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.

Interview with Michael Williams

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman and Michael Williams

Michael Williams is the author of Twisted Tales, a superb series that consists, at present, of three volumes of flash fiction, Tales with a Twist, Tales with a Twist II, Tales with a Twist III, Tales with a Twist IV, and Tales with a Twist V. Besides writing, Michael especially enjoys sailing and “cultural exploration.” We're happy to share this interview on Chillers and Thrillers.

Q: What interests you in the super-short genre of flash fiction?

A: Alfred Hitchcock once said that a movie shouldn’t be longer than the capacity of the human bladder. I find I agree. Edgar Allan Poe considered the effect of short fiction to be more intense than that of longer works, such as novels or—my apologies to Hitch—full-length motion pictures. I also tend to concur with Poe: shorter fiction can pack more of an emotional wallop than longer forms. In our modern, fast-paced world, I think shorter fiction is also more convenient for many. A lot of people want complete stories without having to spend hours or days to read them.

Q: It seems that you prefer fantastic to realistic stories. Why is that?

A: Actually, I enjoy reading and writing all forms of fiction, but I think that tales of the fantastic, marvelous, and uncanny—handy distinctions that Tzvetan Todorov makes—add an element of magic to mundane experience, the icing, so to speak, on the cake. I also believe that, as Flannery O’Connor once said, a writer sometimes needs to use hyperbolic techniques to communicate with readers, and the shock of the surreal; the astonishment of the weird; and the wonder of the otherworldly, the supernatural, the occult, and the mystical provide these rhetorical approaches.

Q: As the titles of your books suggest, your tales are rather “twisted.” I'm going to ask the question most writers hate to hear: Where do you get your ideas?

 

A: I'm an eclectic reader. I enjoy learning about a variety of subjects. I guess you could say I'm a generalist. Sometimes, when the stars are in alignment, a remembered fact here will meet up with a recalled fact there, and, out of this connection of one thing and another, an idea will emerge. I might combine one of Thomas Edison’s inventions with the spiritualistic belief in the ability of the living to communicate with the dead, or I could update an ancient myth or a modern horror movie. As Arthur Golding wrote, in translating John Calvin, “All is grist for the mill.”

Q: I know you're something of a mariner. Does the sea ever feature in your stories?

A: Not as often as I might expect, but, yes, there is a sea tale or two. In one, the ocean solves a murder, which is rather a novel notion, I think.

Q: By definition, according to the title of your series, Twisted Tales, and by the titles of the books in the series, each of your flash fiction narratives contains a plot twist. How do you think up so many of them?

 

A: Usually, the story suggests one. However, I also employ a couple of tricks, or techniques—three, actually. First, when plotting a story such as those in Tales with a Twist, Tales with a Twist II, or Tales with a Twist III, I keep in mind the idea that almost everything has a direct opposite: new, old; lost, found; hero, villain; reward, punishment; rich, poor; right, wrong. Then, I start with one polarity and end with its opposite. The second way is more concrete. I keep a list of the plot twists I see in novels, short stories, movies, and TV series. Then, I adapt them to fit the situation or circumstances of my own stories. My third technique is to remember that there is a fine line not only between good and evil and right and wrong, but between all such polar opposites. A person who is cautious may become distrustful or even paranoid; a man who's strict can become controlling; a woman who's concerned with her own health and that of others—a doctor or a nurse, perhaps—can become a hypochondriac; a trusting person may become gullible. Each of these possibilities is a source of plot twists.

Q: How many of your tales with a twist are autobiographical?

A: Many of them are fantasies in which I explore how something might be if a particular set of unusual circumstances were to apply. Many of my stories are thought experiments, of a sort. I place a certain type of character in a particular kind of environment and see whether he or she adapts and, if the character does adapt, how he or she manages to do so. Frequently, the environment is physical, but it need not be; some of my stories' environments are philosophical, or moral, or psychological, or political, or cultural, or otherwise. The autobiographical element, when there is one, may be small—a detail here or there, the description of a place I've been, desires I've experienced, wishes I may have wanted to fulfill, thoughts or feelings or impressions I've had, that sort of thing, embedded in the narration, the exposition, or the dialogue.

