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The World of Yesterday: Conrad, European History, and Napoleonic Legend

Richard Niland

in Conrad and History

This chapter looks at Conrad's writing during the Great War as his response to the conflict. It then turns its attention to Conrad's lifelong obsession with Napoleon Bonaparte, exploring Conrad's ... More

This chapter looks at Conrad's writing during the Great War as his response to the conflict. It then turns its attention to Conrad's lifelong obsession with Napoleon Bonaparte, exploring Conrad's representations of Napoleon throughout his career and culminating with his sustained effort to represent the Napoleonic era in his final works. The chapter places Conrad's interest in Napoleon in a French Romantic literary tradition, drawing comparisons between Conrad's work and that of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. The chapter argues that Conrad's view of Napoleon shifts in response to the First World War. The critical attitude to the French Emperor and his complex position in European and Polish culture seen in A Personal Record and ‘Autocracy and War’ is replaced with a more accepting view of Napoleonic greatness in The Rover and Suspense, one still treated, of course, with Conrad's characteristic scepticism.Less

Suspense and The Novel of Sensation

Susan Jones

in Conrad and Women

This chapter explores Conrad's late works in relation to an earlier popular form of women's writing: the sensation novel of the 1860s and 1870s. By comparing Conrad's final, unfinished novel ... More

This chapter explores Conrad's late works in relation to an earlier popular form of women's writing: the sensation novel of the 1860s and 1870s. By comparing Conrad's final, unfinished novel Suspense, and the sensation fiction of Mary Elizabeth Braddon, particularly Lady Audley's Secret (1862), this chapter shows the extent to which Conrad was indebted to the methods of female sensationalism right up to the end of his life.Less

Entering the dark dismal middle

Deborah Chester

in The Fantasy Fiction Formula

The second act of a novel, or the middle of a story of any length, is where plot momentum typically slows down and often the novice writer loses interest, becomes lost, and may even abandon the ... More

The second act of a novel, or the middle of a story of any length, is where plot momentum typically slows down and often the novice writer loses interest, becomes lost, and may even abandon the project. Numerous strategies used to fill the middle include juggling story plates, keeping conflict progressive, increasing suspense, introducing or concluding subplots, shifting viewpoints, building to a large central story event, and revealing hidden and back story. Above all, writers should remember that writing a novel is a process dependent on solid writing craft, and they should trust that process to carry them safely through.Less

Triangulating Aesthetic Experience

Murray Smith

in Aesthetic Science: Connecting Minds, Brains, and Experience

Among the various possible targets of a science of aesthetics, the study of aesthetic experience throws up particular challenges, relating to the much debated question of the scientific tractability ... More

Among the various possible targets of a science of aesthetics, the study of aesthetic experience throws up particular challenges, relating to the much debated question of the scientific tractability of consciousness in general. In this essay I seek to undermine scepticism about this possibility by first underlining how aesthetic experience depends on objective, quantifiable features of the world. Building on this foundation, I argue for the integration and triangulation of phenomenological, psychological and neurological evidence pertaining to aesthetic experience. The method of triangulation is exemplified through the exploration of anomalous suspense and empathy. Along the way, the essay warns against too heavy a reliance on neural evidence, and notes the importance of ‘subpersonal’ phenomena to a science of aesthetic experience.Less

Epic Theater versus Film Noir: Bertolt Brecht and Fritz Lang’s Anti-Nazi Film Hangmen Also Die

Ehrhard Bahr

in Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism

When American newspapers reported the assassination of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in May 1942, Bertolt Brecht and Fritz Lang immediately seized upon the idea of writing a script ... More

