Background: The Key to Interpreting Foreground

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Bats’ wings, horns, talons, tails, reptilian shapes, scales, tentacles, multiple mouths equipped with jaws full of jagged teeth, compound eyes, flies, worms, skeletons, corpses, mummies, skeletons, skulls, distortions of face and figure, conical heads, skin masks, blood, viscera, anthropomorphic trees, birds, hybrid life forms, living statues, men and women walking on air, eyes embedded in tree trunks, Santa with an axe, ghost children, bloody tears, alien babies, strangers at the window, vast spaces, disembodied body parts--these are but some of the images one finds in art associated with the horror genre. The fear of the animal within, of the predator, of the grave and the secrets it holds, of deformity, of a confusion of cognitive categories and loss of sense, of madness, of love and trust betrayed, of the strange, of dislocation and dismemberment, of suffering and death--these are the terrors upon which such images are based.

If the foreground is the text, more or less clearly expressed, albeit, usually, in metaphor, the background is the subtext. The background is the whisper that provides the context by which the spoken (foreground) is to be interpreted, and, in artwork related to the horror genre, the background often hints at night and darkness, at the distance of stars, at clouds and fog, at alien worlds, at disorientation, at devastation, at decomposition and putrefaction, at fragmentation, at mystification, at torture, at suffering, at passion, at destruction, and at hostility.

According to Trevor Whittock, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue, in Metaphors We Live By, “against the view that experiences and objects have inherent properties and are understood solely in terms of those properties. . . [that] inherent properties only in part account for how we comprehend things. Just as important is [the fact that] our concepts, and consequently our experience, are structured in terms of metaphors” (Metaphor and Film, 114-115). By comparing the new and unfamiliar with the known, people seek to understand better that which is strange or novel. Often, the creation of metaphors and analogies are means of doing so.

I assert that something similar to this process can occur in the contemplation of a drawing or a painting. The foreground is the overt (known), the background the covert (unknown), half of a complete statement, or vision, that, to be understood must be considered in light of its complementary counterpart. Some of the clearest, or more obvious, examples of the background’s importance to interpreting a work of art’s foreground are seen in the work of fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, whose paintings often adorn science fiction and fantasy paperback novels, but which also frequently exhibit horrific imagery.



In one such painting, a warrior dressed vaguely in the manner of a Viking rushes toward a nubile, nude young maiden who is about to be sacrificed upon a stone altar by a cloaked figure holding a large knife. An alligator, but with wavering tentacles attached to its reptilian tail, lies at the base of the short flight of stone steps that leads to the altar. The background is peopled, as it were, with dark shapes comprised of huge bat-like wings, fanged human faces, lupine ears, and brawny arms, one or more (it is difficult to tell, for the background is dark, and the figures which occupy it are little more than shadows) seize the pale, white corpse of another nude woman who, it appears, was the victim of an earlier sacrifice. Above the heroic warrior, parallel bands of shadow descend, as if they are the dark outlines of a monstrous hand reaching for the would-be rescuer. The background suggests a hellish or demonic cult and, perhaps, the evil god whom the cultists worship and who are about to sacrifice the female victim, thereby offering a key to interpreting the overall image, or scene, that the painting, as a whole, depicts.

In another of Frazetta’s paintings, Queen Kong, a gigantic blonde stands astride the Empire State Building, New York City stretched out below her, circled by attacking biplanes. In her right hand, she holds a miniature version of King Kong. The sky is blue-gray, shot through with wisps of red-orange clouds that resemble used bandages. Obviously, the painting is a spoof upon King Kong, with the roles of the ape and the human object of his simian affections reversed; the background (the city streets below the skyscraper, in particular) helps to establish the context that makes this humorous work intelligible.

A final example should suffice to clarify my point that a painting’s background is--or can be (and probably should be)--an important contextual clue to the interpretation of its foreground. In this picture, Barbarian, a warrior stands atop a heap of rubble, a nude woman lying at his feet. The palm of his left hand rests upon the hilt of his sword, the blade of which thrusts into the pile of debris. A closer look at the rubble reveals it to be not only a heap of earth, but one which is strewn with skulls, spines, severed arms, a battleaxe, and what might be a spear. Symbolically, the warrior stands upon the bones and corpses of enemies whom he has bested in battle, an interpretation which seems to be borne out by the delicate images of a huge skull and a cowl-shrouded death’s-head which are close to the same colors--tan, light brown, yellow, and orange--out of which they appear to swirl, perhaps as representations of the warrior’s memories of the evil forces whom he has, in past battles, slain. The yellow and orange colors rise, seeming to flicker, as if they are flames, perhaps suggesting the final fate of the vanquished, whom the victorious hero has dispatched to hell.