Q: Let's talk a bit about some of the individual stories themselves. “Empty Pockets,” in Tales with a Twist, the first volume: where did that come from?

 

A: I remember reading about the childhood of Jeffrey Dahmer. By his own admission, he had nurturing parents and a good childhood. I never read anything that contradicted his assessments. Nevertheless, he turned out to be both a serial killer and a cannibal. I also remembered how, growing up, my brothers and I and the rest of the boys in our neighborhood carried a collection of odds and ends, some living, others inanimate, in our pockets. As a boy, what would a serial killer the likes of Dahmer of Ted Bundy be apt to carry in his pockets? What would his mother think if she discovered the contents of her son's pockets?

Q. To paraphrase someone we both know, out of a connection between a remembered fact here and a recalled fact there, a story arises, right?

A: Precisely.

Q: “A Living Hell,” in Tales with a Twist II, seems to be a satire on life insurance companies. Is that what you intended?

A: Partly, yes. But I also wanted to touch upon the narcissism of some who indulge in high-risk activities as well as examine the potential consequences of insuring oneself against hazardous escapades. It's as much a spoof on the behavior of those who pursue an adrenaline rush as it is a lampoon of insurance companies that will insure anything if the price of the premium is high enough.

Q: “Love Bite,” in Tales with a Twist III, is a neat take on the vampire tale. Can you give us an idea how it originated?

 

 

A: I wanted to start with the my-boyfriend-is-a-vampire trope, but in reverse, so the vampire is the girlfriend, and I added to that the additional trope of the boy's being an unpopular geek—not a literal geek, mind you, who bites heads off chickens, à la Ozzy Osbourne with the bat, but in the sense of being a nerd. So that raised the question, for me, of what this hot chick is doing with him as her boy toy. I thought of a couple of angles, but I think the one I decided on gives the story both its twist and its kick.

Q: It's certainly a story readers can sink their teeth into.

A: Wow! What a great blurb! Do you mind if I use it?

Q: (chuckles): Help yourself, Michael. “Spirits,” in Tales with a Twist IV, seems to be a cautionary tale. Do you intend it to be such?

A: I suppose it is, yes. Its theme, although not overt, or explicit, is discernible in the fact that the culprit’s addiction survives his death. On a figurative level, this situation suggests not how difficult it is to overcome one’s dependence on a drug, but also the degree to which such dependence can affect someone; the effects can persist beyond the person’s own existence, affecting the lives of others, including even people who are strangers to the deceased. I’m not sure all that was there, the meaning, before I wrote the story, but it is embedded in the finished tale.

Q: The epigraphs of some of the stories in the fourth and fifth volumes of Tales with a Twist mention other writers: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Frank R. Stockton, Emily Dickinson, Ovid, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, for example; a couple of other stories’ epigraphs mention philosophers or artists as well: Paracelsus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Johan Wolfgang Mozart. Would you consider these individuals a major influence in your own work?

A: Let’s not forget Jonathan Edwards; he’s mentioned, too, indirectly, by way of the title of one of his sermons, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” I’d say that each of them, in his or her own way, has been, and remains, more or less influential and inspirational, as have many others, including H. G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Shirley Jackson, Ambrose Bierce, Bram Stoker, Ernest Hemingway, Ian Fleming, Daphne du Maurier, Lawrence Block, Bentley Little, Joyce Carol Oates, James Patterson, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert Sheckley, Mark Twain, and, of course, William Shakespeare. (Laughs.) I could go on and on. Each of them has taught me something vital about writing.

Q: Could we have an example, please?

 

A: I’ll give you a couple. Bradbury, a consummate wordsmith, taught me that poetry need not be restricted to verse, that prose itself can be poetic. His diction, but also his images, his metaphors, and his other figures of speech, give his writing cadence and rhythm, nuance and color, magic and wonder. Wells and Poe, at least equally adept in painting landscapes and interiors of horror, are also excellent practitioners of the both the art and craft of writing, painting in words what Edvard Munch, Hieronymus Bosch, H. R. Giger, Frida Kahlo, and Renee Magritte, to name a few, captured with pigments. From Poe, Sherwood Anderson, and Shirley Jackson, I learned the nature and the use of the grotesque.

