Style in the short story

style in the short story

THE style-qualities of the Short-story are not essentially different from those of any other branch of prose fiction. Of course, there must be clearness and order, but these should not be strangers to any style. They spring from clear and orderly, thought. There must be also concreteness and suggestiveness of style; and these are common to all good narrative. There may be present, too, humor, pathos, animation, directness, nervousness, simplicity, picturesqueness, naturalness, vividness, or any of the numerous other qualities as they are so varyingly named by those who gather them into lists. Yet none of these are the property of the Short-story exclusively or of any other form of prose. The brevity and condensation of the Short-story, however, make it a good vehicle for the display of some of these qualities in more than their ordinary development. No rules can be laid down as to a proper style for the Short story. Every story is a law unto itself, as is every poem. An individual creation of the imagination, its style will depend on the form, on the subject treated, and on the personality of the writer. This threefold division is true in all art. Tennyson's lyrics are of one sort; Wordsworth's, of another.

Chopin's preludes are utterly different from Bach's. Corot painted landscape in one way; Ruysdael, in another. The best style for a given story is that which is the most perfect expression of what the writer intended to say and of the impression he wished to convey. To attempt to lay down any binding rules for Short-story style would be foolish and hazardous. Yet there are certain general principles upon which even the variations are based, principles derived from the essential nature of the Short-story as a form of fine art; and these it may be well to. consider briefly.

As has been shown, the modern Short-story has a rather rigid form; and because of this form it lends itself to greater relative perfection than would otherwise be possible. It is brief, it is dramatic, it makes a single impression which is predominantly emotional. Since it is brief, it must be direct; since it is dramatic, explanation and analysis will be subordinate to speech and action; since it must eve a single emotional impression, it must be simple and intense. Naturally, such results are attained only when the workmanship is of the fincst at every stage of the making. There must be a delicate adaptation of all possible means in securing the requisite artistic effect. Not only must plot and structure be skillfully wrought, but style, also, should add grace and poignancy. It is the finishing which brings out the grain, and gives distinction and refinement to rougher work. Yet style is never sought for itself alone, but only as it is of service in making the story

grip the reader's imagination with the sense of reality as a living experience. To this end, language may be used in almost infinite variations of word and phrise and sentence. The interest of plot should be such that one will eagerly await the outcome, yet the mere reading should be a joy. Though fitting language, the emotional effect may weave itself through the story until it subtly pervades the spirit of the reader. One finishes a good Short story with regret as well as with satisfaction. Its brevity, yielding more intense emotion than could a longer narrative, makes one's conscious enjoyment the more lively. Narrative of any sort is an appeal to the imagination and will demand imaginative language, yet it may contain much, also, which makes a purely intellectual appeal. In the Short story, however, there is a closer unity; what counts for plot advancement must serve also for emotional intensification. Form and content both make their demands on style, and both call for vividness.

The style, however, is determined finally by the nature of the individual story. What is appropriate for one may not accord with the spirit of another. They, for example, and The Man Who Would Be' King are both Short stories and both by Kipling, yet their styles are utterly different. Just how they differ, it is perhaps difficult to say, but anyone w01 recognize the fact. Each style fits the story to which it belongs, so perfectly that it contributes to' the story itself. It has already been noted how the Descriptions in They are made to produce atmosphere.

There is throughout them a certain daintiness and airiness. In The Man Who Would Be King, however, one is aware of a wholesome enthusiasm. Mrs. Knollys is almost discursive. Terseness would have been inappropriate. It is in the nature of this story to linger over the details. The story is simply told, too, for such a struggle against the sternness of nature would be offensive if told grandiloquently. The style is adapted to the story. In the stories of O. Henry, we deplore the carelessness with which asides are thrown in, the apparently needless profusion of slang; yet we laugh and sympathize, — not because the stories themselves move us, but because they are told with the zest of one who is experiencing them. They seem natural, and it is a duty of style to leave an impression of naturalness. We should never enjoy By Courier, for instance, but for the inimitable translation of the man's message into the street-boy's language. Naturalness or propriety of style in the Short-story requires that every speech should sound appropriate in the mouth of the one who makes it; that every word and phrase and sentence should be in harmony with the prevailing idea of the story.