Writers can accomplish the same effects as Frazetta and other visual artists by writing descriptions of settings in which details comprise a contextual background which illuminates, on a more or less subliminal level, the significance of a scene’s “foreground” action or characters, thereby enriching their own work. By describing settings in such a way that the descriptions themselves tell a story, the writer can tell stories within stories, the former providing emotional, thematic, or narrative subtext for the latter.

Metaphorical Enhancements

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

In his excellent study of cinematic metaphor, Metaphor and Film, Trevor Whittock lists various types of film metaphors, explains how they are created, and offers one or more examples of each kind. In addition, he suggests how these tropes enrich the audience’s perception, understanding, and appreciation of the film’s content. Authors of fiction in general and writers of horror stories in particular can learn much from Whittock’s discussions and treatment of his fascinating topic, including how to use metaphorical descriptions to suggest unconscious, even, perhaps, subliminal thematic nuances and undertones regarding characters, settings, and other narrative elements. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho offers several examples, Whittock contends, of this process at work.

One of the ways by which filmmakers create metaphors, Whittock says, is “by context, which forces the audience to see A as B.” Such a “context is often an emotionally charged one,” he observes, offering the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous film as an example. After talking to Norman Bates, Marion Crane decides to return the money with which she has absconded, and her shower, following her repentance, represents a sort of “ritualistic. . . spiritual cleansing,” whereby she washes “away her guilt.” Therefore, when she is “murdered in the shower,” Whittock contends, “our sense of shock is all the greater: We perceive a terrible moral gratuitousness in the crime” (52-53).

Another technique for creating cinematic metaphors, Whittock argues, is to employ situational irony, or “rule disruption,” such as occurs in Psycho, with Crane’s death:

Because audiences. . . feel confident that whatever happens the star will not be killed off, when relatively early in Psycho they witness the murder of Marion Crane who is played by a star actress (Janet Leigh), they experience extreme disorientation. This disruption of complacent assumption, combined with the disruption of another cherished pattern--that someone who repents and washes off her guilt should not be harmed--works to create a disturbing sense of the gratuitousness and insecurity of our existence (65-66).

Another of Hitchcock’s films, The Birds, also makes use of metaphors, both to characterize and to heighten suspense. For example, the director, in an interview with Francois Truffaut, Whittock points out, explained that he had ordered a “road watered down so that no dust would rise because I wanted that dust to have a dramatic function when she drives away”; the truck, Hitchcock says, is “an emotional truck,” signifying by the “tremendous speed” at which it moves and “the sound of the engine,” which is “something like a cry. . . as though the truck were shrieking,” the mother’s “frantic” state (57).

Whittock identifies the use of an objective correlative as a means of creating cinematic metaphors that can serve the interests of suspense and characterization as well, citing an example from The Birds: “the five broken teacups” in Mrs. Brenner’s house, broken by in an attack by the birds, he says, represents both “the damage done by the birds that have attacked the house” and “Mrs. Brenner’s tense fragility, glimpsed in her endeavors to preserve a domestic and unchanging home life,” functioning “as an objective correlative for the deep-seated anxieties now surfacing in Mrs. Brenner” (62-63).

Finally, in a quotation of Hitchcock at the outset of Whittock’s study, the famed director himself comments on metaphors that he created in The Birds:

At the beginning of the film we show Rod Taylor in the bird shop. He catches the canary that has escaped from its cage, and after putting it back, he says: I’m putting you back in your gilded cage, Melanie Daniels.’ I added that sentence during the shooting because I felt it added to her characterisation [sic] as a wealthy, shallow playgirl. And later on, when the gulls attack the village, Melanie Daniels takes refuge in a glass telephone booth and I show her as a bird in a cage. This time it isn’t a gilded cage, but a cage of misery (1).

Androids, Cyborgs, and Robots: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Let's start with that old pedagogical favorite, a--

Pop quiz:

1. Star Trek’s Data is

A. an android
B. a cyborg
C. a robot
D. none of the above

2. Terminator is

A. an android
B. a cyborg
C. a robot
D. none of the above

3. Blade Runner’s replicants are

A. androids
B. cyborgs
C. robots
D. all of the above

4. Forbidden Planet’s Robby is

A. an android
B. a cyborg
C. a robot
D. none of the above

5. The Bionic Woman and the Six-Million-Dollar Man are

A. androids
B. cyborgs
C. robots
D. none of the above

A mainstay of science fiction, androids, cyborgs, and robots feature in both fantasy and horror fiction as well. Therefore, it behooves writers to know the difference between these creatures, as, sooner or later, one or more of them is apt to appear in one’s sort story, novel, or screenplay.

