Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular

by L Rust Hills

  Epiphany-with-a-capital-E refers now to the twelfth day after Christmas; its eve is Twelfth Night. Twelve days after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the Magi (the three wise men) saw Him there: He was manifested or shown to them as king of the Gentiles. The feast or festival of the Epiphany also commemorates two other events in the life of Christ: his baptism by John, when his sonship to God was made manifest to the world; and the miracle at Cana, when he turned water to wine at a wedding and first manifested his divine powers. The word is from the Greek epiphaneia, meaning "appearance," derived from epi, meaning "to," plus phaineim, meaning "show." Thus: "to show to." And "epiphany"—now without a capital E—means any such luminous, divine manifestation. De Quincey, for instance, spoke of the "epiphanies of the Greek intellect."

  The Joycean concept of the epiphany is even more secular. In 1900, when James Joyce was eighteen or thereabouts, he had not had much luck publishing his poetry, so he started writing carefully wrought little pieces of nonpoetry, which he called "epiphanies." Stephen Hero, the manuscript of Joyce's discarded version of the autobiographical novel of his youth in Dublin that was entirely rewritten as Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, describes how Joyce may have begun to record his epiphanies. Stephen, who is for the most part the young James Joyce, "was passing through Eccles' St one evening, one misty evening..." when he heard a "fragment of colloquy" between a young lady and a young gentleman "out of which he received an impression keen enough to afflict his sensitiveness very severely."

  The fragment is recorded, then, as Joyce writes of Stephen:

  This triviality made him think of collecting many such moments together into a book of epiphanies. By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself. He believed it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care, seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments.

  There are forty of Joyce's epiphanies that survive in manuscript, although he has numbered them as high as seventy-one, and there were obviously more. Some of them were worked in as material for Stephen Hero or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and some are not.

  One reason for the confusion about Joyce's use of the word is that his epiphanies are both a kind of experience and also a literary genre—both a way of seeing or hearing and also a way of showing and writing. And within the genre of his epiphanies there are several confusingly different sorts of them. Some are fragments of overheard conversations of strangers; some are accounts of dreams; some are brief dialogues between Joyce and persons he knew; some are entirely uncategorizable. The matter is complicated by the fact that some of the epiphanies seem to be artistic creation—in fact, a sort of poetic-prose statement—while others seem simply to be transcriptions of actual life, although recorded, of course, "with extreme care." If the epiphany is in fact a literary genre invented by Joyce, then it is impossible to define or describe the nature of the form. Often the form epiphanies seem most to resemble is what we may call "the well-worked entry in the writer's notebook."

  But epiphany is used in another way by Joyce, in connection with the theory of aesthetics presented by Stephen. Stephen translates Acquinas' claritas as "radiance" and defines it as the "luminous silent stasis of esthetic pleasure," distinguishing it from the kinetic response evoked by improper arts, such as those which are didactic or pornographic. Claritas, says Stephen, is quidditas, "the whatness of a thing."

  This is the moment which I call epiphany ... when the relation of the parts [of an art object] is exquisite ... its soul, its whatness leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance. The soul of the commonest object, the structure of which is so adjusted, seems to us radiant. The object achieves its epiphany.

  But beyond the genre and aesthetic-theory aspects of the Joycean epiphany are implications about literary method. There is an understated, uninsistent quality to the writing that is very familiar to us now, but must have seemed very distinctive when first used. As Richard Ellmann says in his biography, Joyce "cradles" in his epiphanies "the technique which has now become a commonplace of modern fiction." Ellmann continues:

  Arrogant yet humble too, it claims importance by claiming nothing; it seeks a presentation so sharp that comment by the author would be an interference ... The author abandons himself and the reader to his material.

  The method, as used by Joyce, is really best seen in the short stories collected in Dubliners, which he wrote at the same time he was drafting Stephen Hero. Although none of his extant epiphanies are to be found transferred into these stories, many of the short stories can be considered to be extended, developed, sustained epiphanies in themselves. The implications of what's so carefully described in these stories is never made explicitly clear by the author; the effect of them seems to fade off into a quiet, a silence—"the luminous silent stasis" of the epiphany.

  The epiphany (whether considered as a technique or an effect or a theory or a genre) is a much more useful concept for the short story than it is for the novel. Even Joyce himself could not seem to make it work in a novel. He had originally intended to collect a small book of his epiphanies, but he later thought that he could work them into the manuscript of the novel Stephen Hero. This is admittedly not a finished work—the first 400-odd pages of the manuscript are missing, and Joyce had intended to destroy the whole—but it is a very readable book and somehow more open and revealing than Portrait. But it is very flawed as a work of art, perhaps because the little epiphanies, each with its own stasis, keep interrupting the flow of the book. After each of the epiphanies in Stephen Hero, Joyce has to crank up and get the narrative moving all over again. The epiphanies are used much more sparingly in Portrait and more successfully, notably in the high-flying passage at the very end of the book.

