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.”