Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman
In The
Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre,
Dr. Tzvetan Todorov differentiates between fiction that is fantastic,
uncanny, or marvelous.
A story is fantastic, he
says, if it cannot be resolved as either uncanny or marvelous. For
example, at the end of Henry James's novel The
Turn of the Screw (1898),
it remains unclear whether the ghosts are real or simply products of
the governess's hallucinations.
A story is uncanny if its
seemingly fantastic incidents can be explained rationally or
scientifically. According to this understanding, H. G. Wells's short
story “The Red Room” (1894) is uncanny: the ghost that allegedly
haunts the castle in which the protagonist has come to spend the
night turns out to be the invention of his imagination, an effect of
his fear.
A story is marvelous if
its incidents cannot be rationally or scientifically explained.
Stephen King's short story “1408” (1999) is marvelous, because
the ghosts (or demons) that allegedly haunt the hotel room in which
the writer spends the night are, in fact, truly supernatural.
Whether intentionally or
not, Todorov offers a formula for plotting fantastic, uncanny, or
marvelous fiction. It sounds complicated, but it's actually fairly
simple. This is how it works:
- Develop a single situation that can be understood in either natural and or terms or that can be interpreted by reference to the supernatural or faith.
- During the course of the story, indicate that the situation may be supernatural.
- Show that the situation actually is supernatural or natural in origin of character or that the situation cannot be resolved in either way.
Fiction provides many
models of this approach. Here are a few:
Uncanny:“The Damned
Thing” (short story) (1893) by Ambrose Bierce; “The Premature
Burial” (short story) by Edgar Allan Poe (1844); A
Tough Tussle” (short story) by Ambrose Bierce (1888)
Fantastic: The Exorcism of
Emily Rose (movie) (2005) directed by Scott Derrickson;“The
Birds” (short story) (1955) by Daphne du Maurier; Let's Scare
Jessica to Death
(movie) (1971) directed by John Hancock
By
analyzing these stories and others that use the Tzvetan Todorov plot,
we can see what specific techniques their writers use to create and
sustain the ambiguity that results from the tension between the two
opposite interpretations of the stories' incidents, that of the
natural and that of the supernatural.
Uncanny:
In writing “The Red Room,” Wells withholds the actual (natural)
cause of the allegedly supernatural incident (the ghost's haunting of
the red room) that the protagonist investigates. By doing so, Wells
allows the extinguishing of the candles and the fire in the room's
fireplace to seem to be the work of the ghost. His panic causes him
to run through the chamber in the dark, seeking escape, which results
in his knocking himself unconscious when he collides with a piece of
furniture. It is only upon awakening that he realizes that the red
room was haunted only by his own fear-fueled imagination.
Marvelous:
In The Exorcist, Regan MacNeil's strange behavior causes her
mother Chris to seek both medical and psychiatric help for Regan
after Chris cannot rationally account for Regan's behavior. Both
sciences fail to help Regan, who becomes worse. To help Regan, Chris
eventually turns to a priest, Father Damien Karras, despite her own
atheism. Through exorcism, at the cost of his own life, Father Karras
rids Regan of the demon that possesses her. By postponing the
revelation that Regan's apparent demonic possession is, in fact,
genuine, Blatty creates and sustains ambiguity as to whether the
possession is apparent (the result of a physiological or mental
disorder) or real.
Withholding
the cause of the seemingly fantastic, as Wells does in “The Red
Room,” or showing the failure of both reason and science to account
for a seemingly supernatural incident before revealing that the
incident actually is fantastic, as Blatty does, introduces the
possibility of the fantastic while establishing it as subject to
natural or rational interpretation or as genuinely marvelous.
Other
techniques that writers using what is here referred to as the Tzvetan
Todorov plot include:
- Swinging back and forth between the natural or scientific explanation of an incident that only at first appears to be marvelous and never explaining the incident's inexplicable mystery (i. e., implying its truly marvelous character).
- Explaining, eventually, that the apparently fantastic incident is the result of a trick; it is a hoax, a prank, or a publicity stunt.
- Explaining, eventually, that the apparently fantastic incident is the enactment of a rite or ritual performed by people who genuinely believe that the act is supernatural.
- Confusing one state of affairs (e. g., a cataleptic trance) with another state of affairs (e. g., death).