When American newspapers reported the assassination of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in May 1942, Bertolt Brecht and Fritz Lang immediately seized upon the idea of writing a script for a hostage film. Only two months after the assassination, Brecht pasted into his diary a newspaper clipping of July 28 that announced the production of Never Surrender, a film with a Czechoslovakian locale. The film, to be produced by Arnold Pressburger and directed by Fritz Lang, would prominently feature the character of Heydrich the Hangmen. This chapter discusses Brecht's concept of “dialectic theater” and the principles of film noir as they were employed by Lang in his anti-Nazi film Hangmen Also Die. Brecht had developed the story together with Lang and believed that the film would be constructed in the manner of “epic theater,” but he did not realize that film noir, although dialectical in its story line and manipulation of reality, was based on suspense and surprise, which were anathema to dialectic theater.Less

Directing the Gaze in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries

Luca Giuliani

in Image and Myth: A History of Pictorial Narration in Greek Art

This chapter discusses a handicap possessed by narrative images—that of being incapable of structuring the process of their reception as a temporal sequence. As opposed to storytelling by means of ... More

This chapter discusses a handicap possessed by narrative images—that of being incapable of structuring the process of their reception as a temporal sequence. As opposed to storytelling by means of words, where the listener has no option but to allow the narrator to lead him or her through the plot and place them in a state of suspense, it is very difficult for an image to evoke such suspense in its beholders. In the late sixth century , however, Attic vase painters began developing strategies to compensate for this handicap. The problem that presents itself here concerns the relationship of images to time—although, as will be shown later in this chapter, the focus of the artists themselves was on the dramatic quality of the scene rather than the temporal aspect.Less

The Presentation of the Supernatural – ‘Strange things I have in head’

Rebekah Owens

in Macbeth

This chapter focuses on how Roman Polanski exploited violence that can engender a physical response in the audience. It analyses how the feel of violence and emotional response it provokes provide ... More

This chapter focuses on how Roman Polanski exploited violence that can engender a physical response in the audience. It analyses how the feel of violence and emotional response it provokes provide one of the key ingredients that make Polanki's Macbeth a horror film. It also shows how Polanski very cleverly used the traditions of the Gothic horror film to raise an expectation of something supernatural is about to happen. The chapter describes the sight of alternative truths on signs of the supernatural that punctuated Macbeth as the audience are led by Polanski's cinematic sleight-of-hand into thinking the film is about a numinous force controlling the affairs of the humans. It points out Polanski's clever play on concessions to beliefs in the creation of an atmosphere of dreadful suspense.Less

‘What is that… is that a man in there… or something?’

Jez Conolly

in The Thing

This chapter discusses how the Thing in human form is ultimately the greatest instigator of fear. Simply not knowing who is who, but knowing what happens when a Thing is hidden inside a man ... More

This chapter discusses how the Thing in human form is ultimately the greatest instigator of fear. Simply not knowing who is who, but knowing what happens when a Thing is hidden inside a man contributes to the film's suspenseful, horrific effectiveness. The chapter gives a brief history of plant-based monsters on the big screen and how the The Thing might be part-plant. It discusses how the word 'man' on the tagline of The Thing may actually refer to 'mankind' which suggests a rapid and complete subsuming of all human life on Earth should the organism be allowed to reach civilization. The chapter relates the characters and how they are constructed to the political atmosphere at the time the movie was released citing the Cold War and the rising fear of Communism in the United States. It also discusses the gender politics that play out in the film.Less

Sisters (1973)

Douglas Keesey

in Brian De Palma's Split-Screen: A Life in Film

This chapter chronicles a shift in De Palma's films with Sisters (1973), which marked a departure of influences from Godard to Hitchcock, and a change of genres from political satire to the ... More

This chapter chronicles a shift in De Palma's films with Sisters (1973), which marked a departure of influences from Godard to Hitchcock, and a change of genres from political satire to the psychological suspense thriller. Having worked episodic, freewheeling narratives, handheld tracking shots, and semi-improvisational dialogue into his previous films, he decided to try his hand at a tighter script, a more structured plot (one that was carefully storyboarded) and experiments in editing. His low-budget comedies had been shot in long takes for efficiency's sake, which De Palma believed made them come across as “long and talky. It bothers me. I like films that use cuts to build suspense.” Cuts—related to both montage and murder—would certainly be central to Sisters.Less

Raising Cain (1992)

