who, through the use of nothing more than his or her wits, can outsmart another, especially if the other occupies a position of far greater social status, authority, and power. If one such ordinary person can accomplish such a feat, perhaps others--the reader included--can do likewise. Certainly, many will have harbored fantasies of doing just such a thing.

Fourth, Hop-Frog, like Tripetta, is a dwarf. He is literally smaller than the king, and, figuratively, he is a common person, one of the little guys, so to speak. Hop-Frog is physically weaker, too, than his larger tormentors. Nevertheless, he uses his brain to overcome their brawn, a feat that always gains admiration and respect among those in similar circumstances.

Fifth, Hop-Frog is crippled. His severe handicap, the object of the king’s scorn and ridicule, make him ill-matched to take on the king. Nevertheless, the intrepid dwarf does so--and wins.

Sixth, Hop-Frog is shown to be a sensitive and caring person. He loves Tripetta, and, when she is insulted, he is also hurt, and he vows revenge, even at the risk of his life.

Perhaps the reader would not overlook Hop-Frog’s murder of the king and his courtiers in a such a horrible manner if only one of these conditions or characteristics mitigated against the horror of the deed, but there are at least six extenuating facts, as enumerated herein. Together, they seem to be warrant enough for the reader to ignore the stupendous horror of the dwarf’s immolation of his live victims.

Other horror stories often include a reversal, usually in the form of the surprise, O. Henry-type ending. A good example is “The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs and “The Red Room” by H. G. Wells, both of which have been posted in Chillers and Thrillers. In these stories, the plot suggests a certain type of ending as likely, or even as seemingly inevitable, but then surprises the reader with the substitution of a different ending but one that is, nevertheless, logical and satisfying.

For example, in Wells’ story (which, incidentally, is a clear precursor to Stephen King’s story, “1048”), a skeptic stays overnight in an allegedly haunted room. Despite his doubt as to the reality of the supernatural, he experiences increasingly frightening incidents until, bursting from the room, he strikes the door frame. He turns, confused, and reels into various furniture until he knocks himself unconscious.

The reader is led to assume that the room truly is haunted and, then, Wells offers what, in effect, is a punchline of sorts: the room is haunted by the fear of those who, believing the chamber to be haunted, occupy the place: “Fear that will not have light nor sound, that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms.”

The Others, a horror film, also has such a twist: the residents of a haunted house turn out to be the ghosts, just as the apparent ghosts turn out to be the house’s human inhabitants. Such reversals are still marginally effective, if rather overdone, but stories such as “Hop-Frog” are rare in their sophisticated employment of plot reversals, and such stories are correspondingly enriched.

The Problem-Solution Plot

 Copyright 2022 by Gary L. Pullman

In some horror movies, the plot is structured by attempting to solve a problem to no avail. Such plots have three parts: the problem, which is the film's inciting moment; the solution, its turning point; and the failure of the attempted solution, the denouement.

These are examples of films that have this three-part structure.

 

The Hunger (1983)

Problem: Beautiful vampire Miriam's husband John begins to age rapidly.

Solution: Miriam seeks a new lover.

What Goes Wrong: Miriam ages rapidly after a lover locks her inside a coffin.

Jennifer's Body (2009)

Problem: A ritual transforms Jennifer into a succubus who must devour men to survive.

Solution: Jennifer goes on a killing spree.

What Goes Wrong: During a fight Jennifer bites Needy, who then kills Jennifer but, assuming some of Jennifer's traits, Needy becomes a killer.

 

 

The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

Problem: Witches seek the perfect man.

Solution: They find the devil, who poses as their dream come true.

What Goes Wrong: The witches attempt to control the devil through various magic spells.

Piranha 3D (2010):

Problem: Flesh-eating, prehistoric fish swarm Lake Victoria during spring break.

Solution: The fish feed on tourists.

What Goes Wrong: The piranha are killed, but they are only babies; the mature piranhas live, continuing the attacks.

Species (1995)

Problem: A female alien, Sil, needs to breed.

Solution: Sil kills men unsuitable mates.

What Goes Wrong: Although blasted with a shotgun, Sil mutates into a different, equally vicious, organism.

Nekromaniac (1987)

Problem: Rob, a street sweeper who cleans up after grisly accidents brings home a full corpse for him and his wife Betty to enjoy sexually.

Solution: Betty prefers the corpse over Rob.

What Goes Wrong: Rob commits suicide.

Psycho (1960)

Problem: Norman Bates's mother won't allow him to date.

Solution: Norman kills a woman to whom he is attracted.

What Goes Wrong: Norman, who dresses as his late “mother,” is arrested and jailed.

Vocational Horror: The Tools of Its Trade

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

 

A device often used to generate plots is to imagine a vocational role that, given a dark twist, produces unusual, horrific goods or provides equally bizarre, terrifying services. Stephen Kings; characters include writers (“1408,” Bag of Bones, The Regulators, Misery); painters (Duma Key); politicians (Under the Dome); a shop owner (Needful Things); a former police officer (Black House) and prison guards (The Green Mile); journalists (The Colorado Kid), government agents (Firestarter), and military personnel (The Tommyknockers), among others, whose wares and services are anything but mundane—or safe.