The principle of greatest economy of means together with utmost emphasis applies, also, in style. In the excellent Short-story we find dramatic intensity, a pruning away of all which does not in some way add strength. In the style, the spirit of the story is distilled. Words have their full value and do not appear as mere colorless terms. Every

sentence strikes home with its message of suggestion. Ideas gain by being compressed in their statement. The direct style need not be beautiful, it needs to go straight to the point without hesitation. Two selections from The Outcasts of Poker Flat will illustrate. The first explains itself:

"In point of fact, Poker Flat was 'after somebody. ' It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons. "

When the outcasts have been for a week snowbound, we have this instance:

"And yet no one complained. The lovers turned from the dreary prospect and looked into each other's eyes, and were happy. Mr. Oakhurst settled himself coolly to the losing game before him. The Duchess, more cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of Piney. Only Mother Shipton — once the strongest of the party — seemed to sicken and fade. "

In directness of narrative style probably no one has surpassed Guy de Maupassant. Notice these paragraphs from The Necklace:

"She was one of those pretty and charming girls, who, as if by a blunder of destiny, are born in a

family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, married by a man rich and distinguished, and so she let herself be married to a petty clerk in the Departments ofEducation. "

"She had no dresses, no jewelry, nothing. And she loved nothing else; she felt herself made for that only. She would so much have liked to please, to be envied, to be seductive and sought after. "

"She came to know the drudgery;of, Buse work, the aclious cares of the kitchen. Slir*ashed the dishes, tving her rosy nails on the greasy pots and the bottoms of the saucepans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and the dishcloths, which she hung to dry on a line; she carried the garbage down to the street every morning and carried up the water, sopping at each landing to rest. And, dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the fruiterer's, the grocer's, the butcher's; her basket on her arm, bargaining, abusing, defending sou by sou

her miserable money. " -

Eqtally direct is the following paragraph taken from Leonard Merrick's story, Little-Flower-of-theWood:

I am very poor and ill, ' she went on. 'I have been away in the South for more than two years; they told me I ought to stop there, but I had to see

Paris once more! What does it matter? I shall finish here a little sooner, that is all. 1, 1odge close by, in a garret. The garret is very dirty, but I hear the music from the Bal Tabarin across. the way. I like that — I persuade myself I am-living the happy life I used to have. When I am tossing sleepless, I hear the noise and laughter of the crowd coming out, and blow kisses to them in the dark. You see, although one is forgotten, one cannot forbet. I pray that their laughter N411 come up to me right at the end, before I die l"

Simplicity is closely akin to directness. ; As in the paragraph just quoted, they are found together. Notice the character of the words. They ais dearly all those that a child might use, note hay many monosyllables. They are everyday words, — 'garret, " dirty, " tossing, " noise, " laughter? happy, '

'crowd, ' 'blow. ' The sentences are short, for beneath these words there is intense emotion. Profound emotion is always simple and seeks simple expression. The homely word and phrase fairly bristle with associations. They have bower to move, for we feel them as concrete things. If there is an attempt to adorn, we feel a jar at once. The rococo in language is certain to 4etract from the real effect and to produce a counter impression. Nothing over-ornate— ornate to impress rather than to excess — nothing unintelligible, nothing florid, nothing full of allusions of purely intellectual character, nothing insincere, may pass openly and unchallenged through the gates of the Short story.

We are all children in that we like stories at all; and the more simple they are in the manner of their telling, the more do they awaken our childlike and elemental sympathies. We sit around a fire, — perhaps a camp-fire, — of an evening to hear a story told. If it has not been prepared for the occasion, but flows on simply, and naturally, and spontaneously, we like it the better. The spirit of the teller and the spirits of the listeners all seem to enter in to cover the deficiencies, and to fill in the pauses with recalled experiences. Such a story Mrs. Knollgs seems. We for the time belong to the group of listeners. Surely, it was not first told into a typewriter. It is too tender, too simple, as if it were rising from the heart of him who tells it. Here is but one paragraph:

"There were but two events in her life — that which was past and that which was to come. She had lived through his loss; now she lived on for his recovery. But, as I have said, she changed, as all things mortal change, all but the earth and the ice-stream and the stars above it. She read much, and her mind grew deep and broad, none the less gentle with it all; she was wiser in the world; she knew the depths of human hope and sorrow. You remember her only as an old lady whom we loved. Only her heart did not change — I forgot that; her heart, and the memory of that last loving smile upon his face, as he bent down to look into her eyes, before he slipped and fell. She

lived on, and waited for his body, as possibly his other self — who knows? — waited for her. As she grew older she grew taller; her eyes were quieter, her hair a little straighter, darker than of yore; her face changed, only the expression remained the same. Mary Knollys l"

To be simple, however, is not to be commonplace. Whatever helps toward the intimate realization of a scene, of an incident, of an emotion, be it attained even by a conscious striving after the artistic in expression, need not offend simplicity. language which stimulates imaginative activity in a way that enforces the effect is, in the Short story, legitimate. By an artful choice and arrangement of words imbued with feeling, language may give rise to an atmosphere, as boiling water throws up steam. In poetry, the subtle sympathy of content and music as expressed by imitative word, by meters, rhythms, and rhymes, becomes a factor in one's appreciation and enjoyment. In the Short story, too, language may affect atmosphere by touching one's creative memory. It cannot be fashioned in the manifold patterns of poetry, but it can bring to the story all the other graces of word choice and order.

In making a vivid impression, picturesqueness of style is often of service. Words which compel one to visualize promote one's lively experience of the things themselves. They put one in a certain attitude of receptivity; they strike a sensitive chord

in the reader. In short, they create an atmosphere, which, by according with the general atmosphere of the story, gives it added forcefulness. Three times in Mrs. Knollys we are sent out by night to look at the glacier, the mountain, and the changing sky with its moon and stars:

"The glacier has a light of its own, and gleams to stars above, and the great Glockner mountain flings his shadow of the planets in its face. "

The glacier seems changeless, the mountain above it remains unmoved, the stars are fixed in their places and move only in accordance with an immutable law. They shine upon the glacier, but they are as powerless to hurry its motion, as it is to influence theirs. While one watches the snowy surface of the glacier gleam upward and the planets reflected upon it, one is possessed with a nameless awe. Unwittingly, we are already cloaked deep in an atmosphere of tension.

In some stories, as in They, this picturesqueness forms a large factor in atmosphere. One is forced to look, and when one has looked, one has fallen under the spell of its witchery. The picturesqueness of this passage is particularly notable:

"The red light poured itself along the age-polished dusky panels till the Tudor roses and lions took on co lour and motion. An old eagle-topped convex mirror gathered the picture into its mysterious heart, distorting afresh the distorted shadows, and curving the gallery lines into the curves of a ship.

The day was shutting down in half a gale as the fog turned to stringy scud; through the uncurtained mullions of the broad window I could see the valiant horsemen on the lawn curvet and caracole against the wind that pelted them with dead leaves. "

In many stories such a picture as this would seem mere verbiage; in They it is a part of the atmosphere. It is the restless motion which catches and rivets attention.

Another use is made of motion in Markheim. The tremulousness which the guilty murderer sees in everything about him is the first evidence of his nervousness, the first token of any waverings of conscience:

"The candle' stood on the counter, its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that inconsiderable movement, the whole room was filled with noiseless bustle and kept heaving like a sea: the tall shadows nodding, the gross blots of darkness swelling and dwindling as with respiration, the faces of the portraits and the china gods changing and wavering, like images in water. The inner door stood ajar, and peered into that leaguer of shadows with a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger. "

One would have missed the suggestion in large measure, if not entirely, if Stevenson had written instead:

The lighted candle stood on the counter, and by the inconsiderable movement of its flame the whole

room was filled with noiseless bustle, with tall shadows and gross blots of darkness, with the blurred faces of portraits and china gods.

This picture would not have been compelling, it would not have served the author's purpose. It is the movement, the 'wagging, ' the 'heaving, ' the 'swelling and dwindling, ' the 'changing and wavering' which make the picture count for atmosphere. Here, greatest economy of means has given way to utmost emphasis with a gain to atmosphere that is past telling.