  But in many modern short stories since Joyce, the whole effect and meaning may resemble the effect and unstated meaning of an epiphany. The "movement" of character by action that we have been speaking of may not represent an alteration so much as it does a further manifestation. It is something like this that is meant by the teacher of writing when he says to the student of writing about the ending of a fine story they have been "appreciating" together: "Yes, there is an epiphany." He means that as a result of what happens in the story, something—the "whatness" of a character or of a situation—has been made manifest, has been shown forth, has shone forth.

  It is probably wrong to go on, as many who use the word do, to refer to a certain passage as being "the" epiphany of a story, or to refer to a character "having" an epiphany. "Yes," says the instructor, "it is clear that at the end of the story Martin has an epiphany." By this he means, most likely, that the central figure has some sort of revelation, something or other is made manifest to him: in a little thought-balloon over his head, a light bulb goes on. Yet why should not the word be used in these ways too, if it serves a purpose? The meaning of "epiphany" has always been elastic—why not stretch it further? We have no other word or term that conveys so many of the subtle effects of this technique of fiction.

  The Inevitability of Retrospect

  The action of a story, then, takes a character past a decisive point down into one or another of the forks in the road. As a result of "what happens" there is one chance less that he can become anything other than what it is inevitable he will become. When the story is over there is one opportunity less among the opportunities that seemed to be there for him to go any other way than the way he is fated to go. These confused sentences are attempts to describe the dual effect of the plot-character interaction achieved in successful fiction. Perhaps it would simplify to schematize what happens. Appropriately enough, this can be done by extending Frost's metaphor into a diagram, charting the pathways as if they were veins in one of the fallen leaves on the path "less traveled by."

  Start at the left, at Point A, and trace the path to Point B. To get there you have to make at least twelve choices at forks in
the road. The path you followed represents your life history. To get to Point B, where you are now, say, it seems to you that you've arrived there either by great determination in turning down other possible paths, or entirely by chance, depending on your attitude about such things. At any rate you are aware that each choice you made limited the possible or potential other ways you could have gone. But now trace your path from Point B from right to left to Point A. There are no choices. Looking back, you see the path taken was inevitable.

  A story should be like that. When you begin a story and while you're reading it, it should seem as if you're moving from left to right: alternatives to the character's fate and to the plot's action seem open, possible, available. But when you've finished the story and look back, the action should seem inevitable, as if you'd moved from right to left.

  Enhancing the Interaction of Character and Plot

  It develops, then, that a successful story (and this is as much or more true of a play or a novel) will have two effects which would seem to preclude one another, or at least to work against one another.

  One desired effect is that the events and final outcome of the action seem, finally, to have been inevitable, so as to be convincing to the reader, and ultimately satisfactory to him—and so as to evoke related effects such as universality of theme, significance of action, and so forth.

  The other desired effect is that the final outcome and the events of the action provide some surprise or uncertainty, so as to engross the reader—and so as to evoke related effects as of suspense, tension, conflict, and so forth. And it is necessary really to reconcile these two effects, so that they become as one effect, contributing to the necessary unity of the story.

  Successfully combining these apparently contradictory effects constitutes one of the demonstrable excellences of successful fiction. What is used to do it is a variety of methods and devices that can be generally described, but are used specifically according to specific needs of a particular story.

  It should go without saying that to be successful a story must have a substantial agreement between character and action. This is a matter of conception. Here we are discussing methods that lie outside the strict character-plot interaction, but support it in a variety of subtle ways. These are matters of technique.

  Techniques of Foreshadowing

  Foreshadowing devices have the effect of enhancing the inevitability of the action, usually without destroying suspense or tension—in fact, correctly used, foreshadowing can enhance those effects too. What foreshadowing does is prepare in advance for events that will follow later in the story, often in ways that will not be fully understood by the reader until the story is completed, if then. For while devices of foreshadowing may sometimes be very apparent, at other times it is necessary to go back into a story to see what methods were used to make its final effects convincing.

  in description. A passage describing the place where action in a story is about to take place establishes the setting, but the description can also be colored so as to evoke a mood appropriate to the action which follows. The mood is evoked by use of words—adjectives or nouns or adverbs which are dolorous or cheerful or whatever; by use of metaphors and similes; by use of images and symbols—whether snakes slithering underfoot or autumn leaves falling overhead, or some such image less conspicuous and obvious. The very sound of the language, as in "snakes slithering," may contribute. Also, passages describing a character's appearance of course help establish characterization in a story, but the description can be colored in such a way as also to evoke an intimation of the action that is to follow. Whether "put in" consciously or unconsciously by the writer, whether "noted" consciously or unconsciously by the reader, the language and metaphor and imagery of a successful passage of description in a story will have an effect beyond that of simple exposition, an effect that is usually preparation for what will follow later.