Other writers of horror have used the same technique. Bentley Little, King's “poet laureate of horror,” is a great example. His novels' protagonists include a mailman (The Mailman), store clerks (The Store); a homeowners association (The Association); resort staff and guests (The Resort); an insurance agent (The Policy), teachers (The Academy, University); and others.

In part, such fiction—what we might designate as vocational horror—works because it is associated, as it typically is in King's works, with forces equipped with vast resources, investigative abilities, access to the general public, political power, are backed by the authority of the state, or are imbued with supernatural or paranormal power (King) or perform essential services, operate in remote locations, or, again, enjoy supernatural or paranormal power (Little).

Another reason that vocational fiction works is that it is based on a twist, or a perversion, of the normal purposes of offering goods for sale or a perversion of the normal functions of a service, as is almost always the case in Little's satirical novels, synopses of a few of which suggest the nature of his twists:

[The Mailman:] “the strange new mailman is up to something sinister, an idea bolstered as people in town start receiving increasingly disturbing hate mail” (Wikipedia).

[The Store:] “customers are hounded by obnoxious sales people, and strange products appear on the shelves. Before long . . . [is] taking over the town!”

[The Association:] “Members of the neighborhood's Homeowners' Association, a meddling group that uses its authority to spy on neighbors, eradicate pets and dismember anyone who fails to pay association dues and fines” (Publishers Weekly).

[The Resort:] “[At] the exclusive Reata, an isolated resort in the Arizona desert, . . . . unnerving encounters with strange employees, wild parties in empty rooms and bizarre sex antics in the family restaurant prompt . . . key characters . . . to think about leaving early. Yet the Reata's magnetic pull essentially brainwashes all the guests into believing that their odd experiences are normal” (Publishers Weekly).

[The Policy:] “Recently divorced Hunt Jackson, his new wife, his co-workers and his best buddy from high school . . . are continually harassed by a pesky insurance salesman [who] tries to convince them to purchase bizarre policies protecting them from the law, their bosses and even death, and if the clients refuse, inexplicable consequences usually follow” (Publishers Weekly).

[The Academy:] “Students and faculty who embrace [a school's new] charter get steadily darker and more sadistic; teachers and students who oppose the charter find strange things happening and people disappearing; and the school seems to have taken on a life of its own” (Publishers Weekly).

"Man Overboard" by Sir Winston Churchill: A Commentary

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

 Deceptively simple, Sir Winston Churchill's 1899 short story “Man Overboard: An Episode of the Red Sea” is a true work of art. The story's technique is superb, highlighting the human condition through juxtapositions of pairs of contrasting extremes—comfort and misery, safety and danger, camaraderie and loneliness, accommodation and abandonment, security and vulnerability, hope and despair, joy and horror, civilization and nature, music and silence, light and darkness, ignorance and revelation—as a means of evoking the plight of humans as beings whose existence straddles two worlds, the natural and the spiritual, and who are as much out of water, as it were, in one as in the other.

The story opens in media res, presenting readers with an anonymous passenger aboard a mail steamer that is making its way through the Red Sea. After stepping outside the hot confines of the steamer's companion-house, where a concert is underway, the protagonist, listening to a raucous song, “The Rowdy Dowdy Boys,” seems in good spirits as he remembers “the brilliant and busy streets” he used to frequent years ago, perhaps in his younger, carefree days. His reverie is broken when the rail against which he leans, not having been tightly fastened to the ship, breaks, sending him plummeting into the sea.

A moment before, all was well; all was right with the world. He was safe, among the ship's passengers and crew, aboard a steamer which might be taken as a symbol of the human civilization of which the man overboard is a member. Civilization, as represented by the steamer, however, is not an infallible hedge against nature. Swept overboard, swept away from civilization and humanity, on his own in the sea, the nameless protagonist is alone, helpless, and vulnerable. 

 

One wants to escape company, to be alone, at times, but not for long. A smoke break is one thing; being alone in the sea, in the darkness, far from human society is quite another. “The Rowdy Dowdy Boys” brought fond memories to the protagonist's mind, while he was safe aboard the steamer, but the exploits of the boys of the song are no help to him now. Music, an artifact of civilized life, is replaced by the silence of the sea, in which only the man's sobs are now to be heard as he, and he alone, laments his fate. The song, which was “all the rage at all the music halls” only a few years ago, is meaningless now, its strains nothing more than an ironic and dispiriting reminder of the situation in which the man overboard now finds himself.

Irony is repeated throughout the story, at first stressing the difference between civilization, as it is encapsulated by the steamer, and nature, as it is represented by the sea. Aboard the steamer, there is an “accommodation-ladder”; there is a “companion-house”; there is a “concert”; there is a gathering of fellow “passengers”; such accommodations are not offered by the sea. In the ocean, there is only darkness, silence, and loneliness. The progress of the steamer highlights the gulf between civilization and nature, as the vessel puts more and more distance between itself and the man overboard. The steamer becomes less and less distinct and less and less significant, as the sea becomes the protagonist's sole and entire world—an alien and inhospitable world that exhausts him, causes him to despair, and leaves him, literally, without a prayer.

