A Feminist Rereading of Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart'

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Impossible Narratives?

Let us begin with the premise that impossible narratives can and do exist, so we can skip past all the metaphysical arguing and get to defining what an impossible narrative is. I am not the first to attempt defining the impossible narrative, but we will ignore those other (and likely more successful) attempts here for the sake of intellectual exercise.

I think it’s best to work backwards here.  I have what I believe to be an impossible narrative in mind, and I see no reason in pretending I’m thinking through this abstractly and then discovering in a moment of inspiration that an example is right here.  So let’s begin with Robert Coover’s “The Babysitter” and talk about why I think it’s an impossible narrative as a way to discover characteristics we can look for in other potentially impossible narratives.

In short, Coover’s short story presents a number of interrelated but incompatible scenarios.  Readers may attempt to construct a logical arrangement for these scenarios, but the short story resists this through various means including metalepses and unclear focalizations.  As a report of events, in the real world or an imaginary one, it does not operate.  After reading, one cannot tell another “what happened.”

In narratological terms, “The Babysitter” gives us a number of possible worlds.  All narratives do so according to Eco, and the mystery narrative is exemplary.  At the beginning, the reader is presented with numerous possible worlds corresponding to the different possible resolutions of the mystery.  As the narrative progresses, these possible worlds are eliminated until only one remains.  But “The Babysitter” never performs that act of elimination.  The expected resolution into which only one possible world remains never comes.  This unresolved plethora of possible worlds is, paradoxically, what makes the short story impossible, and is the very reason why one reader cannot tell another “what happened.”

Robert Coover’s “The Babysitter” is an example of one way in which a narrative can be impossible.  I am sure there are others as well, but it is difficult to theorize about what shapes they would take, for imagining rules for an impossible narrative seems almost an assault on the very concept.  So like so much else in narrative theory, the label "impossible narrative" is something I feel limited to using only descriptively if I wish to use it with any certainty.

Impossible Narrative?

H. Porter Abbott defines a narrative as the "representation of a story (an event or series of events)." Abbott also adds that two important components that make up a narrative are story and narrative discourse. Based on Abbott's definition of a narrative, logically, the reverse would prove to be impossible narrative. A plausible definition for an impossible narrative, one could argue, is a narrative that lacks something. If we as the field of narrative theory are labeling a piece as narrative, then again, logically, I would think the narrator is present in some way shape or form. From here, the event or events should be the next components examined. The impossible narrative is determined based on the events because we can identify a narrator. As such then, the impossible narrative is based on the narrator's inability to relay these events successfully and tell the implied author's intended story.

Since a definition often needs an example, the only text that I would try to make an argument is an impossible narrative is Fowls's The French Lieutenant's Woman. To be rather blunt, the narrator is present, but the plot is chaotic and confusing for the narrator to untangle through. The narrator does not even seem to have a stable place in the plot, I would argue. To give even a better example, an impossible narrative would be all of the movies that air on channels like Lifetime. I mean come on. The events are interesting in a "you've got to be kidding me way," but whatever form of a narration is present interferes with the whole story. I refer to Lifetime movies as an example because I feel like The French Lieutenant's Woman fits that weird story line. Everyone reading the story or watching the movie is aware of the events because the events are somewhat predictable, but the narrator relays them in such a naive, contradictory way that it's almost obvious how confused the narrator truly is.

Impossible narrative is impossible because of the narrator place or understanding of the events. The narrator is the author's choice of technique, so the narrator is present, but that does not mean that the narrator's presence is a positive for a story or that it moves the plot along well. As in The French Lieutenant's Woman and as in Lifetime movies, a narrator is present, but the narrator's vagueness with the events keeps the reader confined and thrown into an ongoing loop. The events, the story, and the narrative simply don't make sense.

(Evil) Sister

One day, in my not so distant youth, I was chilling out at home, watching TV and avoiding homework because, for once, the house was blessedly empty of family members. Halfway through the show I was watching (which was definitely not Keeping Up with the Kardashians), I heard the garage door go up. Next, car doors slammed in such a way as to herald the fact that this was not a happy homecoming. I quickly gathered my things, and made a quick escape up to the game room, where I might remain unseen for just a little bit longer.
My younger sister came in, yelling, apparently in the throes of some middle school angst and feeling quite put upon. My parents followed, trying to console and stem the flow of tears. From my hiding spot upstairs, I totally eavesdropped. My sister was crying and yelling about how our younger brother was coddled and how “Princess Marie got everything she wanted.”
This title was news to me as we are a firmly middle class family, and I have certainly never owned a (real) tiara. Also, I am almost positive (like 99% positive) that I had worked, at least a little bit, for everything I “got,” even if it was by shameless opportunism. In fact, the sticking point for my sister during this particular meltdown was that she was still driving a car that had a fair few problems, and I had finagled myself into a newer one by making a deal with my mom when I saw the opportunity. It is apparently super hard work to wait for the optimal moment to ask for something, since neither of my siblings seemed to know how to do it with any kind of finesse. This particular incident was not the first (or last) time that my sister and I had been at odds over something, but it was the first time that I didn't even know we were fighting and that my sister sometimes styled me as some sort of villain, opposing her success in life.

A culture translated for outsiders looking in, as farce for the lazy.

My grandmother had the softest and sweetest smelling hands. She smelled of the roses she tended and the dirt they grew in. Dark, musty, bayou soil.

