Secret Motivations

 Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Often, in horror stories and films, a secret, past or present, drives and directs protagonists' or antagonists' actions:

Schizophrenia (Norman Bates [Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film adaptation of Robert Bloch's 1959 novel Psycho], Brian De Palma's 1980 film Dressed to Kill, and David Calloway [John Polson's 2005 film Hide and Seek]);

crimes of various kinds (Marion Crane's adultery and theft and Norman Bates's murder in Psycho; Grace Newman's murders in Alejandr Amenábar's 2001 film The Others; Freddy Kreuger's murders in Wes Craven's 1984 film A Nightmare on Elm Street; the teenage friends' murder in Jim Gillespie's 1997 film adaptation of Lois Duncan's 1973 novel I Know What You Did Last Summer; Horrocks's wife's adultery with Raut in H. G. Wells's 1895 short story “The Cone”;

deceit or betrayal (Marion Crane's adultery and her theft of her employer's money in Psycho; the adultery of Horrocks's wife and lover Raut in “The Cone”; the teenage characters' attempt to cover up what they believed to be their killing of a man in I Know What You Did Last Summer);

sexual deviance (voyeurism in Michael Powell's 1960 film Peeping Tom, Victor Zarcoff's 2016 film 13 Cameras, and Psycho; lesbianism in Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel Rebecca and Shirley Jackson's 1959 Gothic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House; transvestism in Hitchcock's Psycho, Brian De Palma's 1980 film Dressed to Kill, Jonathan Deeme's 1991 film adaption of Thomas Harris's 1988 novel The Silence of the Lambs; and transgenderism in Robert Hiltzik's 1983 film Sleepaway Camp; and sadism (Robert Harmon's 1986 film The Hitcher);

past psychological trauma (the denial of Angela Baker true sex and gender in Sleepaway Camp and Carrie White's victimization by high school bullies in Stephen King's 1979 novel Carrie and Brian De Palma's 1974 film adaptation of the book);

vengeance (many horror stories and movies, including Edgar Allan Poe's 1846 short story “The Cask of the Amontillado,” “The Cone,” A Nightmare on Elm Street, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and a host of others); and

suggestibility (the narrator-protagonits's runaway imagination in H. G. Wells's 1894 short story “The Red Room” and, possibly, the protagonist of Bram Stoker's 1891 short story “The Judge's House” and his 1914 short story “Dracula's Guest”).

As we can see, the same story or film may contain multiple instances of secret motivators: Hitchcock's Psycho contains two characters, Marion Crane and Norman Bates, who, between them, are driven by no fewer than four types of secrets: schizophrenia, crime (murder), sexual deviance (voyeurism) (Bates) and deceit or betrayal (adultery), and crime (theft) (Crane).

On the surface, such characters appear to be normal and to be motivated by ordinary drives, such as the need to nurture, the pursuit of profit, affiliation, pleasure, leisure, generosity, and kindness. The normal, apparent motivations of these characters seem to “explain” them; in reality, however, they merely disguise their true desires, aims, and purposes; they are red herrings, not clues, to the nature of the characters, fictitious personas that allow the characters to act without arousing suspicion. Marion Crane is a thief, but she poses as a traveler. The protagonist of Peeping Tom and the landlord in 13 Cameras are both voyeurs and murderers, but the former poses as a photographer, the latter as nothing more than a landlord. Horrocks, in “The Cone,” is a vengeful victim of adultery, but he poses as a tour guide of sorts. The schizophrenic in Hide and Seek poses as a nothing more than a psychiatrist who has his daughter Emily's psychological welfare at heart.

The disguise of normality is also disarming. It suggests that dangerous characters are either harmless of beneficial: a motel owner, teenage friends, scientists, a camper, a mother, a doctor. The disguise of normality makes it easier for such characters to stalk and slay their prey. Indeed, such characters can even appear to be the victim, rather than the victimizer, to him- or herself, if not to the public (although they often appear to be the victim to the public as well, at least for a time): David Calloway and Grace Newman are examples.

Stories and films in which a secret is at the heart of one or more characters, whether protagonist or antagonist or both, suggest a threefold division of plot: Part I: Appearance is maintained through the adopted persona; Part II: the character's secret is discovered or revealed; and Part III: reality is exhibited as the character's true identity is perceived.

The Effects of Loss as a Paradigm of Literary Criticism for Horror Fiction

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Horror fiction is a literature of loss. The losses, of course, are significant: no one has ever written a novel or produced a film about a character stubbing his toe.

Often, the losses are physical (a loss of ability or a loss of limb) or personal (a loss of freedom or a loss of dignity).

However, losses may also be psychological, or emotional (a loss of identity or a loss of sanity). 

Likewise, losses may be social (a loss of kinship or a loss of family members or friends).

Other losses may be spiritual (a loss of faith or a loss of salvation). The losses depicted in horror fiction result from a variety of causes, but they are established, most often, through particular situations or specific settings.

A loss introduces a type of change, physical, personal, psychological, social, religious, or otherwise. Often, a preliminary loss, significant in itself, is a prelude to another, greater, perhaps vital, loss—for example, death. A loss may also be a test of love, of faith, or of a relationship.

Literary criticism based upon the loss suffered by the main character (and, to a lesser degree, other characters) must begin by identifying the particular loss that the protagonist has suffered. What type of loss occurred? When and where did the loss occur? Why did the loss occur? How does the loss change the character? (Most horror stories largely ignore the last question, although the question of what caused the loss to occur may, on occasion, be more important than any of the other questions.)

In other words, in a critical analysis of a horror story, whether it takes place upon the page or the soundstage, should be applied to all the elements of fiction. (The answer to the question “HOW?” typically represents the story's turning point, or climax. Often, it helps to start the “WHY?” answer with the infinitive “to.” if an element is unimportant in summarizing the story, it can be omitted.) 

Here are a few examples.

Question	Answer
WHO lost?	Carietta (“Carrie”) White
WHAT was lost?	dignity
WHEN did the loss occur?
WHERE did the loss occur?	her high school prom
HOW did the loss occur?	pigs' blood is dumped on her
WHY did the loss occur?	to humiliate her

Carrie (novel) by Stephen King

After identifying each element in relation to the question regarding the loss suffered by the protagonist, write a single sentence that summarizes the plot. In doing so, the order of the answers may be rearranged:

Carrie White loses her dignity when bullies dump pigs' blood on her to humiliate her at her high school prom.