 

Left to his own devices, the man overboard soon realizes that he is no match for nature. The camaraderie of his fellow men is replaced by the indifference of nature. As the ship “dwindles” in the distance, its light is all but extinguished, and the protagonist is left alone in the darkness of the immense sea, a predicament in which neither shouting, swimming, praying, nor cursing avails anything. He is—and understands that he has been—“abandoned”; that he is alone; that he cannot survive; that he is helpless. He can do nothing, he realizes, and the discovery makes his brain reel. There is but one thing he can do: appeal to a power beyond nature, its Creator, for assistance, for salvation. He prays, but his words are clumsy and “incoherent,” sounds of madness.

Ironically, the man overboard feels “joy and hope,” and gratitude fills his heart, as he thinks the appearance of a faint light upon the dark surface of the sea may be the steamer returning for him. However, as the light withdraws, becoming increasingly smaller, almost as if it taunts him, he realizes that the ship is not returning, that he is alone, and “despair succeeds hope,” as he grapples with the significance of the tiny pinprick of light's vanishing in the distance and the darkness of the sea. Where, in desperation, he has prayed, he now, desperate again, this time, curses, but his curses avail him no more than had his prayers. He is alone; he is abandoned. Either God has not heard his prayer or has chosen not to answer the man's petition.

He finds that he cannot summon the will even to drown himself. His only recourse is to offer another prayer, and he begs, “O God! Let me die.” Ironically, he spies the fin of a shark fifty yards from him, and, as it approaches him, the narrator concludes, “His last appeal had been heard.”

The end of the story is terrifying for either of two reasons. It may convey the horror of living, as a human being, in a world that is indifferent by nature to one's existence. Alternatively, it may suggest that, if God exists, if He hears prayers, He may answer them, if at all, in a way that is, from a human viewpoint, utterly alien to such concepts as compassion, mercy, and love. In such a case, not only is the source of nature, of life itself, unconcerned about His creation, but He is also capricious. He might fefuse to answer a prayer for death that is uttered in despair, or He might elect to respond to a plea for deliverance from the anguish of hopelessness and absurdity in a way that brings terrible and horrific violence upon the distraught petitioner.

In the final analysis, Churchill's use of irony ends in a sense of astonishment that can be captured, if at all, only by a sentiment such as that of Moby Dick's Queequeg, who declares “de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin.” Short though it is, “Man Overboard” is more than the hour's amusement Churchill described it as being when he shared the tale with General Ian Hamilton. Churchill's tale ranks with Stephen Crane's fabulous short story “The Open Boat” in its portrait of existential angst—and all in a space of 1,100 words or so.

 

Benefits of Alternate Endings: Pick One

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

It was fashionable in Hollywood, at one time, to produce movies that have alternate endings. Hollywood executives hoped that, by trying out two or more endings for the same movie on test audiences, they could determine which one viewers enjoyed most, which might translate into more ticket sales (i .e., dollars) at the box office.

For short story writers and novelists, however, there may be other benefits to devising possible alternate endings. In doing so, however, authors should follow Aristotle's dictum (and Edgar Allan Poe's advice) that a story's ending should end in a manner that does not destroy the integrity of the rest of the plot.

Devising possible alternate endings to a story can also assist writers in selecting the most appropriate, effective, and memorable ending possible from an array of alternatives.

In addition, imagining possible alternate endings can, perhaps, improve the story, because a new possibility might round out, explain, or otherwise complete the narrative in a more believable or otherwise satisfying manner than the original ending. (We're speaking, now, of works in progress, rather than published, stories.)

Imagining alternate endings could also produce unexpected or better twist endings than the one a writer originally had in mind.

“The Cone” by H. G. Wells

Current ending: Raut, who has cuckolded Horrocks, is doomed when a blast-furnace cone lowers him into the furnace, while Horrocks pelts the adulterer with hot coals.

Alternate ending: Horrocks seizes Raut by the arm, shoving him into the path of an oncoming railway tram. (This incident occurs earlier in the story, but, at this point, Horrocks is terrorizing Raut and, at the last minute, pulls him to safety; revised, the original story would end with this incident, without Horrocks pulling Raut from the tram's path.)

“The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Bierce

Current ending: An entry in Morgan's diary reveals that the creature he hunts is invisible because its color is imperceptible to the human eye.

Alternate ending: Both Morgan's friend Harker, who witnessed Morgan's death and Morgan himself are insane, the former because of his fantastic testimony at the coroner's inquest concerning the cause of Morgan's death, the latter because, in writing of the incident in his diary, he described it in a manner that is consistent with Harker's account of the occurrence. On suspicion of having killed, and possible brainwashed Morgan, Harker is arrested and held for trial.

“Dracula's Guest” by Bram Stoker

Current ending: Horsemen frighten off the werewolf guarding and keeping an English hotel guest warm in a forest and take him back to the hotel; they were dispatched at the request of a Transylvanian count named Dracula.

Alternate ending: The horsemen arrive to find the Englishman's throat torn out by the werewolf feasting upon his corpse.

 

"The Signalman" by Charles Dickens

Current ending: The narrator learns that a signal-man, seemingly mesmerized by something he saw, was struck and killed by an approaching train after ignoring the engineer's repeated warnings to get off the track.