Q: One final question, if I may?

A: Please.

Q: Will your Twisted Tales series have more Tales with a Twist?

A: I'm working on the next one now.

Interview with Michael Williams, Author of the Twisted Tales Series

Today, we are honored to present the ongoing interview that Michael Williams, author of the (at present) four-book series of brilliant flash fiction series Twisted Tales: Tales with a Twist, Tales with a Twist II, Tales with a Twist III, and Tales with a Twist IV.

Parts of this interview originally appeared on the Campbell and Rogers Press website.

 

 

Q: What interests you in the super-short genre of flash fiction?

A: Alfred Hitchcock once said that a movie shouldn’t be longer than the capacity of the human bladder. I find I agree. Edgar Allan Poe considered the effect of short fiction to be more intense than that of longer works, such as novels or—my apologies to Hitch—full-length motion pictures. I also tend to concur with Poe: shorter fiction can pack more of an emotional wallop than longer forms. In our modern, fast-paced world, I think shorter fiction is also more convenient for many. A lot of people want complete stories without having to spend hours or days to read them.

 

Q: It seems that you prefer fantastic to realistic stories. Why is that?

A: Actually, I enjoy reading and writing all forms of fiction, but I think that tales of the fantastic, marvelous, and uncanny--handy distinctions that Tzvetan Todorov makes—add an element of magic to mundane experience, the icing, so to speak, on the cake. I also believe that, as Flannery O’Connor once said, a writer sometimes needs to use hyperbolic techniques to communicate with readers, and the shock of the surreal, the astonishment of the weird, the wonder of the otherworldly, the supernatural, the occult, and the mystical provide these rhetorical approaches.

 

 

Q: As the title of your book suggests, your tales are rather “twisted.” I'm going to ask the question most writers hate to hear: Where do you get your ideas?

A: I'm an eclectic reader. I enjoy learning about a variety of subjects. I guess you could say I'm a generalist. Sometimes, when the stars are in alignment, a remembered fact here will meet up with a recalled fact there, and, out of this connection of one thing and another, an idea will emerge. I might combine one of Thomas Edison’s inventions with the spiritualistic belief in the ability of the living to communicate with the dead, or I could update an ancient myth or a modern horror movie. As Arthur Golding wrote, in translating John Calvin, “All is grist for the mill.”

Q: I know you're something of a mariner. Does the sea ever feature in your stories?

A: Not as often as I might expect, but, yes, there is a sea tale or two. In one, the ocean solves a murder, which is rather a novel notion, I think.

 

Q: By definition, according to the title of your series, Twisted Tales, and by the titles of the books in the series, each of your flash fiction narratives contains a plot twist. How do you think up so many of them?

A: Usually, the story suggests one. However, I also employ a couple of tricks, or techniques—three, actually. First, when plotting a story such as those in Tales with a Twist, Tales with a Twist II, Tales with a Twist III, or Tales with a Twist IV, I keep in mind the idea that almost everything has a direct opposite: new, old; lost, found; hero, villain; reward, punishment; rich, poor; right, wrong. Then, I start with one polarity and end with its opposite. The second way is more concrete. I keep a list of the plot twists I see in novels, short stories, movies, and TV series. Then, I adapt them to fit the situation or circumstances of my own stories. My third technique is to remember that there is a fine line not only between good and evil and right and wrong, but between all such polar opposites. A person who is cautious may become distrustful or even paranoid; a man who's strict can become controlling; a woman who's concerned with her own health and that of others—a doctor or a nurse, perhaps—can become a hypochondriac; a trusting person may become gullible. Each of these possibilities is a source of plot twists.

Q: How many of your tales with a twist are autobiographical?

A: Many of them are fantasies in which I explore how something might be if a particular set of unusual circumstances were to apply. Many of my stories are thought experiments, of a sort. I place a certain type of character in a particular kind of environment and see whether he or she adapts and, if the character does adapt, how he or she manages to do so. Frequently, the environment is physical, but it need not be; some of my stories' environments are philosophical, or moral, or psychological, or political, or cultural, or otherwise. The autobiographical element, when there is one, may be small—a detail here or there, the description of a place I've been, desires I've experienced, wishes I may have wanted to fulfill, thoughts or feelings or impressions I've had, that sort of thing, embedded in the narration, the exposition, or the dialogue.