Then, in another single sentence, explain how the protagonist's loss changed him or her:

Carrie dies after she avenges herself against her tormentors.

Question	Answer
WHO lost?	Carietta (“Carrie”) White
WHAT was lost?	dignity
WHEN did the loss occur?
WHERE did the loss occur?	her high school prom
HOW did the loss occur?	pigs' blood is dumped on her
WHY did the loss occur?	to humiliate her

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

A narrator is arrested when he hallucinates after murdering an old man in his home to rid himself of his victim's “evil eye.”

Unable to escape his guilty conscience, the narrator suffers psychological torment.

(Note: Although it seems that the narrator loses his sanity in the story, he does not; he has lost his sanity before the story begins; it is his freedom that he loses when the police arrest him.)

Question	Answer
WHO lost?	Nancy Thompson
WHAT was lost?	friends
WHEN did the loss occur?
WHERE did the loss occur?	hometown
HOW did the loss occur?	attacks by Freddy Krueger, a supernatural killer
WHY did the loss occur?	to avenge his death at the hands of his victim's parents

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Nancy Thompson loses her friends to attacks by Freddy Krueger, a supernatural killer, who murders his victims to avenge his own death at their parents' hands.

Nancy survives Krueger's attacks, but she is traumatized by her experience, even as she lives with guilt for her involvement in the attempted murder of her stalker.

Question	Answer
WHO lost?	Norman Bates
WHAT was lost?	identity
WHEN did the loss occur?
WHERE did the loss occur?	Bates Motel and house
HOW did the loss occur?	arrest for murdering Marion Crane and private detective Milton Arbogast
WHY did the loss occur?	to avenge his death at the hands of his victim's parents

Psycho (movie)

Norman Bates loses his identity, becoming his “mother,” after he murders Marion Crane after she checks into the Bates Motel so he cannot have a relationship with her and murders private detective Milton Arbogast to prevent him from discovering the truth about Marion's disappearance.
 

Norman ceases to exist as himself, becoming completely absorbed by his alternate personality.

Question	Answer
WHO lost?	Julie James
WHAT was lost?	friends; security
WHEN did the loss occur?
WHERE did the loss occur?	hometown
HOW did the loss occur?	murders by intended murder victim
WHY did the loss occur?	to avenge himself against the victim's attempt to murder him

I Know What You Did Last Summer (movie)

Julie James loses her friends and her security after their intended murder victim kills them and threatens her to avenge himself.

Julie lives in constant fear of being killed at any moment.

As these examples suggest, the theme of horror fiction is the effects of loss.

A few of the other many types of loss that may occur in horror fiction, their effects, and their contexts include:

Type of Loss	Possible Effects	Context
Perception (i. e., blindness, deafness, tactile insensitivity, inability to smell, inability to taste)	helplessness; loss of self-confidence; timidity	situation or setting
Ability (e. g., mobility) (i. e., being bound, incarcerated, or trapped)	helplessness; loss of self-confidence; timidity	situation or setting
Assistance (i. e. emergency services), as a result of being isolated	helplessness; loss of self-confidence; timidity	situation or setting
Effectiveness (e. g., an amputation or a broken limb)	vulnerability; loss of self-confidence; timidity	situation
Sanity	vulnerability; confusion; poor judgment	situation
Control (e. g., as a result of demonic possession or being a patient)	autonomy; independence; confidence	situation
Family or friends	emotional and social support	situation

Horror Fiction: The Appeal of the Need for Autonomy

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

The need for autonomy is the need for personal independence, the need to direct one's own path, the need to take charge of one's own life, the need to be in charge of one's own destiny. As with the other fourteen “basic needs” Jib Fowles addresses in Mass Advertising as Social Forecast, advertisers (or horror writers) can appeal to the need for autonomy either by showing characters who are autonomous or “by invoking the loss of independence or self-regard.”

Probably one of the clearest examples horror fiction's tapping into readers' need for autonomy is Stephen King's first novel, Carrie (1974). It recounts the difficult childhood of adolescent Carietta (“Carrie”) White. Her mother, Margaret, is a fanatical Christian fundamentalist who projects her own personal and sexual insecurities onto her daughter, referring to Carrie's breasts as “dirty pillows” and suggesting Carrie is a slut because of her interest in boys. Margaret says Carrie is a hell-bound sinner certain to be damned if she doesn't watch her ways and reinforces her own dictates as to her own dictates with physical abuse. At school, Carrie, who is unpopular, is often treated cruelly and with contempt.

The onset of menstruation is a terrifying to Carrie, who is unprepared for its occurrence, her mother having taught her nothing about puberty and its effects. Her classmates taunt her, throwing tampons and sanitary napkins at her in the communal shower following physical education class, when Carrie begins to menstruate, shouting at her to “plug it up!”

King says he based Carrie on two schoolgirls he knew during his high school years:

One was a timid epileptic with a voice that always gurgled with phlegm. Her fundamentalist mother kept a life-size crucifix in the living room, and it was clear to King that the thought of it followed her down the halls.

The second girl was a loner who wore the same outfit every day, which drew cruel taunts.

King says he wondered what it was like for the first girl to grow up in a home like hers.

Without parental guidance and ostracized by her classmates as a social pariah, Carrie has no guidance (one of Fowles's fifteen “basic needs”), but she has enough courage to attempt to escape her mother's domineering influence and her schoolmates' cruelty as she attempts to establish autonomy, especially after she discovers she possesses telekinetic abilities.

When one of her tormentors repents of her cruel treatment of Carrie, asking her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, to escort Carrie to the prom, Carrie is overjoyed, despite her mother's insistence that going to the dance is a sinful “carnal” act, and she makes herself a red velvet dress. Margaret is afraid of her daughter, convinced that Carrie's telekinetic abilities prove that she is a witch. (Witchcraft, Margaret contends, runs in the family, appearing in every other generation.)

