Resisting trite choices. Who does this better than James Marshall?
In "The Tub," we have a certain set-up. George is snooping on Martha. We might expect the story to unfold slowly: George has strange, troubling thoughts and feelings, Martha discovers George, Martha has an emotional reaction, Martha decides to act on her emotions, the resolution follows. But Marshall surprises us: He collapses the discovery, the emotions, and the thinking into white space. All of this happens via subtext. We are left to make inferences. Marshall trusts our intelligence, and we get to piece together a puzzle; we aren't force-fed.
A similar thing happens in "The Big Scare." George frightens Martha, for fun, and Martha promises to retaliate. We might expect to see the retaliation, and the fall-out, and a reconciliation to end the story. But, once again, Marshall surprises us.
Martha makes her threat: "I'll scare you next." George worries. He worries at the breakfast table. He worries under the sink. He worries in the shower. Finally, he goes to Martha, who says, sincerely or not, "I just forgot to scare you. That's all. So sorry." And--ridiculously--George claims the scare, in whatever form, wouldn't have worked: "I'm never frightened." With a smirk, Martha says, "Right. I know." The End.
"The Tub" took several events and made them half a sentence (or smaller). "The Big Scare" takes a fraction of one event--George, worrying--and then stretches, and stretches, and stretches that fraction, to our surprise.
It's fun to see how Marshall toys with our expectations--in more than one story.
In "The Tub," we have a certain set-up. George is snooping on Martha. We might expect the story to unfold slowly: George has strange, troubling thoughts and feelings, Martha discovers George, Martha has an emotional reaction, Martha decides to act on her emotions, the resolution follows. But Marshall surprises us: He collapses the discovery, the emotions, and the thinking into white space. All of this happens via subtext. We are left to make inferences. Marshall trusts our intelligence, and we get to piece together a puzzle; we aren't force-fed.
A similar thing happens in "The Big Scare." George frightens Martha, for fun, and Martha promises to retaliate. We might expect to see the retaliation, and the fall-out, and a reconciliation to end the story. But, once again, Marshall surprises us.
Martha makes her threat: "I'll scare you next." George worries. He worries at the breakfast table. He worries under the sink. He worries in the shower. Finally, he goes to Martha, who says, sincerely or not, "I just forgot to scare you. That's all. So sorry." And--ridiculously--George claims the scare, in whatever form, wouldn't have worked: "I'm never frightened." With a smirk, Martha says, "Right. I know." The End.
"The Tub" took several events and made them half a sentence (or smaller). "The Big Scare" takes a fraction of one event--George, worrying--and then stretches, and stretches, and stretches that fraction, to our surprise.
It's fun to see how Marshall toys with our expectations--in more than one story.
Comments
Post a Comment