 

 

Q: Michael, you've done it again!

A: Shhh!

 

 Q: Your latest Twisted Tales volume—I'd say they get better and better but, the truth is, they're all great reads.

A. My modesty forbids me from bragging, but thanks.

 

Q: I don't know how you do it. This is Volume IV, and it and its predecessors each contain at least thirty tales each. You've written over 120 tales with a twist.

A. Bourbon is my muse. Actually, I drink scotch. Or rum. Or tequila. Whatever's handy. Seriously, though, there are so many folks and so much chicanery and sheer madness in the world, my own included, that it's hard not to write if you're an author who enjoys parody and satire. If Tales with a Twist (psst! TV producers, I'm making a pitch here) were a television series, it would be going into its eighth season.

 

Q: Your maritime adventures notwithstanding, is there going to be a Tales with a Twist V, Michael?

A: As soon as possible. I mean, maintaining a boat ain't cheap.

 

 

Statistics Don't Lie

According to Google, these are the most popular Chillers and Thrillers posts so far from 2021 and 2020. In case you missed them, click the link to any you care to read.

"Man Overboard” by Sir Winston Churchill: A Commentary

Describing Images of Horror, Part II

 

Describing Images of Horror as a Means of Enriching Narrative Possibilities

 

Available NOW on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited: On the Track of Vengeance

 

 Talking Pictures: Plotting through Image Analysis and Imaginative Elaboration

Secret Motivations

 Three Girls Walk into a Forest, and . . . .

 

 Edgar Allan Poe's “King Pest”: Analysis and Commentary

 “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways” by William Wordsworth: Analysis andCommentary

 “Leda and the Swan” by William Butler Yeats: Analysis and Commentary

 “Long-Legged Fly” by William Butler Yeats: Analysis and Commentary

 “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe: Analysis and Commentary

 

 “The Snake” by D. H. Lawrence: Analysis and Commentary

 Gigantic Horrors

 Truly Monstrous: The Electric Eel

 Truly Monstrous: The Alligator Snapping Turtle

 

 Horror Again (and Again): Increasing Your Audience by Using Universal Themes

 

 Zombies: A Questionable Scientific Explanation

 

The Z Plot

Inspiring Ideas and Insights from the Matriarchy

 

“The Last Halloween”

 

 Freaks of Nature (and Applied Science)

 Erotic Horror, Japanese Style

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The Tzvetan Todorov Plot

Lens Crafters, or Yggsdrasil: A World Among Worlds

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

 Like other genre fiction (and, indeed, art in general), horror fiction is mostly a matter of metaphor. A story is a mirror, reflecting the inner “person” of the protagonist; a crowd, representing a community or a nation opposed to the protagonist; or the environment, symbolizing nature or nature's Creator. Depending on its underlying metaphor, then, horror fiction (and, again, art in general) is, thus, either psychological, sociological, naturalistic, or theological, aligning with the traditional, if rather sexist, categories of story conflict once known as “man vs. himself,” “man vs. man,” and “man vs. nature,” to which I would add “man vs. God.” In rare instances, all these categories may be represented in a single story.

Although writers certainly often write stories in several, or all, of these categories, I list a few writers and their stories for each of these classes of fiction, as identified by types of conflict, by way of example:

• Psychological (“man vs. himself”): “Berenice,” “The Fall of the House of Usher” (both by Edgar Allan Poe)

• Sociological (“man vs. man”): Misery by Stephen King and Intensity by Stephen King.

• Naturalistic*: “The Strange Orchid” and The Island of Dr. Moreau (by H. G. Wells) and Carrie (by Stephen King)

• Theological: The Taking by Dean Koontz; Desperation by Stephen King; The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

• Psychological, Sociological, Naturalistic, and Theological: “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane

*Naturalistic includes stories which feature paranormal, rather than supernatural, abilities, the difference between the two sources of empowerment, as I use these terms, being that the the paranormal, since it is natural, is or, at some point may become, explicable through the exercise of reason or through scientific knowledge, while the supernatural is, by definition, inexplicable by either rational or empirical means, because it transcends nature altogether.