At first, things seem to go well at the prom, until one of Carrie's tormentors, Chris Hargensen, arranges with her boyfriend, Billy Nolan, to pour pigs' blood on Carrie and her date. In the process, Tommy is killed.

Humiliated, Carrie then launches her revenge, locking the students in the room, electrocuting several of them, and incinerating the rest. On her way home, she destroys much of her hometown, snapping power lines and destroying gas pumps to cause massive explosions.

At home, Margaret, believing her daughter to be possessed by the devil, attempts to stab Carrie to death, by Carrie thwarts her mother by stopping Margaret's heart. (in the film adaptation, Carrie kills Margaret by piercing her with knives in a parody of the crucifixion of Christ.) Thereafter, as she makes her way to the roadhouse at which she was conceived (according to Margaret, as the result of “marital rape”), Billy and Chris attempt to run over her with Billy's car, but she crashes their vehicle, killing her would-be murderers. Carrie dies of the mortal wound inflicted by her mother.

Sixteen-year-old Carrie, despite her mother's abusive treatment of her and her classmates' cruelty, attempts to gain independence, defying her mother as she adopts her own values and beliefs and to find acceptance at school by attending the prom with a popular boy. She also exchanges her drab attire for the red velvet dress she made especially for the occasion, a coming-out affair of sorts for the troubled teen. Despite Carrie's lack of parental guidance, the insecurities and fears her psychotic mother attempts to project onto her, and her schoolmates' ostracism and torment of her, Carrie sees that life is to be embraced, not feared, and she courageously attempts to exercise autonomy as she takes charge of herself and her own life.

King suggests that, despite such courage—and despite the paranormal powers Carrie possesses—his protagonist's efforts are in vain because several other “basic needs” have not been met, such as the need for affiliation, the need for nurture, and the need for guidance. Without the fulfillment of these needs, she is unable to satisfy the need for autonomy. By denying Carrie the fulfillment of her need for autonomy, King endorses the importance not only of this need but the others which support it.

Horror Fiction: The Appeal of the Need for Affiliation

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Stephen King's novels are prime examples of horror fiction that appeals to readers' need for affiliation. Many of his books primarily concern an individual child (Carrie, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Christine) or a group of individuals, often children (It) who've been rejected by their peers. (Sometimes, as in Under the Dome, 'Salem's Lot, Desperation, and The Regulators, the group consists of both adult and adolescent members.) His recurring theme seems to be that, in humanity's struggles against evil, brotherly love saves the day. When such love is absent, as in Carrie, the ultimate result is catastrophic; when present, as in most of King's novels, the “good guys” triumph.

According to Jib Fowles, whether a person feels included in or excluded by his or her social peers, advertisements which appeal to the need for affiliation are effective. In the former case, an advertisement's “images of companionship are compensation for what Americans privately lack”; in the latter instance, these images are affirmations of their fellowship with others. The same, it would seem, is apt to be true of fiction's portrayal of affiliated characters or the lack thereof in such instances as that of Carrie White.

Affiliation is more complex than it may seem. Quoting psychologist Henry Murray, Fowles writes:

. . . the need for affiliation consists of 24 desires “to draw near and enjoyably cooperate or reciprocate with another; to please and win affection of another; to adhere and remain loyal to a friend.” The manifestations of this motive can be segmented into several different types of affiliation, beginning with romance.

In King's novels, there is little romance; he tends to focus on cooperation, reciprocation, and loyalty, which is more relevant to the adolescent characters typical of his fiction. Even when adults play a relatively important part, as they do in such novels as Desperation, 'Salem's Lot, Under the Dome, and others, there is usually little or no romance between them. His families tend to be dysfunctional, as in Carrie, The Shining, Under the Dome, It, and others. King's main approach to employing the need for affiliation in his novels is friendship. 
 

Dean Koontz's theme is the same as King's: against evil, brotherly love will save the day. Unlike King, however, Koontz populates his fiction mostly with adults. When children are present, they're usually in the charge of an adult, rather than acting on their own, as King's more autonomous adolescents typically are. At least insofar as his earlier work is concerned (I stopped reading Koontz when he trotted out his Odd Thomas series), an alpha male and a damsel in distress are brought together through dangerous circumstances that appear, at first, to stem from different origins but are revealed to have sprung from the same cause, often the malevolent motives of a powerful cabal, government organization, or sociopathic serial killer (Chase, Whispers, The Eyes of Darkness, Midnight, The Good Guy).

Whether through friendships among children rejected by their peers or romance between a couple whom shared dangers unite against a common foe, the fiction of both King and Koontz, respectively, tap the need for affiliation Fowles identities as one of the fifteen such 'basic needs” that unite and motivate people everywhere. These writers' use of this appeal is one of the reasons their fiction is probably routinely on bestsellers' lists.

Home Sweet Home, or The End of Writer's Block

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

For most of us, home is _________________. We can fill in the blank with a variety of thoughts and feelings:

where the heart is

where one hangs one's hat

where one can be oneself

a refuge

a retreat

one's castle

We'd be likely to agree with most of these sentiments. That's one reason they've become cliches. A lot of people believe them, and a lot of people repeat them.

Being a cliché doesn't make an idea false, but it does make it common. When it comes to fiction, that's the problem. When it comes to fiction, we want something new, something different, something that's not commonplace. We want a new perspective, a new orientation, a new sense of ourselves and of other people and of our surroundings.

That's where quotations about “home” can help writers. By searching a website, such as BrainyQuote, we can look for uncommon, surprising, even astounding thoughts about home (or whatever other topic we happen to make the theme of a short story, a novel, a screenplay, or a poem.

Along the way, among the more ordinary thoughts we encounter on the topic, we can also get a sense of what “home” represents for individuals and what, in particular, they appreciate it. For example, Irina Shayk states, “Nothing is better than going home to family and eating good food and relaxing.” These interests can come in handy, too, in writing horror—or any other type of fiction.

In reading such quotations, we may find that people define “home” as being much greater than the house in which they live at present; some see “home” as their city or their country, some as the world, and still others as the “universe” or “heaven.” For some, it's a base of operations, for others a starting point, and for still others a point on a circle to which one always returns. Some says their homes, or their, families who live in them, “ground” them, while others believe their children inspire and improve them. For some, “home” is the soul's body or a temple of God. Rather than a retreat or a refuge, some find “home” a prison from which they escape, for intervals, to the city or the country.