  in symbol. The use of imagery in descriptive passages is only one of innumerable ways that symbol can be used to prepare the reader for the events of the action. Many stories have many levels and kinds of symbolism that contribute not only to the whole meaning and unity of the work, but also to making the action convincing. A broken bowl, for instance, may prepare for the subsequent crackup of a character. Symbols of violence may prepare for violence. Symbols of redemption may prepare for redemption. And there is too the common practice of patterning the whole structure of a story of modern life on some ancient myth or legend—the central symbol of the story could be, say, the imprisoned princess, or the myth of Daphne and Apollo—and the narrative of the myth intimates to the reader what course the narrative of the story will take.

  in parallelism. Here the plot may be said to be helping itself. By establishing a parallel to the circumstances of the plot, either by similar subplot or some other device of plot pattern or simply by referring to similar cases or instances, the author may contribute not only to symmetry in his work, but also to a sense of universality in the application of his theme, thereby helping to make the events of the action convincing to the reader.

  in chronological inversion. By use of one or another of the devices of plot pattern—by some flashback technique or by framing the story in more recent action, or whatever—the writer may have made his ending apparent to begin with, so that the story is a working out of the why and the how of the action that resulted in an outcome already known. But this is indeed foreshadowing with a vengeance.

  in dialogue. The use of dialogue to accomplish exposition is usually disastrous; but it is effectively used to establish characterization, and at the same time it can carry some suggestion or intimation of action to follow. However random the conversation may seem, what characters talk about amongst themselves in successful fiction is never irrelevant to the rest of the story. When they talk about events of the action it is easy to see ways in which dialogue may help prepare for what follows: the connection may be so direct as a simple statement by a character as to his intentions, or so contrived as an inadvertent slip of speech. But equally useful and certainly more subtle is foreshadowing achieved by an apparently random and irrelevant conversation among characters. Such a conversation—all that reminiscing at the dinner party about the beauty of a dead tenor's voice, for instance, in James Joyce's "The Dead," or the discussion about Lazarus between Porfiri and Raskolnikov in Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment —will invariably have some thematic or symbolic or parallel relationship, in successful fiction, to events that are to follow.

  in "sequentiality" or "progression. "A story may set up in the very first line an emotional effect suggestive of the ending and appropriate to it, but it may be that a sequence of change may better prepare the reader for what is to happen. A series of episodes or scenes is presented as parallel or alike in some way that marks them as establishing a sequence, but differing from one another progressively in some significant direction. One can trace in even so very short a story as Irwin Shaw's "All the Girls in Their Summer Dresses" the stages of a steady progression downward from the elated opening as the couple walks on sunny Fifth Avenue to the depression they feel in the bar at the end. Once established as pointing in a given direction, a sequence of change can be expected to continue in that direction; and this expectation can contribute importantly to a sense of inevitability about the course of the action.

  in tone. The author's tone is often the single most important way a reader has of knowing what to expect of a story. In stories presented in the omniscient-author manner, the reader may very often be given a direct statement from the author about what events are to follow. But even in stories where the point-of-view method used "forbids" the author to obtrude his views directly, his tone can be discerned in phrasings, in language, in parallels or ironies of plot, in the authorial attitude implicit in the way characterization is rendered, and in fact in every aspect of the story, from the smallest point of style to the whole ethical overtone apparent in the work. The tone of the story gives us a good idea of what directio
n the action will take, just as we recognize whether what a person is about to say to us is serious or not by the tone of voice he uses. Tone in fiction is describable: we say the tone of a story is tragic, or it is satiric, or it is sentimental, or whatever. Authors, especially nowadays, will shift tone in a story for special reasons and to achieve special effects. But by and large a consistency of tone, or at any rate a control of tone, is the author's best way of preparing a reader for an appropriate turn of events in his story.

  in theme. Theme, or meaning, in fiction is of course closely related to tone. Explicitness of theme seldom occurs in a successful story: a story will be much more than any "moral" that can be abstracted from it. Nevertheless, statement of the theme of a story may sometimes appear in it: sometimes in the very first sentence; sometimes in so explicit a form as an adage or axiom or aphorism; sometimes less explicitly but still clearly in the form of a metaphor or symbol or fable. In such a case all that follows in the story may, for the alert reader, be just a working out of what the author or narrator said he'd show him in the first place.

  in various choric devices. The chorus is a device of the drama, of the Greek drama originally, where a group not participating in the action offered comment on it and explanation of it in sung verse. Dramatists since have found various ways of integrating the choric functions into the play itself. The soliloquy, for instance, is one device found (although scarcely less awkward) to take over the choric function of explaining a character's secret motivations. Of course the fiction writer can explain motivation in direct exposition (depending on his point-of-view method), and the fiction writer has far fewer problems about exposition of the past than the dramatist. But the chorus in drama also looked into the future and gave the audience intimations of what to expect. Shakespeare assigns this function to a semichorus, like the witches who predict what will happen in Macbeth, or to a reliable single voice—like Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra or Kent in Lear —whose judgments on the action and whose predictions of the consequences are presented as reliable. An actual chorus is sometimes used in fiction — there's the group of semicomic rustics in Thomas Hardy's Woodlanders, whose comments and predictions about the principals are again reliable—but it is, needless to say, a very awkward device.