 

Although it is possible, perhaps, that, one day, writers may invent or, more likely, discover a metaphor in addition to those of the psychological mirror, the sociological crowd, and the naturalistic environment (in Crane's story, the ocean is the environment), it may also well be that these three metaphors exhaust the modalities of understanding the human situation. If such is the case, there remains an avenue for gaining additional insights into our lives as human beings involved in our own minds and behaviors, the actions of others, and the eventualities of existence within the world and to further explore what it entails and means to be a human being in a vast nebula of time and space. This remaining avenue is not one road, but many, which don't simply branch, but also interweave, much as do the branches and roots of Yggsdarsil, the sacred tree of the Norsemen: each worlds unto themselves, they are also, at the same time, each a world among worlds.

Many of these worlds are subjects of departments or schools in colleges and universities throughout the world: fine arts, sciences, and related disciplines, some of which are, more specifically: anthropology, biology, business, chemistry, computer science, earth science, economics, engineering and technology, geography, history, language and literature, law, mathematics, medicine and health, philosophy, performing arts, physics, political science, psychology, sociology, social work, space science, theology, and visual arts. Are there other worthy disciplines that provide a foundation and a framework for artistic development in general and horror fiction in particular? Of course. The ones listed are merely examples.

To use a metaphor, such disciplines are lenses. They focus or disperse the light of understanding each in their own peculiar ways. To see a story's idea or its characters, its action, its setting, its structure, its implications, its conflicts, or its theme through the lens of philosophy is very different than to view the same element of the same story through the lens of law, the lens of medicine and health, or the lens of politics, and those stories that examine the same aspect of a story, of horror or otherwise, as Crane's “The Open Boat” does are stories that enrich perception and, sometimes, understanding. By seeing a story through various lenses, a writer renews the approach of fiction, or literature (or, again, art in general). Stories, even about familiar tropes and themes, become new again, because they offer fresh insights by their authors' willingness to look anew at them, through a variety of lenses. Such renewal is apt to be not good just for the souls of readers and writers but also for genres themselves.

 

Why, through a story, should a writer and a reader explore just one world, when there are (more than) nine?

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.

"The Man Who Was Used Up" by Edgar Allan Poe: Analysis and Commentary

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

As his satirical short stories indicate, Edgar Allan Poe has a decidedly peculiar sense of humor. His lampoons invariably feature grotesque characters whose actions suggest humorous, if not charitable, interpretations of the characters themselves.

“The Man Who Was Used Up” follows this same pattern. The narrator is determined to learn more about the Kickapoo Campaign (April 1839) and the part that wounded Brevet Brigadier General A. B. C. Smith played in this military action. (Mexican officials had given them land in what would become Texas; after the Texas Revolution, the Kickapoo were “forcibly evicted in 1839.”)

Although some readers believe that Smith is a stand-in for General (later President) Andrew Jackson, who was wounded during the Seminole and Creek Indian removal campaigns (1816-1858), critics generally agree that Smith is a caricature of Jackson's vice-president, Richard Johnson.

Johnson, who is credited with having killed the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, was wounded during the Kickapoo tribe's removal. (The Bugaboo tribe is an invention of Poe's, added, perhaps, because the word sounds humorous and because “bugaboo” means “object of fear”; Smith obviously fears having the number and severity of his debilitating wounds exposed to the public, and, in fact, when his wounds were discovered, “Johnson was lampooned when he appeared in public on crutches and tied up in wound dressings on various parts of his body.”

Brutus

Much of the description of Smith confirms Poe's intention that he should represent a grotesque, a figure whose physical or emotional abnormalities symbolize his or her spiritual condition. His hair is like that of Brutus, which was worn short in a “natural” style and “brushed forward onto the forehead.” However, as the reader soon learns, “there is nothing at all natural about Smith's hair,” and this bit of description, like others of Smith, heighten the horror of the revelation of Smith's true appearance and condition at the end of the story.

Likewise, the “stiffness and rectangular precision in Smith's movement,” accounted for by the story's narrator as deriving from Smith's soldierly bearing, in fact, may be explained “by other reasons,” such as those suggested by the story's resolution.