When we contemplate the statements others have made about the topic, we should consider them from the perspective of a horror writer interested in developing a plot that centers upon the topic—home, in our example. For example, perhaps our antagonist will invade our protagonist's home, disrupting his or her home life and injuring or even killing one or more family members. (Despicable, I know, but at least, in a story, it's make-believe.)

This is one of the quotations about home on BrainyQuote that I found to be not only insightful and “different,” but also useful as the basis of a possible horror story plot:

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework. —Lily Tomlin

In the film After Midnight, college students visit a professor's house for lessons in fear, learning, as the movie poster puts it, “Terror has no curfew.”

Had Stephen King been responding to this quotation, as a writing prompt, the result may well have been his novella Apt Pupil, in which a schoolboy blackmails his teacher, whom the pupil discovers is a Nazi war criminal, into educating him about the nature of human evil. As the story's title suggests, he is an eager and adept student, eventually becoming a serial killer, just as his tutor resumes his killing victims.

What if the “something” the teacher gives our student isn't information or ideology, as in King's story, but something physical? What might such an object be, and what might the teacher expect our student, his or her charge to discover about the artifact? How is the object related to the student's home life, if, in fact, it is at all? For that matter, what is the student's life at home like? (Stephen King wondered this about a classmate of his whose mother was fanatical about her religious faith; the result was CarrieWhite.) And what about the teacher? Should the teacher be a man, a woman, or, perhaps something entirely different, such as an demon (old school) or an alien or a robot (new school)? The possibilities are as unlimited as our imaginations.

A quotation can suggest a lot, if we consider it from the proper perspective, as a man or woman with bad intentions regarding our characters, and apply to it the power of our own minds, hearts, and imaginations. Think of how many topics there are and of how many quotations exist about those topics. There's an inexhaustible supply, and no need, ever, to experience “writer's block”!

Ambrose Bierce: A New Hope for Horror Fiction?

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Like other literary genres, horror becomes, sooner or later, more lulling than chilling. The same formulas, repeated over and over, become tiresome. The originality of horror stories become mere banality, and where there was once a race of the blood through arteries, veins, and brain, there is now only but the yawn and the nod. Every so often, a genre needs to reinvent itself—or be reinvented—and horror is no exception.

Unfortunately, it is a rare talent, indeed, that can reshape, or even redirect, an entire genre of fiction. In horror, there are many would-be masters but few Hawthornes, Poes, Lovecrafts, and (at least, for a time) Kings.

What usually happens in such times is a falling away of the aficionados. Only the young, the inexperienced, and the desperate cling to a dying literary form. Others either stop reading fiction altogether or seek their pleasures in other genres or in more serious literature of a quality that stands the test of time.

Horror fiction has been moribund for some time, critics contend. The death vigil has been long and grievous. Now, perhaps, the cadaver stinks so badly that the truth cannot be any longer denied. Horror fiction, clearly, is dead.

At least, horror fiction as it has been known since its last revival, in the latter half of the twentieth century, which witnessed Robert Bloch's Psycho, Stephen King's Carrie, and William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist, among others.

Now, though, the chills—and, indeed, the thrills—are gone again, and, like the narrator of William Butler Yeats' “The Second Coming,” we await the coming of some new “rough beast,” yet to be born.

For a while, it seemed the marriage of horror and science fiction might save both genres. There was hope, after all, such films as Alien, Jurassic Park, and the remakes of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing, and The Fly suggested.

Of course, the wedding of such an unlikely couple was really nothing new. Such authors as Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, and even Stephen King had married fear and wonder before. But, for a while, anyway it seemed new, as resurgences often do.

Alas, those days, too, are gone.

We get merely more of the same, with writers revisiting old themes, characters we have met before, and places we have been in times long past. Thus, we get Dan Simmons' A Winter Haunting, the sequel to Summer of Night, Stephen King's Doctor Sleep, a sequel to The Shining, and Dean Koontz's endless series of self-parody, the Odd Thomas spectacle. Been there, done that.

After a long night, the faint illumination of first light seems to appear upon the far horizon. There seems to be the dimmest hope that a trickle, if not as tide, of resurgence may again moisten, if not inundate, the infertile shores of the wasteland that horror fiction has become. When the genre seems not almost dead but a goner for sure, there may be some last vestige of hope, and, if there is, we have another great writer of horror to thank for it, none other, ladies and gentlemen, than Ambrose Bierce.

I would explain, but, alas, I am too tired at the moment and will save the explanation for another time.

Perhaps. . . .

. . . if the interest doesn't flag. . . .

Discerning Meaning, or The Theme of the Story

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

One of the skills that we learn fairly early in our academic careers is how to spot the key idea of a passage such as a paragraph, an essay, or a book. Often, these passages are of non-fiction prose. We learn to look at the beginning of the paragraph, the chapter, or the book for a topic sentence, an introductory paragraph, or a foreword or preface. In shorter passages, we learn that the main idea may also be presented at the end of the paragraph. Seldom will we find it in the middle of the paragraph, however, because what is written first and last are emphatic, and what is presented between these two parts of the whole tends to get somewhat lost in the shuffle, as it were.

We also learn, eventually, to decipher such literary texts as short stories, novels, and poems. But, in doing so, we are taught to consider not any particular sentence or even any specific part of the work so much as the whole of the story, the novel, or the poem, for in the literature of the imagination, we learn, the meaning is in the whole, and not the parts. Fiction (and drama) ask us to fathom the meaning of an entire experience. Therefore, before we can interpret the significance of such a work, we must first summarize it. Then, we must consider the cause and effect of the experience, which is represented, in the literary work, as action or what we sometimes call the storyline.

Ask yourself what are the cause and the effect of each of the following storylines?

Father Damien, a priest, exorcises a preadolescent girl named Reagan MacNeil (The Exorcist).

Beowulf, a Geatish warrior, slays Grendel, a troll that has been terrorizing Danes (Beowulf).

Carrie White, an abused telekinetic girl, avenges herself against her mother, high school bullies, and her hometown (Carrie).