Alternate ending: The train strikes the signal-man, but investigators cannot find his body; on the anniversary of his supposed death, the signal-man again appears on the track and is struck, but, afterward, investigators cannot find a body.

Secret Motivations

 Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Often, in horror stories and films, a secret, past or present, drives and directs protagonists' or antagonists' actions:

Schizophrenia (Norman Bates [Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film adaptation of Robert Bloch's 1959 novel Psycho], Brian De Palma's 1980 film Dressed to Kill, and David Calloway [John Polson's 2005 film Hide and Seek]);

crimes of various kinds (Marion Crane's adultery and theft and Norman Bates's murder in Psycho; Grace Newman's murders in Alejandr Amenábar's 2001 film The Others; Freddy Kreuger's murders in Wes Craven's 1984 film A Nightmare on Elm Street; the teenage friends' murder in Jim Gillespie's 1997 film adaptation of Lois Duncan's 1973 novel I Know What You Did Last Summer; Horrocks's wife's adultery with Raut in H. G. Wells's 1895 short story “The Cone”;

deceit or betrayal (Marion Crane's adultery and her theft of her employer's money in Psycho; the adultery of Horrocks's wife and lover Raut in “The Cone”; the teenage characters' attempt to cover up what they believed to be their killing of a man in I Know What You Did Last Summer);

sexual deviance (voyeurism in Michael Powell's 1960 film Peeping Tom, Victor Zarcoff's 2016 film 13 Cameras, and Psycho; lesbianism in Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel Rebecca and Shirley Jackson's 1959 Gothic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House; transvestism in Hitchcock's Psycho, Brian De Palma's 1980 film Dressed to Kill, Jonathan Deeme's 1991 film adaption of Thomas Harris's 1988 novel The Silence of the Lambs; and transgenderism in Robert Hiltzik's 1983 film Sleepaway Camp; and sadism (Robert Harmon's 1986 film The Hitcher);

past psychological trauma (the denial of Angela Baker true sex and gender in Sleepaway Camp and Carrie White's victimization by high school bullies in Stephen King's 1979 novel Carrie and Brian De Palma's 1974 film adaptation of the book);

vengeance (many horror stories and movies, including Edgar Allan Poe's 1846 short story “The Cask of the Amontillado,” “The Cone,” A Nightmare on Elm Street, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and a host of others); and

suggestibility (the narrator-protagonits's runaway imagination in H. G. Wells's 1894 short story “The Red Room” and, possibly, the protagonist of Bram Stoker's 1891 short story “The Judge's House” and his 1914 short story “Dracula's Guest”).

As we can see, the same story or film may contain multiple instances of secret motivators: Hitchcock's Psycho contains two characters, Marion Crane and Norman Bates, who, between them, are driven by no fewer than four types of secrets: schizophrenia, crime (murder), sexual deviance (voyeurism) (Bates) and deceit or betrayal (adultery), and crime (theft) (Crane).

On the surface, such characters appear to be normal and to be motivated by ordinary drives, such as the need to nurture, the pursuit of profit, affiliation, pleasure, leisure, generosity, and kindness. The normal, apparent motivations of these characters seem to “explain” them; in reality, however, they merely disguise their true desires, aims, and purposes; they are red herrings, not clues, to the nature of the characters, fictitious personas that allow the characters to act without arousing suspicion. Marion Crane is a thief, but she poses as a traveler. The protagonist of Peeping Tom and the landlord in 13 Cameras are both voyeurs and murderers, but the former poses as a photographer, the latter as nothing more than a landlord. Horrocks, in “The Cone,” is a vengeful victim of adultery, but he poses as a tour guide of sorts. The schizophrenic in Hide and Seek poses as a nothing more than a psychiatrist who has his daughter Emily's psychological welfare at heart.

The disguise of normality is also disarming. It suggests that dangerous characters are either harmless of beneficial: a motel owner, teenage friends, scientists, a camper, a mother, a doctor. The disguise of normality makes it easier for such characters to stalk and slay their prey. Indeed, such characters can even appear to be the victim, rather than the victimizer, to him- or herself, if not to the public (although they often appear to be the victim to the public as well, at least for a time): David Calloway and Grace Newman are examples.

Stories and films in which a secret is at the heart of one or more characters, whether protagonist or antagonist or both, suggest a threefold division of plot: Part I: Appearance is maintained through the adopted persona; Part II: the character's secret is discovered or revealed; and Part III: reality is exhibited as the character's true identity is perceived.

The Three Lessons of the Watchbirds and the Hawks

Copyright 202 by Gary L. Pullman

The fabulous short story “Watchbird” in The Robert Sheckley Megapack: 15 Classic Science Fiction Stories (a true bargain at only 99 cents for the Amazon Kindle version) is a masterful satire concerning logic, linguistics, and morality.

In a futuristic setting, the brainwaves and glandular processes of potential murderers tip off high-tech, flying guardians, alerting these “watchbirds” of impending murder. The watchbirds then swoop down to shock would-be killers into submission. If multiple shocks are necessary, so be it: the watchbirds' first rule is to protect potential victims, regardless of the cost. By using them as their enforcers, the government hopes to stem a rising tide of violence and save lives.