Douglas Keesey

in Brian De Palma's Split-Screen: A Life in Film

This chapter marks another comeback for De Palma, this time in a return to a genre in which he feels most at home—the suspense thriller. In Raising Cain (1992), De Palma also goes home in another ... More

This chapter marks another comeback for De Palma, this time in a return to a genre in which he feels most at home—the suspense thriller. In Raising Cain (1992), De Palma also goes home in another sense, because the film turns out to be very much about his own family, present and past. In Raising Cain, Carter (John Lithgow) is a child psychologist who is taking time off from his practice in order to remain at home and observe the growth of his daughter, Amy. De Palma himself had recently become a father for the first time. In addition, Michael Powell's film Peeping Tom is cited as another important influence in Raising Cain, as it depicts a powerful doctor-father whose influence proves destructive—a figure seen time and again in De Palma's other works.Less

Paleontology in Parts

Gowan Dawson

in Show Me the Bone: Reconstructing Prehistoric Monsters in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America

This chapter explores how the law of correlation became inextricably entwined with Victorian Britain’s most distinctive and prevalent mode of publication: serialization. Owen’s celebrated ... More

This chapter explores how the law of correlation became inextricably entwined with Victorian Britain’s most distinctive and prevalent mode of publication: serialization. Owen’s celebrated reconstructions of prehistoric creatures from just fragmentary parts were published sequentially in serial form, and rendered considerably more remarkable and compelling by the suspense and anticipation involved. Owen, at the same time, was particularly enthralled by the dynamics of serial fiction and his literary reading practices shed important light on his Cuvierian paleontological procedures. This connection between correlation and serialization was one that was also recognized by many of the leading serial novelists of the period including William Makepeace Thackeray and Henry James, who adopted metaphors from paleontology to describe their own authorial practices.Less

Plot Illustrated

Claire M. L. Bourne

in Typographies of Performance in Early Modern England

Chapter 4 argues that techniques of illustrating early modern plays were designed to correspond to the effects those same plays were said to have had in performance. It studies the careful ... More

Chapter 4 argues that techniques of illustrating early modern plays were designed to correspond to the effects those same plays were said to have had in performance. It studies the careful composition of custom-made woodcuts in a trio of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher quartos: The Maid’s Tragedy (1619), A King and No King (1619), and Philaster (1620). These plays cemented Beaumont and Fletcher’s widely acknowledged reputation for creating a pleasurable sense of not-knowing for playgoers through clever plotting. The title-page images present seemingly contradictory but equally viable forecasts of the plays’ endings and enhance readerly uncertainty through visual paradox. By contrast, the engravings made for the 1711 edition of Beaumont and Fletcher’s Works depicted single, isolated moments. In step with the resurgence of neoclassical principles of dramatic decorum in the late seventeenth century, these engravings attempted to unify readers’ attention where the earlier woodcuts had sought to confuse it to pleasing effect.Less

Are you sitting (un)comfortably? Sound, horror and radio

Richard J. Hand

in Listen in terror: British horror radio from the advent of broadcasting to the digital age

A detailed analysis of BBC Radio's most famous horror radio show in the 1940s onwards. The most significant and long-running horror series in the history of British radio is Appointment with Fear ... More

A detailed analysis of BBC Radio's most famous horror radio show in the 1940s onwards. The most significant and long-running horror series in the history of British radio is Appointment with Fear (1943-55). This series was established following the phenomenal success of the CBS radio series Suspense in the US. The writer John Dickson Carr had played a central role in establishing Suspense and it was his idea to transfer the formula to the UK. Dickson Carr contributed numerous of his own Suspense scripts for Appointment with Fear, but the series also featured some excellent examples of adaptation including dramatizations of fiction by Edgar Allan Poe and others.Less

Some Ancient Views on Narrative, its Structure and Working

René Nünlist

in Defining Greek Narrative

A prominent characteristic of Greek narrative is the critical literature that reflected on it. The scholia especially can fill out the brief treatment of the narrative genre in Aristotle's Poetics ... More