If you can answer this question, you will not only be able to understand what you read but there’s a good chance that you will also be able to write intelligible fiction.

To damn Father Damien, a doubting priest (cause), the devil possesses Reagan; the priest’s recovery of his faith, borne of his desire to deliver the girl, results in Reagan’s deliverance and Father Damien’s victory (effect). Theme: Love conquers doubt.

A man of valor, Beowulf slays Grendel (and his mother) (effect) to gain immortality through fame and to establish a bond with a foreign king (cause). Theme: Great deeds bring lasting fame.

Carrie’s mother, a religious fanatic, does a poor job in preparing Carrie for life in the
real world (cause), and, when her high school’s bullies take their harassment too far, Carrie is unable to cope and seeks vengeance through violence (effect). Theme: As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.

Comings and Goings: Encountering Danger and Destiny

There are only two ways by which a protagonist may encounter an antagonist. Either the main character must go to the villain or the bad guy must come to the hero.

Despite the extreme limitation of the come-or-go nature or such encounters, writers have exercised a fair amount of creativity in varying the means by which their characters rendezvous with their destinies as these fates are embodied by the antagonistic beings or forces they engage. Moreover, in doing so, they often offer a contemporary variation upon an older theme. Indeed, the variation’s tie-in with a familiar predecessor can be a selling point in pitching a series to studio or network executives. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the television series Star Trek, for example, pitched his series as a “Wagon Train to the stars.” (Wagon Train is a television Western in which pioneers traveled West in a wagon train, encountering adventures along the way; the series’ unity and continuity was supplied by the continuing presence of the main cast.) In producing Firefly, Joss Whedon followed Roddenberry’s lead, making his spaceship and its crew stand-ins for the wagon train and its team. Obviously, whether Conestoga wagons or spaceships, it was the vehicle, in all three series, which transported the adventurers to the adventures wherein they met their adversaries.

Another of Whedon’s television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, exemplifies the opposite approach. The show’s protagonist, Buffy Summers, stays put (on the Hellmouth, a center of convergent mystical forces that attracts all manner of paranormal and supernatural entities and forces), and the bad guys come to her.

These two approaches to introducing the white hats to the black hats have been subjected to a wide range of variations, as a consideration of television series, staged plays, movies, and printed fiction (epic poems, short stories, and novels) shows. Have Gun, Will Travel, a Western in which the main character, Paladin, a mercenary gunfighter, traveled from town to town to mete out justice for a price, took the predatory protagonist to his prey. In Maverick, another Western, a pair of brothers, both professional gamblers, roamed from town to town seeking a pair of jacks or better and, often, a couple of frontier temptresses upon whom to spend their winnings, managing to get into trouble of one kind or another along the way. Han Solo, Chewbaca, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and other Star Wars characters flit about the universe, engaging the evil Emperor Palpatine, the emperor’s chief enforcer, Darth Vader, and the empire’s army of star troopers. Aided by Gandalf, Aragorn (“Strider”), Galadriel, Legolas, and others, Lord of the Rings' Frodo Baggins, accompanied by Merry, Pippin, and Sam Gamgee, journey from the Shire to Mordor to destroy the One Ring, encountering the Dark Riders or Ring-Wraiths, the Balrog, Orcs, Saruman, Shelob, Gollum, and many other adversaries along the way.

Stephen King’s novels also exemplify the twofold means of introducing protagonists to whatever form of death and destruction they are destined to encounter, although the bad guys more typically come to the good guys than otherwise. In Carrie, evil comes to Carrie White in the form both of the mother with whom she lives and the classmates with whom she attends school. In Desperation, Tak escapes a caved-in mine to possess the residents of the Nevada town, but David Carver has the misfortune to be passing through Desperation with his family at the time. In It, the protean antagonist comes to Derry, Maine, every 27 years to gorge upon the townspeople’s children. It is the merchandise--and what the customers who buy it are willing to do to obtain it--that the antagonist, Leland Gaunt, brings to Castle Rock, Maine, that provides the malevolence in Needful Things.

Writers can enhance the comings and goings of characters by associating their sources of evil with existential states or conditions, with negative or harmful behavior, and with the follies and foibles of human nature. In Cujo, the rabid Saint Bernard seems to symbolize the infidelity of wife and mother Donna Trenton, whose adulterous affair not only destroys her marriage but leads, indirectly, to the death of her son. Likewise, the villains of Buffy the Vampire Slayer often represent such undesirable states, conditions, behaviors, or foibles as being ignored by one’s peers (“Out of Sight, Out of Mind”), drinking to excess (“Beer Bad”), abusive relationships (“Beauty and the Beasts”), substance abuse (“Wrecked”), and other personal and social demons of teenage and young adult life. Those stories based upon a journey or a quest may be vehicles for their protagonists’ self-discovery and enlightenment as well or a means for exposing social or political hypocrisies, false values, or other community or national shortcomings or transgressions. For example, many view religious faith as a positive force, but King’s Carrie and Children of the Corn suggest that religious fervor, when it becomes extreme, or fanatic, can be a force for evil rather than for good, as do the works of many other writers in both the horror genre and others. Likewise, religious faith that borders upon doubt and despair can be hazardous to one’s health, King’s Cycle of the Werewolf and ‘Salem’s Lot suggest. Evil, as always, flourishes in the shadow of righteousness.

The Monster’s Lair: Setting As Psychology

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

The monster’s lair is the antithesis of home sweet home. It is the home turned inside out and upside down. For most people, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home. A refuge from the callous indifference of others, from petty tyrants with petty agendas, from malicious coworkers who will do anything to get ahead (as they conceive the climbing of corporate and social ladders to represent), and a place where one can, without apology or pretense, be one’s true self, unmasked and undressed, home has long been the closest thing to paradise left on earth. The monster’s lair destroys all that is home, concerting it into a hell on earth wherein monsters, not loved ones, dwell.


As is often the case with horror fiction, Beowulf, which, in many ways, is the prototypical horror story, provides a superb example of the monster’s lair as the antithesis of home sweet home. A foil, as it were, to the Danish warriors’ mead hall, Heorot, Grendel’s lair is remote. It is isolated. It occupies land that is inhospitable and undesirable. The Danes’ hall, on the other hand, is central to the community, a place of camaraderie, a place where each warrior is respected and accepted by his peers.