At first, things go even better than officials had hoped, and the murder rate plummets drastically. However, one of the manufacturers of these drone-like guardians is concerned that human beings shouldn't shove off their duties and responsibilities onto machines. His protests are all but ignored. Meanwhile, by regularly sharing “new information, methods, and definitions” with each other, the watchbirds become more and more effective at policing the public.

The definition of terms is a key concern of the story. Initially, murder is defined as “an act of violence, consisting of breaking, mangling, maltreating, or otherwise stopping the functions of a living organism by another organism,” as opposed to a more traditional understanding of the concept, such as “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.” The definition programmed into the watchbirds may seem clear, detailed, and exhaustive, but it contains some odd wording. It is not often, if ever, that a killer “breaks” or “mangles” another person. The engineer's definition (and, therefore, the watchbirds', into which the definition is programmed) is also too broad, specifying “living organisms,” rather than the traditional definition's “human being.” In formulating the definition, Sheckley lays the groundwork for much of the conflict and suspense that the remainder of the story generates, maintains, and heightens.

Based on their experience (the watchbirds are conscious and rational, but unemotional), the mechanical guardians, which are able both to learn and to think, modify and amend the original definition of both “murder” and “living organism.” Their actions follow from their revisions of these concepts. First, a slaughterhouse employee is knocked out with a high-voltage blast because, as the wingbirds understand the it (and the act), murder occurs whenever any “living organism,” human or animal, is killed. For the same reason, fishermen and a hunter are dealt with, as is a man who attempts to kill a fly. A surgeon is shocked when he starts to operate on his patient, with the result that the patient dies.

A driver is shocked when he tries to turn off his car (an organism's attempt to stop “the functions of a living organism” constitutes murder, and the watchbirds now consider automobiles to be “living organisms”). Thanks to the watchbirds themselves, the murder rate begins to skyrocket. People get the message and begin to modify their behavior so as not to become watchbird targets.

However, life itself is also at risk, as farmers are prevented from plowing the earth, since the watchbirds have come to regard the planet itself as a “living organism.” Farmers cannot cut hay to feed their cattle, which starve to death. Industries are crippled. Even a radio is a living organism and, like cars, may not be turned off, since doing so is the same as murdering the device. Rabbits are slain because they eat vegetables. A butterfly is dispatched for “outraging a rose.” The watchbirds are unable to appreciate, as the narrator states, that there is a close relationship between the living and the dead; nor do the machines comprehend that, for the watchbirds' creators, at least, there is a hierarchy of value where “living organisms” are concerned, with human beings at the top and other life forms on progressively lower levels of significance.

Clearly, something must be done!

The answer is to build a better machine, one that's faster, stronger, and deadlier, one that will be able to hunt and kill the watchbirds. The new mechanical slayer is called the hawk, and, before long, there's a multitude of the ferocious predators in the sky, making short work of their prey. Unfortunately, the engineers didn't learn their lesson from the watchbirds fiasco. Not only do they assign human duties and responsibilities to the new, and improved machines, but their makers deliberately refrain from installing “restricting circuits” that would limit the Hawks' targets. There just wasn't time to include these regulators. Instead, the engineers and manufacturers simply release the hawks.

After killing most of the pesky watchbirds, the hawks decide that humans constitute another type of prey, and the problems that homo sapiens had with the watchbirds pale in comparison to those involving these new predators.

The story's themes seem threefold.

First, death is necessary for life's continuance, but “no one has told the watchbirds that all life depends on carefully balanced murders,” even that of the alpha predator among machines, the hawk, which may need humans to maintain and repair it, as the watchbird had. The watchbirds have thoroughly destroyed the equilibrium between the living and the dead, the consumers and the providers, totally disrupting their fragile relationship.

Second, humans cannot pass on their responsibility to machines, or, as the narrator puts it, “pass a human problem into the hands of a machine” that has been assigned, by humans, to enforce human laws. Robots do not have emotions, nor have they accumulated centuries of human experience (nor are they able to do so). Machines lack human respective and understanding. They cannot perceive, analyze, evaluate, or understand life from any perspective but that which is based upon algorithms and memory and microchips and processing units and programming. Despite their artificial intelligence, which can be brilliant, computers are severely limited. To forget these two simple truths is to be in danger of creating “guardians” like the watchbirds and hawks to police the mechanical police.

Third, neither the watchbirds nor the hawks can understand that the lives of some creatures have a higher value than the lives of other, “lesser” animals. A whale, an impala, a cow, a dog, a cat, a garden slug, even a flea or a cockroach, is all well and good, in its way, but human beings are the species that can remember, through books and databases, the events and circumstances of centuries; can manipulate time and space; can transform the world, building cities and hospitals and prisons and airplanes and automobiles and trains and ships; can put men and women into space and, perhaps some day soon, on other worlds; can plumb the depths of the ocean and climb to the top of mountains; can create art and culture, producing Michelangelo and Leonardo and Shakespeare and Dante; can commune with nature and with God. True, the depths to which humans can fall are just as incredible as the heights they can achieve, as such "accomplishments" as the atomic bomb, the Holocaust, and two World Wars, among many others, indicate, but the point is that, whether it is used for good or evil, human beings have these great abilities, abilities that far outstrip those of any other animal. In fact, these abilities are not only remarkable among the creatures of nature, but they are transcendent to nature itself as well. Human abilities reflect not mere animal existence, but also a spark of the divine. Although all men may be created equal, all animals are not. The failure to make such distinctions is, perhaps a form of insanity, for it is madness to equate a maggot with a man, a butterfly with a woman, or an earthworm with a child. Machines, even artificially intelligent ones, by such a measure, are mad—or would be . . . if they were human. Instead, they are merely machines. Their very character as such constitutes their true “restrictive circuits.”

