The John part of him wishes to confess; the dying Jasper refuses
to take him back to the bank. But at the Soul Hope Fraternity,
he confesses that he stole. For a week he stays at home; then he
goes out. On his return he discovers that the money is missing.
_Climax of Action_: He goes to the bank and confesses; his story
is not believed. He has changed natures, completely.
_Dénouement_: The jail refuses to take him. He finds work at the
sand pits.
For parallelism of the final situation, read Edith Wharton’s
“The Bolted Door.”
CHARACTERIZATION. Bear in mind that the diverse personalities of Jasper
and John are bound up in Jasper, that although “John” was originally
invented and then assumed, he finally dominated. The dramatic climax
marks the point at which the outer Jasper disappears; the climax of
action marks the disappearance of the inner Jasper. The man who goes to
work at the sand pits is, essentially, John.
DETAILS. Suspense, one of the best features, in the earlier two-thirds
of the story, operates progressively, the cause shifting with the
various steps of the action. For example, perhaps the first important
question aroused is, “What is Jasper doing all this for?” The second,
“Will he succeed in carrying out his well-laid plans?” Meantime,
subordinate questions arise, to be satisfied by the author in the
unfolding of the narrative. Show that suspense works of necessity
less forcibly toward the end, where the outcome becomes more and more
inevitable.
Do you know what became of the stolen money? Should that trailing
thread be gathered up, or is it better left as it is?
Mr. Lewis declares that “The Willow Walk” has, so far as he can
remember, no history at all. But he contributes the following by way of
his views on the short-story:
“Technique defeats itself. The more nearly perfect it becomes, the
nearer it is to stagnation. This rule holds true whether it be applied
to ecclesiastical ceremony, to that humorous art known as ‘the manners
of a gentleman,’ to the designing of motor-car bodies, or the practise
of the arts. Once your motor-body designer has almost approximated the
lines of a carriage, an innovator appears who boisterously ridicules
the niceties of that technique, and, to the accompaniment of howling
from the trained technicians, smashes out a new form, with monstrous
hood and stream-line massiveness. Within two years he has driven out
all the old technique, and is followed by a ‘school,’ neatly developing
a new technique, in its turn to be perfected--then destroyed by some
vulgarian who is too ignorant or too passionate to care for the
proprieties of design.
“Once the technique of the academic school of painters of still
life and landscape and portraits was practically perfect, a noisy,
ill-bred, passionate crew of destroyers appeared, under such raucous
labels as ‘futurists,’ ‘vorticists,’ ‘cubists,’ and despite the fact
that their excesses have not become popular in plush parlors, these
innovations have forever ruined the pleasure of picture-gazers in the
smooth inanity of the perfected old technique. And now their followers
in their turn----! As I write, the perfect militarist technique of
the German empire has cracked into socialist republics. In time those
republics will build up a perfect technique of bureaus, and be ready
for the cleansing fire.
“Technique defeats itself. I have repeated the word ‘passion’ because
that is the force that starts the rout. The man who is passionate
about beauty or scientific facts, about making love or going fishing
or the potentialities of Russia or revolt against smug oppressors, is
likely to find himself cramped by the technique of the art which he
chooses as a medium, to discard it, and to find a technique of his own.
Austin Dobson could endure the triolet for the expression of delicate
inexactitudes regarding French curés, but when Shelley was singing a
world aflame, he made for himself a new mode of expression which, to
formalists, seemed inexpressibly crude.
“And so to the short story. I am not afraid of this new technique of
the proper beginning, the correct ending, the clever dénouement, the
geometrically plotted curve of action--because I do not believe that
anybody who passionately has anything to say is going to cramp himself
by learning its pat rules. But I do believe that--before they go and
smash the technique, anyway!--young writers may be saved much spiritual
struggle if they be taught that there is nothing sacred, nothing they
unquestionably must follow, in any exactly formulated technique.
“They will, of course, if they succeed, make a technique of their own.
That is a short cut to salvation for them. It is only when a technique
is that of other writers, when it is so crystallized that it can be
definitely exhibited, that it becomes dangerous. I know that Joseph
Hergesheimer in such absorbingly beautiful short stories as ‘Wild
Oranges,’ ‘Tol’able David,’ or ‘Asphodel’ has a technique, a very
definite idea of what he is doing; or what he is going to do before
he starts, and of why he has done things after he has done them.
But he has not obediently imitated the technique of other writers.
None knows better than Mr. Hergesheimer the great art of such men as
Conrad, Galsworthy, George Moore; but none has less imitated them, less
accepted their technique as his guidance.
“Curse Stevenson for that ‘playing the sedulous ape,’ which has led so
many thousands astray. It was Stevenson’s weakness, not his strength,
that aping; and because of it his light is flickering, while that of
his contemporaries, Rossetti, Hardy, Swinburne, Flaubert, who were
not sedulous apes but men passionate about beauty or the curious ways
of daily man, burns evenly and forever. Stevenson had an unequalled
opportunity; he was a pioneer, with a pioneer’s chance to stake out
the first claim; yet once Kipling galloped into sight, roaring at
deft Stevensonian technique, irreverent and violent as one of his own
Rajputs, doing really dreadful things to the balanced decencies of
proportion and melody, he routed Stevenson in a handful of years ...
and today we have read Stevenson, but we do read Kipling.
“Of course, of course, of course. ‘Freedom is no excuse for violence.’
‘The young man must train his mind.’ ‘From a study of the elders youth
learns to avoid their mistakes’ (but he doesn’t!). ‘Only the strong
are able to govern themselves, to make their own codes of ethics or of
beauty.’ All those sage warnings--used equally against Martin Luther
and the Bolsheviks, against the bad boy in school and Rodin. Basically,
the disagreement between classicists and modernists is temperamental,
and will, under various guises, endure forever. Only, let it be clearly
recognized for what it is; let the classicist not mistake himself for
a modernist; let the innovator not suppose because O. Henry is still
so living a force that his followers have not already hardened his
technique into a form classic and very dead.”