Fortunately, Daniel Dinello tackles these distinctions in Technophobia!: Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology. I’ve taken the liberty of juxtaposing the differences in this handy, dandy chart, the text of which comes from Dinello’s book (pages 7-8):

The Bionic Woman and the Six-Million-Dollar Man, by the way, are cyborgs.

"Alien Androids": Another Plot-generating Method

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Writers often say that plotting their stories is one of the most daunting challenges they face. In previous posts, I’ve shared a few ideas for generating storylines. In this installment, I share another, which works particularly well for novel-length fantasy, horror, and science fiction stories. For want of a better title, I’m calling it “Alien Androids.” I offer an outline of the method, followed by an example:

METHOD

1. Present a startling claim.
2. Provide several possible justifications for the claim.
3. Combine as many of these justifications as possible to make the claim seem even more supportable and to widen the story‘s scope.
4. Using the claim as the story’s premise, break the plot into the three parts common to horror fiction:
   a. Bizarre incidents occur.
   b. The protagonist discovers the cause of the incidents.
   c. The protagonist uses his or her newfound knowledge to restore order.
5. Repeat 2-4 with a different set of justifications, and then select whichever of the results seems to represent the better basis for the story.

EXAMPLE

1. Startling claim: Aliens are actually androids created by the U. S. government.
2. Justifications. The aliens are created to unite the world’s nations against a common foe, to create a secular religion to replace other faiths, to unite humanity indoctrinate people according to predetermined “alien” objectives, to occupy bored citizens by enlisting them to in the global fight against the invaders, to reenergize citizens’ interest in space exploration, and to redirect people’s focus from social and political problems
3. Combined justifications: all of these justifications can be used. Some of the alien androids can be described as hostile and others as peaceful. The nations unite against the former, whereas the latter are used create a new, worldwide faith as a means of indoctrinating humanity according to the “alien’s” creators’ objectives. Whether people combat or follow the hostile or peaceful aliens, respectively, humans will be engaged, rather than bored, and their attention will be redirected from social and political problems. At the same time, the peaceful aliens can promote humanity’s interest in renewing space exploration, possibly as a means of combating the hostile invaders.
4. Break of the story into the three parts common to horror fiction:
   a. Bizarre incidents occur: In various places around the globe, people see UFO’s. Some witness alien visitations. Others report having been abducted by aliens who have conducted experiments upon them, including the collection of their semen or ova. News media report increasing cases of dead, mutilated cattle. Important men and women in various fields of endeavor are reported missing. The number of faces on milk cartons increases dramatically. In an age of unprecedented leisure among humans, during which machines do virtually all the work, a clash of titans breaks out between two groups of visiting--or invading--extraterrestrials.
   b. The protagonist, former Navy SEAL and present Service Agent Adam Drake, discovers the cause of the incidents. The president of the United States, flanked by British and Japanese heads of state, is broadcast in an address to the United Nations. The many reports of extraterrestrial visitors that have occurred since Roswell are true! Two groups of aliens, Hostiles and Friendlies, are at war with one another, and, now, that war has broadened beyond both groups of Celestials to include the nations of the earth, and every nation must decide with which party, it will align. The U. S., Europe, and Japan, as well as other, lesser states, have aligned with the Frendlies, while China, North Korea, and the Arab states have aligned with the Hostiles. Other countries, for the moment, hoping to remain neutral, have sided with neither of the Celestials. However, the president suggests, neutrality will not remain an option for long.
   c. The protagonist uses his or her newfound knowledge to restore order: Recognizing that both alien parties represent a threat to humanity’s welfare, Adam organizes a resistance force to fight the Hostiles while, at the same time, sabotaging the Church of the Friendly Celestials in a two-pronged attack upon the Earth’s invaders. Meanwhile, his army continuously recruits new soldiers, preparing for a long and sustained resistance effort against both the nations’ armies and the Celestials themselves.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 and then select whichever of the results seems to represent the better basis for the story: Not included in this example.
   