What would be the likely end of a situation such as that which Sheckley lays out in “Watchbirds”? The author himself suggests the probable outcome: more and more capable machines would be created to eliminate the less-capable previous generation, and the situation, for humans, would get worse and worse until they were completely exterminated. Then, one by one, the machines would fail, for there would be no one to maintain or to repair them or, for that matter, to manufacture them—at least, not yet.

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Edgar Allan Poe's "King Pest": Analysis and Commentary

Copyright 202 by Gary L. Pullman

King Edward III

The first sentence of the story establishes its setting: it is “about twelve o'clock, one night in the month of October, . . . during the chivalrous reign of the third Edward.”

Edward III ruled from January 25, 1327 to June 21, 1377—about fifty years. From 1361 to 1362, there was a resurgence of the cholera pandemic, so it is on an October night during this two-year period that “King Pest” takes place. (Others suggest that the story's title alludes not to the cholera pandemic but to the bubonic plague, or Black Death.)

As in most of Poe's fiction, the story begins with the general, a night during the reign of King Edward III, and moves to the specific, “two seamen belonging to the crew of the 'Free and Easy,' a trading schooner,” as readers learn that these sailors, Legs and Hugh Tarpaulin, have gone ashore to drink; they are “much astonished to find themselves seated in the tap-room of an ale-house in the parish of St. Andrews, London.”

Poe takes pains to describe both men. Legs is taller than his companion, standing “six feet and a half.” He has “an habitual stoop in the shoulders,” and he is “exceedingly thin.” He has “high cheek-bones, a large hawk-nose, retreating chin, fallen under-jaw, and huge protruding white eyes.” “Solemn,” he is not given to laughter.

Tarpaulin is his opposite, short (four feet) and “squat,” with “stumpy bow-legs . . . unusually short and thick arms”; finny fingers; “small eyes, of no particular color”; a nose which is “buried in the mass of flesh which enveloped his round, full, and purple face”; and “thick” lips that he licks frequently. Tarpaulin regards Legs with “a feeling half-wondrous, half-quizzical.”

Penniless, the drunken sailors flee after seeing a sign forbidding credit, the tavern's landlady in pursuit.

(In England, pubs lower rents to the owners of the buildings their establishments occupy, but, in return, the owners of the pubs pay more for ale and other alcoholic beverages supplied by vendors.)

Parts of London that are infected by the plague are sealed off, the king having imposed a death sentence upon whoever bypasses barriers to rob from stores inside these restricted areas. In fleeing the tavern, Legs and Tarpaulin run down an alley, the end of which is blocked by a barrier, which indicates the presence, ahead, of the plague. To escape the pursuing landlady, the sailors climb the barricade and jump into the street on the other side of it, where a scene of horror meets their drunken gazes:

Had they not, indeed, been intoxicated beyond moral sense, their reeling footsteps must have been palsied by the horrors of their situation. The air was cold and misty. The paving-stones, loosened from their beds, lay in wild disorder amid the tall, rank grass, which sprang up around the feet and ankles. Fallen houses choked up the streets. The most fetid and poisonous smells everywhere prevailed;—and by the aid of that ghastly light which, even at midnight, never fails to emanate from a vapory and pestilential at atmosphere, might be discerned lying in the by-paths and alleys, or rotting in the windowless habitations, the carcass of many a nocturnal plunderer arrested by the hand of the plague in the very perpetration of his robbery.

From inside “an undertaker's shop,” the seamen hear laughter, “shrieks,” and “curses.” Entering the building, Legs and Tarpaulin see an open trapdoor, through which they observe a table bearing “various wines and cordials, together with jugs, pitchers, and flagons of every shape and quality” and a “huge tub” of punch. Seated around this table, upon coffin-trestles, or stands for holding coffins, are King Pest, Queen Pest, and four members of their family, the Arch Duke Pest-Iferous,' the Duke Pest-Ilential,' the Duke Tem-Pest,' and the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.

Poe takes equal pains in describing these characters as he has in painting the portraits of his protagonists. Each is a grotesque, with exaggerated traits, as the descriptions of the monarchs suggest, their descriptions being typical of the descriptions of the others as well:

King Pest:

Fronting the entrance, and elevated a little above his companions, sat a personage who appeared to be the president of the table. His stature was gaunt and tall, and Legs was confounded to behold in him a figure more emaciated than himself. His face was as yellow as saffron—but no feature excepting one alone, was sufficiently marked to merit a particular description. This one consisted in a forehead so unusually and hideously lofty, as to have the appearance of a bonnet or crown of flesh superadded upon the natural head. His mouth was puckered and dimpled into an expression of ghastly affability, and his eyes, as indeed the eyes of all at table, were glazed over with the fumes of intoxication. This gentleman was clothed from head to foot in a richly-embroidered black silk-velvet pall, wrapped negligently around his form after the fashion of a Spanish cloak.—His head was stuck full of sable hearse-plumes, which he nodded to and fro with a jaunty and knowing air; and, in his right hand, he held a huge human thigh-bone, with which he appeared to have been just knocking down some member of the company for a song.

