LAUGHTER
According to Mr. Dobie, “Laughter” was a work of the imagination in every detail. It had nowhere a starting point from reality, though—as he says—he now and then draws a character from life, such as that of Josef in “Four Saturdays,” and he occasionally shapes an incident to the needs of the story, as he did in “The Failure.” In “The Failure” and other stories, however, as in “Where the Road Forked,” (Harper’s, June, 1917), he states that the incident was really a mere pivot or peg on which he hung a cloak of almost pure imagination.
In regard to his maintaining his angle of narration so perfectly, he says this phase of his craft is rather instinctive. “Even before I became conscious of the force of a single point of view I somehow managed to achieve it without thinking about it at all.”
Plot. The story being a psychological study of a man who was untrue to himself and paid the penalty, one might expect to find a lack of external incident. Here the author accomplishes the difficult thing in that he has developed an outer action, which thus objectively exploits the mental processes.
Initial Incident. (Anticipated by the cumulative effect of the Italian’s playing.) Suvaroff visits his next door neighbor to remonstrate against the accordion. He learns that the Italian fears death at the hands of Flavio Minetti, and he goes without stating the object of his visit. (Notice that the theme is struck in the Italian’s reason for fear: he had laughed at Minetti.)
Steps toward the Climax: Suvaroff betrays to Minetti the whereabouts of the Italian. Before he does so, Minetti warns him of the results of his so doing, thus preparing for the next period of the action. Minetti kills the Italian. Suvaroff sleeps. He goes to breakfast; he hears a man has been murdered. During the day he leaves the wine-shop where he plays the violin (a significant outer act reflecting his mental state). His mind wanders; he thinks he dreamed last night. Arriving at his rooms he finds the Italian’s mother. She divulges that her son played to give pleasure to Suvaroff. Minetti enters and bestows money on the old woman. Suvaroff begs the hunchback, “Tell me in what fashion do these people laugh at you?” (This is a minor climax, one stage of the turning of Suvaroff’s fortunes. But since he is not yet able to laugh, his life is in no danger from Minetti. Had he not laughed, he would have lived.) Minetti begs Suvaroff to go away; but he declares that he cannot. Suvaroff finds a squalid wine-shop where he sits watching the shadows. He finds he may learn to laugh at them, but not “at a man’s soul.” He buys a pistol. Minetti says he will never use it. He tells Minetti of the wine-shop pictures. While Suvaroff sits studying the pictures a new one appears.
Dramatic Climax: He laughs, then turns and sees Minetti.
Steps toward the Climax of Action: Suvaroff goes home, undresses deliberately, and goes to bed—knowing he will sleep.
Climax of Action: He hears the steps pattering along the hall, and draws the bed-clothes higher.
Dénouement: Constructed by the reader, who has, however, no choice.
Setting. San Francisco. “Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are ‘story cities’—New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco.”—Frank Norris is thus quoted by O. Henry at the beginning of “A Municipal Report,” which (frequently proclaimed O. Henry’s best story) has its setting in Nashville. How many of the stories in this collection have their settings in New York? in San Francisco? What other localities are represented? What do you conclude?
How has Mr. Dobie kept setting before the reader? Is it the same city as Mrs. Atherton uses in “The Sacrificial Altar”? Has it the same atmosphere?
Characterization. Are Suvaroff and Minetti “living” characters? Is Suvaroff, in the beginning, obsessed? Does the obsession culminate in monomania?
Minetti’s physical self is given to the reader from Suvaroff’s angle, which angle is consistently used throughout. What is Suvaroff’s personal appearance? How do you account for your answer? Whose mental processes are not exploited? Why?
Why is the Italian’s mother introduced as a background character?
Details. The smaller features of the story reveal also the hand of the craftsman: the use of night, the wine-shop, ugliness, the shadows, and the arrangement of the steps to what seems an inevitable ending. “Seems”; for Mr. Dobie has a theory “that there is no such thing as an inevitable ending. Any opening situation may work out fifty ways.” Is it possible, after certain steps in the action, to produce an ending other than inevitable?
How is the cold inflexibility of Minetti made convincing?
General. “In my days of apprenticeship,” Mr. Dobie says, “I planned my story out in detail and did much re-writing. I think one must do this at the beginning. But if one finally evolves an unconscious technique which does away with a scenario I think it makes for more spontaneous writing.... But it is dangerous to advise methods. My point in dwelling on the virtues of ‘planless stories’ is to encourage those who find their salvation along these lines and who are uncertain as to whether such a method will lead anywhere.... I started ‘Laughter’ in September, 1916, wrote about five pages, got stuck, put it away, dug it up three or four months later and in about three weeks carried it to a conclusion....”
“It is rather hard to give a definition of a short story. I should say briefly that a short story is the reaction of a character or characters to a particular incident, circumstance or crisis. Obviously, as its name implies, there should be economy of line. Perhaps the shortest successful story on record is as follows:
‘Three wise men of Gotham went to sea in a bowl.
If the bowl had been stronger, my tale had been longer.’
“This narrative has also the virtue of suggestion: the greater the suggestion, the greater the story. In other words, a story is artistically successful in proportion to the collaboration exacted from the reader.”