The Devil Is in the Details

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

This morning, I awoke to a naked pillow--a pillow that wore no case. Because my mind was in the receptive state that follows one’s awakening (as it also precedes one’s slumbering)--the best time, incidentally, for conceiving ideas for stories!--I saw something, a detail, which, more likely than not I wouldn’t have noticed at all had I not been in such a receptive frame of mind: a decorative feature. Spaced apart by three inches or so, a series of seven bands of stripes, each of which, starting with one, increased by an additional stripe, appeared upon the pillow’s surface, or skin: one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven. Someone had deliberately designed this feature, although chances are that few, if any, would ever notice it and that fewer still, perhaps, would care. It was enough that the designer him- or herself had cared to take the time and trouble to add this pattern to what would have been otherwise blank cloth. Seeing the time and trouble that an anonymous someone had taken to add this design to a fabric that few would ever even notice, much less appreciate, made me think about the significance of detail, especially as it relates to writing horror (or any other genre of) fiction. Not only does the inclusion of such details in one’s descriptions of settings (or the physical appearance of characters’--including the monsters among them) help to create verisimilitude, but detailed descriptions also create mood, tension, suspense, fear, and disgust--in a word, horror. Indeed, a judicious use of details can even produce a somewhat subliminal effect, affecting readers (or moviegoers) on an unconscious level. As they do in many other ways, ancient Greek (and other) myths offer writers, especially of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, a prototype of techniques for developing monstrous characters. Some mythical monsters are hybrids, which merge features from two or more actual animals (the centaur combines man and horse). Others are formed by removing a feature that an actual creature typically possesses (the Cyclops has only one eye). Still others are created by multiplying the attributes that a real animal or human has (the hydra has many heads). In many cases, two or more of these techniques are combined, so that, for example, a griffin combines aspects of the lion (body), the eagle (head), and the dragon (wings). Another trick is to replace one thing with another, as is seen in the Gorgon’s hair, in which serpents take the place of Medusa’s and her sister’s dreadlocks. Although a monster such as the griffin might appear more ludicrous than hideous to modern readers or moviegoers, the point is that a more judicious combination of anatomical parts, more appropriate to today’s sensibilities, could produce startling--and eerie or frightening--results. In the version of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers in which Donald Sutherland stars, an image appears that remains firmly embedded in my brain: a dog with a human, instead of a canine, head! The sight of this sight nearly floored me then, and it haunts me yet. And, who knows but that, soon, we might be confronted with just such a real-life monstrosity, for, with both cloning and genetic engineering present-day realities, anything seems possible. Of course, details apply beyond just the physical environment and the physiological appearances of monsters and other characters. Writers should be specific about the abilities of their characters--and their non-human or monstrous dramatic personae, in particular. Stephen King’s monster in It seems to derive from the shape-shifting Greek deity Proteus, whereas Tak, the demon who inhabits the pages of his Desperation, appears to be something right out of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The It villain can take the form and appearance of anyone’s worst nightmare, whereas Tak can leap into and possess anyone’s (or anything’s) body, although, as a result, he causes a biochemical meltdown of his host in not-so-pretty short order. Horror writers, more than any other type of author, need to remember that the devil is in the details.

Quick Tip: Victimizing the Victim

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Victims are important to horror, but one would hardly know it, for, from authors, critics, and readers, they receive short shrift. Except for Carol J. Clover’s excellent discussion of the “final girl,” the survivor among a slasher film’s slew of the slain, who, as the last girl standing (Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film), typically defeats the monster, little has been said of horror fiction’s victims of late. However, as the careers of many a fine young actress attests, victimization can lead to fame and fortune--off-screen, at least.

Clover describes the final girl as virginal and drug free, with a past that is shared in part with the killer, and as someone who may have a unisex name. Clover sees audience members as able to identify with female characters, regardless of their own sex and gender; the killer, in fact, is a male who has problems with his own sexuality and gender and uses weapons, especially knives, as a phallic substitute that psychologically enhanced his own problematic virility.

Clover detects a sexist and misogynistic element in the final girl. In a patriarchal society, it’s difficult, if not impossible she (Clover, not the final girl) argues for many to identify with a terrified male character. Therefore, a female character is victimized. In other words, women make more credible victims than men. Since, during the murders of others (and, possibly, the attempted murder of the final girl), these female characters are depicted in a state of undress and, sometimes, sexual intimacy, the slasher films take on a voyeuristic nature and suggest that neither beauty nor sexuality escape punishment in a cruel and sadistic world, despite the apparent anything-goes, free-love attitude of contemporary society.