A prominent characteristic of Greek narrative is the critical literature that reflected on it. The scholia especially can fill out the brief treatment of the narrative genre in Aristotle's Poetics Chapter 23. Despite their generic differences, epic and tragedy present similar narrative issues. Starting from question ‘where to begin?’ ancient critics discussed issues such as plot structure or the selection of suitable topics (what to include and omit). A related concern was how to create and maintain suspense (or put negatively: how to avoid boredom and surfeit; scholia contain practical recommendations on how to reach this goal. identify similiarities and differences in how this is done in each genre in general and in specific texts/plays in particular.Less

Actions, Disjunctions, and Passions in Graphic Narratives: Narrative Virtualities in

Benjamim Picado and Jônathas Miranda de Araújo

in The Comics of Hergé: When the Lines Are Not So Clear

This chapter fuses ideas from Roland Barthes and Thierry Groensteen to examine the use of moments of mundanity between turning points in a story. Its insights have implications for the construction ... More

This chapter fuses ideas from Roland Barthes and Thierry Groensteen to examine the use of moments of mundanity between turning points in a story. Its insights have implications for the construction of both suspense and humor, two emotions in which Hergé’s books certainly excelled.Less

Introduction: Discovering the Body

Michael Ayers Trotti

in The Body in the Reservoir: Murder and Sensationalism in the South

This book begins by recounting the morning when Lysander Rose, the keeper of the old reservoir on the western edge of Richmond, Virginia, noticed a shoestring and a red glove near furrows that marred ... More

This book begins by recounting the morning when Lysander Rose, the keeper of the old reservoir on the western edge of Richmond, Virginia, noticed a shoestring and a red glove near furrows that marred the path at the southern end of the reservoir. Looking over into the water, he saw what at first appeared to be a floating log or a piece of refuse—or the flounce of a woman's dress and the leg of its wearer. Rose called to one of his laborers, and together they probed with a stick to be sure of what they had found. It was seven o'clock on the morning of March 14, 1885. It would be well past one o'clock on a Friday afternoon twenty-two months later before the horror, suspense, and fascination awakened by Rose's discovery began at last to subside.Less

Honeymoon Shocker

in Theater of the Mind: Imagination, Aesthetics, and American Radio Drama

During World War II, American radio started to earn the monicker “theater of the mind” as psychological themes filled the airwaves and new techniques were developed to convey them. Although many ... More

During World War II, American radio started to earn the monicker “theater of the mind” as psychological themes filled the airwaves and new techniques were developed to convey them. Although many serials had been fascinated with pseudopsychology long before the war, evening playhouses and serials began to work systematically on the theme of the mind only in the 1940s. Suspense anthologies became common on evening schedules and dream sequences proliferated on shows as diverse as The Weird Circle and The Lux Radio Theater. This chapter focuses on the radio plays of Lucille Fletcher to show how many radio dramatists in the 1940s abandoned the question of the nation in favor of the human capacity to persuade, inspire, and instruct. It examines how sound effects work in shockers, focusing on “The Hitch-Hiker.”Less

The Sources

Walter Raubicheck and Walter Srebnick

in Scripting Hitchcock: Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie

This chapter examines how Hitchcock and his writers transformed his chosen sources, revealing two tendencies which are important in understanding how the director and the three writers went about ... More

This chapter examines how Hitchcock and his writers transformed his chosen sources, revealing two tendencies which are important in understanding how the director and the three writers went about adapting their sources into films. The first tendency has to do with Hitchcock's attitude toward adaptation and the viability and literary stature of the works he chose; the second with the genres he characteristically drew from. Throughout his career, Hitchcock focused on source material—plays, novels, and short stories—that used to be called “suspense fiction” but today is usually classified by bookstores and reviewers as “crime novels,” sources tailor-made for his thrillers. This chapter thus analyzes the three novels on Hitchcock's filmic triptych is based: Robert Bloch's Psycho (1959), Daphne du Maurier's The Birds (1952), and Winston Graham's Marnie (1961).Less