Queen Pest:

Opposite him, and with her back to the door, was a lady of no whit the less extraordinary character. Although quite as tall as the person just described, she had no right to complain of his unnatural emaciation. She was evidently in the last stage of a dropsy [i. .e, edema]; and her figure resembled nearly that of the huge puncheon [an eighty-gallon cask] of October beer which stood, with the head driven in, close by her side, in a corner of the chamber. Her face was exceedingly round, red, and full; and the same peculiarity, or rather want of peculiarity, attached itself to her countenance, which I before mentioned in the case of the president—that is to say, only one feature of her face was sufficiently distinguished to need a separate characterization: indeed the acute Tarpaulin immediately observed that the same remark might have applied to each individual person of the party; every one of whom seemed to possess a monopoly of some particular portion of physiognomy. With the lady in question this portion proved to be the mouth. Commencing at the right ear, it swept with a terrific chasm to the left—the short pendants which she wore in either auricle continually bobbing into the aperture. She made, however, every exertion to keep her mouth closed and look dignified, in a dress consisting of a newly starched and ironed shroud coming up close under her chin, with a crimpled ruffle of cambric muslin.

In A Handbook to Literature, fourth edition, C. Hugh Holman defines “grotesque,” in its literary context, as the depiction of “characters” who are “either physically or spiritually deformed” and “perform actions that are clearly intended by the author to be abnormal” (207). This technique, Holman adds, “may be used for allegorical statement” and “for comic purposes” (207), as, clearly, Poe uses this technique in “King Pest.”

Finding the seamen's entrance rude and their inquiry into the nature of his family's business outrageous, King pest fines the sailors, sentencing Legs and Tarpaulin to drink a gallon of Black Strap “at a single draught—and upon . . . bended knees,” whereupon they will be free to take their leave or to stay as the king's guest. (In other words, King Pest sentences the seamen to be drowned in the ale, after which their bodies will be cast aside, in the undertaker's shop, or be discarded outside,)

It's possible that, drunk, neither Legs nor Tarpaulin understand the king's sarcasm. It is possible, too, that they understand his literal intent all too well but, bolstered by false courage, pretend ignorance as a pretext for braggadocio and bragging. Legs objects that he has drunk his fill earlier, at the tavern he and Tarpaulin visited, but his companion insists that he can drink more and offers to drink both the gallon that Legs has been ordered to drink and the gallon that he himself has been ordered to drink.

However, King Pest declares that his fine must be paid in the manner he has imposed, without alteration.

Tarpaulin refuses to kneel to the king, whom he recognizes as 'Tim Hurlygurly the stage-player.”

Trapaulin's refusal is met by a chorus of shouts, as the king, queen, and the rest of the family cry “Treason!”

Legs floods the undertaker's shop with ale from the hogshead that he breaks after his companion is deposited head-first inside the cask, to drown, and the sailors attack the king and his family, killing the man with the gout, drowning “the man with the horrors,” sending the man in the coffin away on the flood, and leaving the ladies in “hysterics.” Then, Tarpaulin abducts the fat lady in the shroud, while Legs kidnaps the Arch Duchess Ana-Past and the sailors return to their ship, which, presumably, is still anchored in the Thames.

What can be said of such a story?

Robert Louis Stevenson concluded, about its author, that “he who could write 'King Pest' had ceased to be a human being.”

Perhaps Stevenson was unaware that Poe's story is a comedy—a satire, in fact.

Are the story's king, queen, and other family members based on historical persons?

Poe's king is tall and bony; his complexion is “saffron.” His brow is “unusually and hideously lofty.” His mouth is “puckered and dimpled.” Unfortunately, history does not appear to provide us with a description of King Edward III's physical appearance. However, his tomb includes a likeness of him, carved in stone. Since the sculpture purports to represent his likeness, we can assume that it, indeed, resembles the king at the time of his death. Judging by this figure, King Edward III does appear to have been tall and thin, if not “gaunt.” His forehead does not seem especially “lofty.” His mouth is not “puckered and dimpled.”

Queen Pest shares one of the conditions that afflicted Queen Philippa of Hainault (1315 - 1369), but she otherwise does not resemble the true queen, King Edward III's wife, whom historian Ian Mortimer describes:

The lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown. Her head is clean-shaped; her forehead high and broad, and standing somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower part of her face is still more narrow and slender than her forehead. Her eyes are blackish-brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that it is somewhat broad at the tip and also flattened, and yet it is no snub-nose. Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full, and especially the lower lip. Her teeth which have fallen and grown again are white enough, but the rest are not so white. The lower teeth project a little beyond the upper; yet this is but little seen. Her ears and chin are comely enough. Her neck, shoulders, and all her body are well set and unmaimed; and nought is amiss so far as a man may see. Moreover, she is brown of skin all over, and much like her father; and in all things she is pleasant enough, as it seems to us. And the damsel will be of the age of nine years on St. John's day next to come, as her mother saith. She is neither too tall nor too short for such an age; she is of fair carriage, and well taught in all that becometh her rank, and highly esteemed and well beloved of her father and mother and of all her meinie [i. e., small-minded], in so far as we could inquire and learn the truth (The Register of Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, 1307–1326).