Grendel, a descendant of the exiled, murderous Cain, lives apart from human society. A monster who is sometimes described as a demon and sometimes as a troll, he is fierce, fearsome, fearless, and ferocious. He is quick and powerful, and he is motivated by his envy of the fellowship of the Danes, from which he and his kith and kin have been excluded. Ostracism and banishment have taken their toll upon his soul, and he seeks to avenge his having been denied even the possibility of society and friendship by taking from the Danes that which they (and God) have denied to him.

The Danes, on the other hand, live in a society that is based upon courage, strength, fellowship, kinship, and a sharing of the spoils of war taken in victorious battle. Headed by a king, the Danish society operates by sharing the wealth captured from defeated tribes; in return for a share of the spoils of war, the Danish warriors, or thanes, are loyal to their liege. Therefore, their society is as much based upon sharing wealth as it is upon the attributes of the warrior, a warriors’ code, and the bonds of family relationships and friendships. The sharing of the wealth allows all fighting men a stake in the fortunes and the affairs of their state and, as such, is a symbol of respect and honor extended by the king to his followers who make it possible for his kingdom to exist and for him to acquire booty through battle against neighboring, hostile tribes.

The characters’ beliefs and behaviors reflect their treatment by others. Grendel, who is ostracized, becomes vengeful and murderous; the Danes, who enjoy fellowship among themselves, are loyal and sociable and supportive--at least to one another. Exile is the basis of Grendel’s anti-social destructiveness; family and friendship are the bases of the Danes’ sociability, constructiveness, and culture.

The poem describes both Grendel’s lair and Heorot; the descriptions themselves demonstrate the vast differences in monstrous Grendel’s stark, barren haunt and the bright, warm hall of mead in which the Danes enjoy friendship and fellowship.


Grendel’s abode is described in the following lines of the poem, when Beowulf, having killed Grendel earlier, now enters the monster’s lair to fight his vanquished foe’s mother:

. . . They dwell apart
among wolves on the hills, on windswept crags
and treacherous keshes, where cold streams
pour down the mountain and disappear
under mist and moorland.

A few miles from here
a frost-stiffened wood waits and keeps watch
above a mere; the overhanging bank
is a maze of tree-roots mirrored in its surface.
At night there, something uncanny happens:
the water burns. And the mere bottom
has never been sounded by the sons of men.
On its bank, the heather-stepper halts:
the hart in flight from pursuing hounds
will turn to face them with firm-set horns
and die in the wood rather than dive
beneath its surface. That is no good place.
When wind blows up and stormy weather
makes clouds scud and the skies weep,
out of its depths a dirty surge
Is pitched towards the heavens. . . .

[Beowulf] . . . discovered the dismal wood.
mountain trees growing out at an
angle above gray stones: the bloodshot water
surged underneath. . . .

. . . The water was infested
with all kinds of reptiles. There were writhing sea-dragons
and monsters slouching on slopes by the cliff,
serpents and wild things such as those that often
surface at dawn to roam the sail-road
and doom the voyage. Down they plunged,
lashing in anger at the loud call
of the battle-bugle. An arrow from the bow
of the great Geat-chief got one of them
as he surged to the surface. . . .

. . . [Beowulf] dived into the heaving
depths of the lake. It was the best part of a day
before he could see the solid bottom.

. . . A bewildering horde
came at him from the depths, droves of sea-beasts
who attacked with tusks and tore at his chain-mail
in a ghastly onslaught. The gallant man
could see he had entered some hellish turn-hole
and yet the water there did not work against him
because the hall-roofing held off
the force of the current. . . .

The lair is also described in a prose version of the poem:

They occupy a secret land, wolf-haunted slopes, windswept crags, dangerous swamp tracks where the mountain stream passes downwards under the darkness of the crags, water under the earth. It is not far from here, measured in miles, that the lake stands; over it hang frost-covered groves, trees held fast by their roots overshadow the water. There each night may be seen a fearful wonder--fire on the flood. No one alive among the children of men is wise enough to know the bottom. Although the trong-antlered stag, roaming the heath, may seek out the forest when driven from the field, hard pressed by hounds, he will sooner yield up life and spirit than hide his head there. That is not a pleasant place! From it a surging wave rises up black to the clouds when the wind stirs up hostile storms, till the air grows dim, the skies
weep. . . .

Then the son of princes advanced over the steep rocky slopes by a narrow path, a constructed route where only one could pass at a time, an unfamiliar way, precipitous crags, many a lair of water-monsters. . . . Suddenly he found mountain trees leaning over a grey rock, a cheerless wood; below lay the water, gory and turbid.

The troop all sat down; they saw then upon the water many of the serpent race, strange sea-dragons exploring the deep, also water-monsters lying on the slopes of the crags, such as those that in the morning-time often attend a miserable journey on the sail-way, serpents and wild beasts. They fell away, fierce and swollen with rage; they understood the clear sound, the war-horn ringing. With an arrow from his bow the prince of the Geats parted one of them from life, from its battle with the waves, when a hard warshaft stuck in its vitals; it was slower swimming on the water when death carried it off.

. . . The water’s surge received the warrior. It was part of a day before he could catch sight of the level bottom.

. . . A vast host of weird creatures harried him in the deep; many a sea-beast tore at his battle-shirt; monsters pursued him. Then the hero realized he was in some sort of enemy hall, where no water could harm him at all, nor could the flood’s sudden grip touch him because of the vaulted hall. . . .

Terrible in itself, Grendel’s lair is made all the more appalling by its sharp contrast with the comfortable, well-lighted splendor of the Danes’ mead hall, Heorot, from whose walls the monster, his mother, and their kin are banned:

[King Hrothgar] handed down orders
for men to work on a great mead-hall
meant to be a wonder of the world forever;
it would be his throne-room
and there he would dispense
his God-given goods to young and old--
but not the common land or people’s lives.
Far and wide through the world, I have heard,
orders for work to adorn that wallstead
were sent to many peoples. And soon it stood there
finished and ready, in full view,
the hall of halls, Heorot was the name
he had settled on it, whose utterance was law.
Nor did he renege, but doled out rings
and torques at the table.
The hall towered.
its gables wide and high. . . .