Outside slasher films, victims are not limited to nubile young women, which casts some doubt, perhaps, upon Clover’s claims of sexism and misogyny concerning victims of horror in general. Dean Koontz and Stephen King, as usual, offer good examples of a variety of victims in their fiction. The commonality among their victims lies in their sympathetic nature and their vulnerability. While some of them are women (Rose Madder), others are physically or mentally handicapped (The Bad Place). Others are verbally, physically, psychologically, or sexually abused (It). Still others are children (Desperation). Especially in Koontz’s novels, victims are even sometimes animals (Watchers).

Their conditions (being psychologically dependent, physically weak, physically or mentally handicapped, young and naïve) make them vulnerable, and something about their personalities and, at times, their past experiences, makes them sympathetic. They may be pure of heart, precocious, developmentally disabled, autistic, victims of previous traumas, social outcasts, unlucky at love, afflicted with a terminal illness, or sufferers of adultery or some other sort of betrayal.

However, the victim must also have a reserve of pluck, of nerve, of courage, of which he or she may unaware. The stalker or killer or monster or whatever other form the antagonist may take will be the means by which the victim discovers his or her courage and defeats or banishes his or her foe (or, if he or she is vanquished, after all, puts up an incredible fight).

Therefore, if you want a victim with whom your readers can identify, make sure that he or she is vulnerable, sympathetic, and courageous. Then, win, lose, or draw in his or her contest with the adversary, your victim will attract and hold your reader’s or audience’s attention--and respect.

Indexing Horror

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Not many horror novelists are apt to peruse non-fiction books’ indices for fun and profit, but doing so can be profitable--and, yes, even fun. They lay out the skeletons of their books, making it clear which topics the authors address at some length and which they consider in less detail. An index can also suggest a context for the discussion of various concepts and the relationships among one idea and other notions.

In this, my third post concerning Daniel Dinello’s Technophobia!: Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology, I want to take a look at this volume’s index. Doing so shows these tantalizing connections: artificial intelligence is linked to “racism,” as it is to “robot slavery”; the film Alien is related to not only “corporate control,” but also to “viral horror”; androids are compared to “cyborgs” and “robots,” and Dinello writes about “female” androids, the “gothic myth of artificial creatures,” androids’ “revolt against humans,” and of androids in regard to “sexism.”

In our survey of Dinello’s index, we are not looking at the meat, just the bones, of these connections. The bare bones, however, suggest quite a few intriguing and dramatic possibilities in themselves, which we can flesh out, so to speak, with our own imaginations, a point to which I will return in a bit.

First, though, let’s continue our scan of the index. “Artificial intelligence,” which we saw linked to racism and robot slavery, under the entry for the movie “A. I.,” is, under the entry for “artificial intelligence,” also associated with “corporate power,” the “Founding Fathers,” the “military,” “nanotechnology,” “religion,” and weaponry, among other ideas. Dinello’s discussions of bionics includes “controlling prostheses” and its “military and divine origins.” Again, although these connections are, in the index, vague, they tease out ideas for captivating and spectacular treatments within the scope of a novel or a screenplay.

The index also lists several short stories, novels, and movies that deal with various aspects of nanotechnology or related topics, including, for example, Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot and Robot Visions; Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake; Blade Runner; Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; Octavia Butler’s Dawn; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; Arthur C Clarke’s The City and the Stars; Robin Cook’s Contagion, Outbreak, Toxic, and Vector; Michael Crichton’s Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Prey; Phillip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep?,” The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and Vulcan’s Hammer.

Plenty of other fictional works, including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, I Am Legend, Homunculus, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Johnny Mnemonic, and many others, are listed, suggesting the wide variety which Dinello’s subject and its related topics have comprised and the relatively long period of time during which they have been treated in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

But let’s return to the use that writers might make of such tantalizing connections between these topics. Could artificial intelligence be used to boost or lower the natural intelligence of a particular race or ethnicity, to level the playing field in a futuristic, politically correct society, perhaps? How much artificial intelligence should “robot slavery” involve? Might it be dangerous to make robot slaves too smart for their masters‘ own good? Could artificial insemination and gestation be used to enhance companies’ bottom lines and extend their “corporate control” of politicians and citizens? Would hackers be likely to design a “viral horror” with which to infect robot slaves or other androids, as a means of gaining the upper hand or to secure huge ransoms? Why does society need “female” androids--or, for that matter--male androids? Could the creation of such mechanical women (and men) the future’s answer to the practical difficulties and moral qualms related to prostitution? Is that where “sexism” comes into play concerning androids? The answer (or answers) to any of these questions, all of which are based upon simple words and phrases to be found in the entries to Dinello’s index, is a potential short story, novel, or screenplay.

Hopefully, you’ll never look at the index to a nonfiction book the same way again.