Response to Richard Bausch's "1-900"

            From the opening lines of Richard Bausch’s “1-900,” it is blatantly obvious that it is the structure of the piece that makes it unique. Not only does the story avoid the usage of quotation marks, but also the entire piece is told in dialogue. There is no narrative voice to explain the situation or to provide the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Instead, everything that is normally explained by the narrative voice must come through the characters’ dialogue. How Sharon and John speak to each other, what they say (or don’t say), and how they phrase it all conveys the more intricate emotions and back stories that more traditional narrative forms would reveal through a narrative voice.

            Because “1-900” lacks a narrative voice, the reader is forced to fill in details that are normally provided for them. There are no physical descriptions, so the reader is able to imagine what John might look like. Is he tall or short? Fat or thin? Is he bald? The image of John that the reader creates for himself is influenced the things John says. Conversely, the meaning behind John’s words is colored by how the picture the reader creates of him. For instance, while reading “1-900,” I got the sense that John was a bit desperate for companionship. He has no one to talk to because everyone special in his life has abandoned him. This led me to picture John as a man of average height who is beginning to go bald and has a slight paunch, but overall, he is not unattractive. While his words led me to this imagining of him, it also helped me to feel sympathy for his situation. This imagining is also possible for Sharon. For Sharon, I drew her description mainly from the things she refrained from saying, which are indicated by ellipses. She refuses to give her age and is reluctant to talk about her personal life, especially her relationships. Because of this, to me, Sharon is a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties, who is moderately attractive, but lacks self-esteem, and as a result, does not take good care of herself.

            

Response to Denis Johnson's "Emergency"

Throughout his short story “Emergency,” Denis Johnson infuses his narration with a dream-like state. This, coupled with the fact that the narrator explicitly states that he regularly takes pills stolen from hospital cabinets, casts doubt on the credibility of the narrative voice, creating the perception that the narrator is unreliable.

This sense of an unreliable narrator is enforced by the voice calling into question his own memory of the events. This self-questioning is especially prevalent toward the end of the story. Following his description of the bunnies and the freak snowstorm, the narrative voice questions his recollection, saying, “Or maybe that wasn’t the time it snowed. Maybe it was the time we slept in the truck and I rolled over on the bunnies and flattened them. It doesn’t matter” (Johnson 392). He recognizes that in his memory, these should be two distinct events, yet in his preceding description of said events, the snowstorm, sleeping in the truck, and squishing the rabbits are all part of the same memory. Finishing his reflection with “It doesn’t matter” reveals that not only does the narrator realize that his memories are not reliable, he does not care whether or not he is mistaken in his recollection, thus further depleting his credibility as a reliable narrator.

His descent into unreliability mimics the normal progression of dreams. In dreams, things may start out normal and make sense, but by the end of the dream nothing makes sense. Sometimes things get put together that do not go together naturally; other times, the dream shifts from event to event without any gap or discernible change in time. By the end of “Emergency,” the narration has become so like a dream that the narrator is in a confused stupor, though whether it is a result of something wrong with him mentally or the result of his drug trip is not revealed.

Unreliable narrators are used for a specific reason. Under normal circumstances, the reader believes everything that the narrator tells them, for they have no other lenses through which to view the story. Therefore, when an unreliable narrator is introduced, it is done in order to shift a reader’s perception of things. Once the reader realizes that the narrator is unreliable, they will begin to view the story differently, interpreting things in such a way so as to compensate for the unreliability of the narrator, thus forcing the audience to draw conclusions without being directly handed information. Through the usage of an unreliable narrator, Johnson forces readers to draw conclusions about the narrator himself and how he views life.

A Flicker in the Night

I remember when I was a little kid, Mama always tucked me into bed at night. She’d kiss my forehead, pull the covers up under my chin, and turn on the small, squat TV on my dresser.

It was my favorite part of the day.

Mama had this perfume – it smelled like lavender and vanilla. Wherever she went, the smell followed, clinging to her like a mist. I’d lie in the soft, flickering glow of the TV, breathing deeply, listening to the low murmur of my parents’ voices and their own TV out in the living room.

It was peaceful. It was safe.

I remember how my eyelids grew heavy, sliding slowly over my eyes like raindrops down a window. Still, I forced myself to stay awake. But it wasn’t so I could watch the Disney movie Mama had turned on. I struggled to remain on the surface of consciousness so I’d be awake when Mama came back to check on me before she and Dad went to bed for the night.

She always came back.

She’d slowly push the door inward, being extra quiet so as not to wake me, and tiptoe across the room, avoiding the one floorboard that always squeaks when stepped on. Then the TV would blink off, plunging the room into darkness.

But Mama always found her way to my bed.

 I could smell her in the darkness as she came closer, laying a cool hand on my face to brush away my hair. I remember how I would pretend to float out of a light sleep, eyes flickering open slowly as she leaned down to kiss my forehead. She’d whisper softly in the night:

“Go back to sleep.”

She didn’t know that I stayed awake just to see her one more time before slipping into sleepy oblivion.

Last night, Mama went to bed one last time, but I wasn’t awake when she came in.

 The smell of her perfume lingers in my room. I lay awake, covers pulled up tightly under my chin.

I can’t sleep.

So I turn on the TV.

Response to Lydia Davis' "Television"

            In her short story “Television,” Lydia Davis creates a style of writing, which, through plain sentences that border on lacking any description whatsoever, mimics the mindlessness that completely swallows a person when they watch TV for hours on end. Because the sentence really don’t have much description to them, the reader can move through the words and sentences without having to put much thought into what is actually happening within the story. The numbered sections into which Davis splits the story further this stylistic choice. The short sections, which jump from one topic to the next, are reminiscent of how TV programming works: television shows are often short, and more often than not, the show that follows in the programming has nothing to do with the show preceding it.

            While her narrative style mimics the experience of watching TV, Davis does include descriptions of the actual act of watching TV. She does this without actually delving into specifics; thus, a reader has the ability to personally relate to her description of TV watching without being alienated by specific details, such as TV show names or certain characters. However, her lack of details is as much a means of avoiding alienating her audience as it is a way to keep readers from criticizing her work for being unlike their experience. In modern American society, watching TV has become a wide spread activity. Thus, many of Davis’ readers are likely familiar with what is being described. They know what it is like to “listen to the ads until [they] are exhausted” (Davis 209). They understand the feeling of “[wanting] to be part of it all” (Davis 209). Because Davis knows that the majority, if not all, of her audience is already going to be familiar with feelings associated with watching TV, she does not have to spend time on detailed descriptions. Instead, she can move forward and focus on the message of her story.

            I found Davis’ style compelling because she was able to get the experience of watching TV across without actually having to explain it. This is something I would like to experiment with in my writing, especially when dealing with common experiences. One way to create an experience without describing every minute detail is to write in such a way that it is the writing itself, rather than the actual words, that provides the underlying feelings associated with the experience.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
- Winston Churchill