The condition which Queen Pest has in common with Queen Philippa is dropsy, or edema, or an illness similar to it, from which she expired.

Part of the satire lies in his descriptions of King Pest, Queen Pest, and the other members of the royal household, who suffer from various diseases, such as emaciation, dropsy (edema), delirium tremens, and consumption (tuberculosis). However, the story may not be about the English at all.

Poe supplies a hint of his intention in the story's subtitle, “A Tale Containing an Allegory.” As Dawn B. Sova observes in Critical Companion to Edgar Allan Poe: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, “each character . . . represents a different type of 'pest,' from the intellectual who produces nothing original to the drunkard” (91).

It seems clear that Poe takes artistic license in describing the characters of “King Pest.” His story alludes to, but is not much based upon, historical incidents and these royal individuals. Its aim is not to narrate history, but to satirize politics and political actors. The targets of Poe's satire may not, in fact, be English at all.

One critic is convinced that the story satirizes “an extremely wet banquet on January 8, 1832, honoring both president Andrew Jackson and . . . the abolition of the national debt.” According to The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Edition, which cites William Whipple, one of the founders of the United States, King Pest is Jackson; Queen Pest is his wife Rachel; the Arch-Duchess Ana-Pest is Peggy Eaton; “the man with the bandaged leg and cheeks on his shoulders” is Colonel Thomas Hart Benton; “the thin man with the alcoholic tremor” is Francis Blair “of the Globe”; “the paralyzed man in the coffin” is Amos Kendall or William H. Crawford; Tarpaulin is Martin Van Buren; and Legs is probably Major Jack Downing (294).

Along these same lines, A Companion to Poe Studies adds to this interpretation, noting that King Pest is described as “the President of the Table”:

He is tall and gaunt, with a yellow complexion and a lofty forehead, his head decorated with sable plumes. This is Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States (1829-1937) . . . . The story takes place in “the parish of St. Andrew's Stair” [the direction in which Legs and Tarpaulin flee from the tavern's landlady]. The stairway of Jackson's home named “The Heritage,” near Nashville, Tennessee, was named “St. Andrew's Stair.” The undertaker's shop, therefore, must be the kitchen of the White House, and the other persons are the members of the Jackson “family,” including some members of Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet. Queen Pest, the lady with the big mouth, is Peggy Eaton, the wife of Secretary of War John Henry Eaton, whose chastity Jackson defended; Arch Duke Pest-Iferous, who has large ears, is Amos Kendell, fourth auditor (< L. audire, to hear) of the Treasury; Duke Pest-Ilential, who has goggle-eyes, is Francis Preston Blair, Sr., assistant editor of the Frankfort (Kentucky) newspaper, The Argus (giant with a hundred eyes), and editor of the Washington Globe (globus, ball; hence, related to “bulging” or “goggle”-eyes); Duke Tem-Pest, who is cheeky, is Secretary of War Eaton, whose wife became the center of a teapot tempest that split the president's cabinet wide open; and Arch Duchess Ana-Pest, the diminutive, haut-ton lady who is consumptive is Emily Donelson, Jackson's acting First Lady (his wife, Rachel, died ten weeks before his inauguration). Emily died of consumption in December 1836 (126).

Although these interpretations don't agree in every respect, it's clear that both critics believe that the allegory to which Poe alludes in his story's subtitle is, indeed, political in nature and targets American president Andrew Jackson and various members of his political “family.”

Notes

Peggy Eaton and her second husband, Secretary of War John Eaton, were scorned by the wives of Andrew Jackson's cabinet on the basis of unfounded rumors that Peggy had had an affair, which caused her first husband John Timberlake to commit suicide in 1828. (In fact, Timberlake died from pneumonia.) The wives would neither call upon the Eatons nor invite them to parties and other functions. Although Jackson tried to end this “Petticoat Affair,” by forcing the wives to accept the Eatons, their ostracism of the Secretary of War and his wife was supported by Johnson's vice-president, John C. Calhoun. As a result, Jackson supported Martin Van Buren, who had accepted the Eatons. Van Buren's resignation helped to end the scandal, and Jackson replaced his disloyal cabinet members. At the end of Jackson's term, Calhoun was not renominated as vice president, and he resigned. Van Buren replaced him on the ticket as Jackson's vice president and succeeded him as president in 1837.

In The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House, historian John F. Marszalek may shine some light on why Poe describes Queen Pest as having a cavernous mouth that extends from ear to ear:

She did not know her place; she forthrightly spoke up about anything that came to her mind, even topics of which women were supposed to be ignorant . . . .

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Blair was “an ardent follower of Andrew Jackson,” whom the newspaperman “helped” to elect during the 1828 presidential election. A year later, after becoming the editor of the Washington Globe, Blair was doubly effective in influencing politics at the national level, as he also belonged to the Kitchen Cabinet, the president's own unofficial advisory group.