So times were pleasant for the people there. . . .Again, the same scene is described in the prose version of the poem:

[King Hrothgar] would instruct men to build a greater mead-hall than the children of men had ever heard of, and therein he would distribute to young and old everything which God had given him--except the public land and the lives of men. I have heard then how orders for the work were given to many peoples throughout this world to adorn the nation’s palace. So in time--rapidly as men reckon it--it came about that it was fully completed, the greatest of hall buildings. He who ruled widely with his words gave it the name Heorot. He did not neglect his vow; he distributed rings, treasures at the banquet. The hall rose up high, lofty and wide-gabled. . . .

If we are most at home in our homes, our homes reflect most completely and honestly who we are. However, a home is not built entirely by the homesteader. To paraphrase Hillary Clinton, it takes a community to build a home. The motive for Grendel’s attack upon Heorot is clearly given in the poem:

Then, a powerful demon,
a prowler through the dark,
nursed a hard grievance.
It harrowed him
to hear the din of the loud banquet
every day in the hall,
the harp being struck
and the clear song of the poet
telling with mastery
of man’s beginnings,
and how the Almighty had made the earth. . . .

Nor was that the first time
he [Grendel] had scouted the grounds of Hrothgar’s dwelling--
although never in this life, before or since,
did he find harder fortune or hall-defenders.
Spurned and joyless, he journeyed on ahead
And arrived at the bawn. . . .

--or, as the prose version phrases the same passage:

Then the powerful demon, he who abode in darkness, found it hard to endure this time of torment, when everyday he heard loud rejoicing in the hall. . . .

Then out of the wasteland came Grendel, advancing beneath the misty slopes; he carried the wrath of God. . . . That was not the first time he had sought out the home of Hrothgar. Never in all the days of his life, before nor since, did he have worse luck in meeting thanes in hall. . . .

The creature, bereft of joy, came on, making his way into the
hall. . . .

Exiled Grendel feels “spurned and joyless”; he envies the Danes their free and easy camaraderie. In addition, the poem suggests that it is God’s having exiled Cain, the ancestor of Grendel’s monstrous and demonic race, that has created them, perhaps as unwilling servants of the divine will:

He [Grendel] had dwelt for a time
in misery among the banished monsters,
Cain’s clan, whom the Creator had outlawed
and condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel
the Eternal Lord had exacted a price:
Cain got no good from committing that murder
because the Almighty made him anathema
and out of the curse of his exile there sprang
ogres and elves and evil phantoms
and the giants too who strove with God
time and again until He gave them their reward.

--or, as the prose version phrases the same passage:

Unhappy creature, he lived for a time in the home of the monster race after God had condemned them as kin of Cain. . . . Providence drove him [Cain] away far away from mankind for that crime [the murder of his brother Abel]. Thence [i. e., from the exiled Cain] were born all evil broods: ogres and elves and goblins--likewise the giants who for a long time strove against God; he paid them their reward for that.

Jumping from the medieval world of Beowulf to that of the early twentieth-century world of Ed Gein, we see that the same principles apply, despite the passing of centuries and the crossing of hundreds of miles. Although Gein lived in Plainfield, Wisconsin, rather than in Denmark, centuries later than Grendel is alleged to have lived, Gein is as much a product and a reflection of his small town community’s indifference to him as Grendel is of the Danes’ disregard for Grendel. Their homes reflect their respective ostracism, as do their crimes against the very humanity that spurns them.


His house was as jumbled, cluttered, disorganized, and full of bizarre artifacts as his mind was full of muddled, confused, and insane thoughts and impulses. The disarray is so extreme as to be all but indescribable. Piled with magazines, boxes, crates, papers, litter, newspapers, garbage, and other materials, the house was also the repository of much grimmer and more gruesome artifacts: soup bowls carved from human skulls; chairs upholstered in human flesh; lampshades fashioned of human skin and (in, one case, at least) equipped with a pull-chain to which a pair of human lips were attached; boxes of noses and labia; women’s faces, stuffed and mounted, hung upon the wall as decorations, a “mammary vest,” complete with female breasts; human organs inside the kitchen’s refrigerator; and the decapitated head of Bernice Worden, whom Gein had murdered.

Gein murdered women. He robbed graves. He cut skin from the faces of the dead and, stuffing them with paper, hung them upon his walls, as decorations. He kept a collection of noses and a collection preserved labia. He dressed in his victims’ clothing--and in their faces, worn as masks, and in a costume of “mammary vest,” gloves, and leggings, all obtained from women’s corpses. He most likely cooked and ate some of his murdered victims’ organs. He would have had sex with the cadavers, he admitted, were it not for the repulsiveness of their stench. He did all these despicable acts and more, and, yet, so little did they know the fiend in their midst, that Gein’s neighbors and acquaintances regarded him as nothing more than an eccentric, perhaps slightly mentally handicapped loner who was, they said, a good laborer and handyman. One neighbor even entrusted her children to Ed to baby sit. Such disregard is not only monstrous in itself, but, it seems, it also succeeded in helping to create a monster. Had the community truly made an effort to befriend Gein, it may have been that he would never have felt the need to find a replacement for his domineering, fanatical mother, Augusta, after her passing. Gein had no friends, though, and even the few acquaintances he made had no genuine interest in him as a human being.

The same ostracism and disregard of the community for one of its own is evident in Stephen King’s Carrie (and most of his other works); in many of Dean Koontz’s novels, particularly with regard to his female protagonists; and in the novels of many other contemporary authors. In fact, as we have pointed out in previous posts, individual, social, and even cosmic indifference is a major theme in the contemporary horror fiction. Like the headlines of newspapers around the world, a callous disregard for others who are different, powerless, difficult, or even insane produces monsters at least as much as does the sleep of reason.

Disenfranchisement, whether on an individual or a social or a national basis, breeds monsters. The beast may live in his lair, but, more often than not, it was his community, his society, or his nation who both built his hellish abode and made the bed in which he lies, plotting his revenge. A home away from home is no home at all, and such a home--or monster’s lair--may be the place in which one hangs not his hat, but another’s head.