At the end of the story, Smith is revealed, as he dons the prosthetic appliances that make him appear to be a normal, even robust man—the hero he is regarded to be by the general public who admire him greatly—to be little more than the “a large and exceedingly odd looking bundle of something” the narrator mistakes him for being.

To appear heroic, Smith needs a cork leg, a prosthetic arm, artificial shoulders and a synthetic “bosom,” a wig, dentures, and a artificial eye. As these items are fitted into place, Smith mentions how he came to lose some of his original body parts: the “fight with the Bugaboos and Kickapoos,” he confides, was “a bloody action” in which a participant suppose he will escape “with a mere scratch.” He lost his hair when he was scalped. He “swallowed” his natural teeth “when the big Bugaboo rammed” him “down with the butt end of his rifle.” The Kickapoos, he recalls, gouged out his eye.

After Smith applies these many prostheses, his whole appearance changes; he is transformed, his improved appearance astonishing the narrator:

I now began very clearly to perceive that the object before me was nothing more nor less than my new acquaintance, Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith. The manipulations of Pompey [Smith's servant] had made, I must confess, a very striking difference in the appearance of the personal man.

There is but one detail remaining: Smith's voice, a funny “little” voice “between a squeak and a whistle.” Everyone to whom the narrator spoke as he sought to information about Smith, the man behind the myth, agreed that the general's voice was deep, rich, and commanding. The voice the narrator has heard, however, is absurdly high-pitched and weak.

Once Smith's palate is installed, however, another miracle of technology occurs, as his voice changes, resuming “all that rich melody and strength” the narrator “had noticed” when he'd first met the general. Smith offers another explanation: the palate compensates for the Indians' knocking “in the roof of” his mouth and cutting “off at least seven-eighths of” his tongue.

As Smith adds these accessories to his person, he identifies the men whose mechanical magic and technological wizardry have made his transformation possible: Thomas provided the cork leg; Pettit, the shoulders; Ducrow, the bosom; De L'Orme's, the wig; Parmly's, the teeth; Dr. Williams, the eye; and Bonfanti's. The eye.

Smith's naming of names occasions jabs at various actual “tradesmen . . . working in Philadelphia during the years Poe lived there” and suggests that their appliances are not likely to be as effective as the story suggests. For example, the oculist, Dr. John Williams, was generally regarded as a quack who got rich offering “dubious cures” to the desperate. In fact, Poe seems to summarize the oculist's character when he refers to a joke about the doctor: “Why is Dr. Williams' cash . . . like a divorced wife's pension” Because it's all eye-money.—alimony.”

Likewise, the artificial eye was supplied by “a New York retailer” known for selling “knick knacks and gew-gaws.”

As usual, there is much more to a Poe tale than first meets the eye.

According to one take on the story, in “The Man Who Was Used Up,” “Poe is saying that Johnson has been 'used up' in the war and is ineffective as Vice President” (300). this interpretation dovetails with the epigram with which Poe opens the story: “Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez vous en eau!/ La moitie de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau,” which Poe himself translates as “Cry, cry, my eyes, and melt in water!/ Half of my life has put the other in the tomb.” The first half of Johnson's life, which he devoted to military affairs, left him wounded and ridiculed, despite his heroism in action, thereby destroying the second half of his life, his political career. (“Used up,” in military slang, meant dead, as Poe implies by rendering the second part of dramatist Pierre Corneille's quotation “Half of my life has put the other in the tomb” (bold added).

The story has other messages, too. Although Johnson lost much in the service of his country (however much we might, today, decry his actions—and those of the United States, which ordered them), and should have been regarded as a hero, rather than as a target of ridicule and satire, Poe's own, included, he was lampooned for his sacrifices.

His public image was intended to disguise and conceal the effects of his service and suffering and, perhaps, the historical causes of them. The public did not love, or even know, the true man; it honored and revered only his heroic persona, the man he appeared to be. Later, the same public ridiculed and disrespected Johnson himself. As David Haven Blake has observed, “What we find in 'The Man Who Was Used Up' is that the publicity surrounding the hero's experience is ultimately more significant than a narration of his suffering.”