One notices in this paragraph that figurative language is used to make the picture definite. We are told exactly with what to make comparison instead of being allowed vaguely to sense these comparisons for ourselves. Because of its value for conciseness, a figurative style is often found even in the Short-story. We are brought to see two things and wherein alone they are alike. One's experience of the thing described is sharpened by being brought into exact focus. Each object, too, has a suggestion of its own, and these things taken together imply a richness which neither has in itself. One might wish to make it plain that a certain man was angry. We should perhaps speak of the contraction of his brows, the rapidity of his expression, of his tone of voice; we should quote his words. All this Description, unless of course it was the main point of the story, would be less definite, less forceful than the more simple, more vehement

expression, He stormed. 1 Naturally, in the Short story, where one is seeking the greatest possible impression in the fewest possible words, such figurative language is valuable. Markheim is full of such language:

"Meanwhile, and behind all this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot, the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish, or he beheld in galloping defile, the dock, the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin. "

"Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a besieging army. "

"Like some dripping cavern, the chambers of the house were haunted by an incessant echoing. "

"The solid walls might become transparent and reveal his doings like those of bees in a glass hive; the stout planks might yield under his foot like quicksand and detain him in their clutch. "

The dealer "was sunk beneath seas of silence. " Markheim himself "was smitten into ice. " He would "plunge into a bath of London multitudes"; he would be "buried among bedclothes. "

Markheim is unusually tense; it treats of a critical moment, of a life turning point. The murderer is

1 When verbs can thus be made to do duty, there is an increase in the forcefulness of expression, for verbs actively indicate the desired comparison without delaying movement.

in a state of high nervous excitement. Temporarily, he has lost mastery of himself. He is panic-stricken, intoxicated with horror at his own deed. Thoughts and feelings flee through his mind in wild disarray; all uncontrolled, former experiences flood past him. This condition is expressed actively by language in a luxuriance of imagery. While simple emotion, however profound, results in style simplicity, a conflict of emotions, resulting in excitement, provokes figurative expression. In Mrs. Knollgs, where the tension is low and the emotion simple yet profound, figurative language would have been highly inappropriate. If the language is not the trenchant expression of that which the story demands shall be the experience of the reader, it is a mere daub. Figurative language in the well wrought Short story never serves as mere ornament. It is confined to those comparisons which are subtly but emotionally illuminative.

As has been intimated in a preceding chapter, sounds, also, are conducive to atmosphere. These, too, may be represented in language with more or less distinctness. Words and sentences may have tone-color: they may heighten emotional appreciation by a careful adaptation of sound values. We are all aware of the significance of the purely imitative words: chatter, crash, thunder, boom, tinkle, gurgle, whisper, creak, roar, bang, patter, purr, snarl, hiss, and countless others. We all take pleasure in using those other words which are not directly suggestive of sound, yet through their own

sound manifest the meaning. We feel such words as jerk, swoop, wag, whirl, swell, bubble, wiggle, skip, pump. These make for vividness anywhere. Yet sentences as well as words may simulate sound and affect one's mood. Markheim again offers illustration:

"The thought was yet in his mind, when first one and then another, with every variety of pace and voice, — one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz, — the clocks began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon. "

Or again:

"And as he began with great effort to mount the stairs, feet fled quietly before him and followed stealthily behind. "

Poe, too, was ever watchful of the movement of his sentences and the successions of vowels and consonants, as the following passage from The Masque of the Red Death well illustrates:

"And these — the dreams — writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away — they have endured but an instant — and

a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. "

The effect is not far to be sought. It is in the perfect adaptation of sound to sense. This is one of the means which style possesses of affecting atmosphere. Yet language is a delicate instrument and atmosphere, a dainty drapery; and both, the masters of the Short story have handled with consummate care.

He who attempts this task must himself be exceedingly sensitive to emotional effects. He must be able to estimate words and phrases for what they are, to know what expressions have lost their original verve, and which are still aglow, — for some have grown cold in being passed from one to another, and some are just coming into being. He must have, throughout, that harmonious nicety of touch which comes only from the response of his own nature to his subject.