Secondary Antagonists

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Some stories have a main antagonist and one or more lesser, secondary antagonists. The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer was well known for having a Big Bad and a little bad each season except for the first, which was really more like a partial season, since it was comprised of only a dozen episodes. The Big Bad was the villain for the whole season, whereas the little bad was a villain for only a few episodes. The little bad was introduced before the Big Bad, often with several other villains following his or her debut, so as to keep viewers off-balance in discerning which of the several villains might turn out to be the Big Bad. Here’s the way the bads shake out for seasons two through six:

Other works of horror fiction also sometimes employ secondary antagonists.
Stephen King’s novel Carrie’s primary antagonist is Carrie White’s mother; the secondary anatomists are her high school’s bullies. It It, another King novel, the antagonist, a protean shape shifter able to take the form of anyone’s worst fear, is, in effect, its own secondary antagonists while, at the same time, is the novel’s primary antagonist as well.

Dan Simmons’ novel, Summer of Night, has a primary antagonist, and several secondary antagonists: the dead man walking (an eerily silent World War I doughboy’s ghost, huge worms with serrated teeth, a rendering company’s truck spooky driver, and others.

On occasion, a secondary antagonist will work independently of the primary antagonist, whereas, in other instances, he, she, or they will support the primary antagonist, often as a henchman or sidekick, as Spike and Drusilla serve and support Angel in Buffy; as Fritz (often erroneously called “Igor”) assists Dr. Henry Frankenstein in Frankenstein, the 1931 film version of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus; and as Dr. Montgomery aids and abets the criminal “research” that vivisectionist Dr. Moreau performs upon a deserted jungle island in H. G. Wells’ classic 1896 novel The Island of Dr. Moreau.

The use of a secondary antagonist can heighten a story’s suspense, complicate its plot (even becoming the basis or bases for an additional subplot or additional subplots), and can multiply and enrich the story’s theme.

It Is Necessary to Suffer To Be Beautiful. . . Or Believable. . . Or Interesting

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, once told the show’s star, Sarah Michelle Gellar, that, to create interesting television, it was necessary to make her--or her character, at least--suffer.

His tongue-in-cheek statement has a serious aspect to it, for it refers to the need of a narrative to depict conflict. Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, authors of Understanding Fiction, point out that without such conflict, there is no, nor can there be any, story.

In longer works of fiction, such as epic poems, television series, movies, and novels, the main character is going to be beset by problems. Several, not just one, is going to impede his or her progress toward reaching the goal that he or she has set for him- or herself. Some are likely to be due to circumstances, others to the actions of other characters, and still others to the protagonist’s own internal conflicts. In general, such conflicts will be natural, psychological, social, or theological. Most likely, two or three--or perhaps all--types of conflict will be operative in such a story.

A couple of examples, represented by simple diagrams, will illustrate the point. In the diagrams, the circle represents the character whose name it bears, and the text at the ends of the lines radiating from the circle represent the conflicts, some psychological, some social, some theological, some situational, in which the character finds him- or herself.


The first diagram shows the plight in which the protagonist of Stephen King’s novel Carrie finds herself. On the edge of adolescence, Carrie lives with her mother, Margaret, a mentally disturbed religious fanatic who considers sex to be wicked. Carrie’s mother has never bothered to tell her daughter the facts of life, and, when, while Carrie is showering following a physical education class, she begins her first menstruation, she is horrified to think that she is bleeding to death. Her classmates find her horror a cause for amusement, and, cruelly, they toss tampons at her, chanting, “Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up!” Although the teacher puts an end to the girls’ taunts, Carrie is humiliated.

A social pariah among her peers even before this incident, Carrie continues to be tormented by her schoolmates. However, her life seems about to take a turn for the better when one of the school’s more popular boys, Tommy Ross, asks her to be his date to the prom. Instead, after she is given a taste, as it were, of what it would be like to be accepted by her peers, she is again publicly humiliated when she is drenched in pigs’ blood. She loses control of herself, unleashing, with devastating effect, the telekinetic power with which she was born. Before she is through exacting vengeance, she has killed most of her fellow students and many of the school’s teachers, destroyed the gymnasium, and obliterated her city’s downtown area. Returning home, she has a showdown with her mother, in which she learns that she is the product of her mother’s having been raped. Margaret stabs Carrie, but Carrie kills her before, later, Carrie herself is killed.Another King novel, Desperation puts its protagonist, twelve-year-old David Carver, through his paces, as indicated by this diagram. As a younger child, David had promised God that he would serve him, no matter what God required of him, if God would heal David’s friend, who was dying. God honored David’s prayer, and, now, years later, God has a mission for David: save the captives of the demon Tak, who, having escaped burial in an abandoned mine, possesses the bodies of various residents of Desperation, Nevada. David manages to do so, at the cost of his little sister’s and his mother’s deaths and his father’s near-loss of his sanity. David concludes that “God is cruel.” However, another character, John Edward Marinville, something of a stand-in for King himself, it seems, advises David that God is beyond human understanding and that, although his actions may seem “cruel” to human beings, God possesses many attributes, including, especially, love.

During the course of the seven-year-long series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, protagonist Buffy Summers suffers many a conflict, not only with demons, but with inner demons as well, as the diagram representing her struggles suggests. It is her lot in life to have been “called” as the “chosen one” by The Powers That Be, to protect the world from vampires, demons, and other monsters that slither, creep, or crawl out of the Hellmouth (located beneath her high school’s library) each week. Instead, Buffy longs to live a “normal life” in which, as a teen, she can moon over boys and whine about homework. Over the years, she is unlucky in love (to put it mildly), and a number of people she loves, including her parents (her father through divorce, her mother through death) are taken from her. She herself dies not once but twice along the way.

Writers who want to create fully developed characters who seem lifelike enough to be a tormented soul trapped in the hell that is high school, to serve as latter-day servants of God, or to fulfill whatever other role he or she is assigned should take Whedon’s dictum to heart. Just as it is necessary to suffer to be beautiful, as the French say, it is necessary that the protagonist suffer to be believable and for the story to have interest to its reader, as Whedon says.