Bending down to me, she puts her hands around my chin, wipes my always-wild hair out of my face and says, “Cher, ma koer, go tell paw lunch’s ready. And then come wash up.” I run like the wind. Flying through the yard. Singing at the top of my lungs, “PawPaw!” “Lunch is rrreeeeaaaddddyyy!” He steps out of the shade of the barn, out from behind the boat, wiping black goo off of his hands and arms.

We walk to the hose and wash our hands off together. He is sweaty from work, me from play. When he hugs me he always squeezes me to his face. His rough stubble scratches my cheeks. I didn't mind that though. It was comforting. He smelled of grease and the kind of sweat that sticks. “What Maw cooked today? I hope its some bawle’ shrimp?” I shrug and we walk back to the house together. Anytime grandpa walked into the house, he would call the dog. They always had a poodle. This one was Jean. “Awwwee Jean. Vini Jean.” We walk the dog. Then go in together to have lunch.

My grandmother is gone now. In her absence, my grandfather has become unkempt and a voracious hoarder. But, his stubble still scratches my face when he hugs me close. I used to think their way of speaking was something to shy away from. I was taught that it made us seem less educated, less intelligent. That never felt good to me. But, I fell in line. They too would tell us scary stories of their fingers being whacked by nuns. “English!!!” 

I sit here under this oak looking up at low hanging moss and I wish I could hear my grandmother say it one more time, “Cher, ma koer, go tell paw lunch’s ready.”

Just like the movies

We were laughing aloud. We were at the point in the evening when everything was just a bit funnier. My drink was starting to sweat in my hand. I calmed down long enough to set it down and searched for a coaster or napkin of some sort. My friend, noticing my distraction, looked around with me, and motioned toward a stack at the other end of the bar. I leaned over the bar, straining my neck to look in the direction she was motioning.  That was when our eyes met.

Big, brown eyes, chiseled features, nice smile… not too shabby.  I had forgotten why I was looking over there already. I averted my eyes and pretended not to notice that he was slowly heading our way. Sitting up straight and emitting my very best golden, tinkling laughter, I pretended to be engrossed in my friend’s tales of workplace shenanigans.

He was getting closer. I was more than a bit flustered. Rarely did men approach me so quickly. After all, it had only been one look. But, hey, that’s how the movies play it, right? Apparently, it was movie time. He stopped right in front of me with that charming, crooked smile, and I beamed back at him.

“You girls look like you’re having a good time!” he observed. We laughed and affirmed the obvious, but friendly, statement. My friend glanced over at me with a suggestive raise of her eyebrow and sipped on her beer, just as the man who had looked at me, who had come across the room for me, my movie guy, turned to her and asked “Can I buy you a drink?”

Yup. Wrong movie. 

On the hook of Bu$hleaguer, Eddie Vedder sings, "I remember when you sang that song about today, but now it's tomorrow, and everything has changed." The song is a rambling indictment of the second Bush presidency, and in the constellation of great Pearl Jam tracks, it does not appear.  But that hook makes my hairs stand on end.

The reason why, I believe, is that it perfectly encapsulates my feelings about 9/11 and our nation’s response to the attacks on that day.

I remember the songs we sang to ourselves, the stories we told ourselves.  We sang about a New American Century.  We were drunk on enthusiasm, bolstered by a decade of ascendance.  Cold War: over.  Tech Stocks: on the rise.  Middle East Peace: we found a path.  Federal Budget Surpluses: an actual thing that existed in reality.  MTV was still playing videos and there were new Star Wars films on the way.

We were definitely on our way towards a shinier, happier world.  It was obvious to anyone.  Even the foresighted and cynical characters of a Pynchon novel couldn’t see otherwise.

Then the 9/11 attacks happened, and in a single day, it became tomorrow, and everything changed.

I had never felt existential fear prior to those attacks.  I grew up at the tail end of the Cold War, but I was never frightened of nuclear holocaust the way prior generations tell me they were.  Terminator assured me that we would survive it.  Rambo assured me one bad-ass dude could prevent it.  I now realize how ridiculous I was being in the days after the attacks, how foolish it was to be worried about terrorists attacking some suburbs of Dallas.

I never felt guilt about not enlisting in the military prior to those attacks.  For a brief moment in high school, I flirted with becoming a marine to cure myself of my lazy aimless nature, but I didn’t feel bad about not following through with it until there was a them who attacked us.  As the realities of the wars we launched in response to the attacks sunk in, I no longer felt guilty about not signing up to fight our enemies, but I developed a different nagging guilt.  A lot of my good buddies did enlist out of high school.  Why wasn’t I sacrificing alongside them?

It seems so trite to say the world changed that day.  And of course, it really didn’t change that day.  But our collective perception of it did change.  My perception of it changed.  The song we sang, the story we told, no longer made sense of our experience.  I thought we were in a story by Gene Roddenberry, full of promise and on the path to utopia.  Now I think we are in a story by William Gibson, or worse, Philip K. Dick.  

In More Than One World

Living in a bicultural world, daily I feel as though I believe that I am in one world, but I quickly find out that I am in another.  My best example, however, has to be last summer -- the summer of 2014 when I took what I believed would be an enriching trip. Since immigrating to the states fourteen years ago, I had a chance to visit Bosnia-- the country of my birth and the place where I spent a small part of my childhood before my family and I came to Texas.

Bosnia was nothing like what I remember the place being -- nothing like what it is in my memories. I expected Bosnia to be small, heartwarming, welcoming, and accepting, but I quickly realized that those qualities only existed in the blurred lines of my childhood memories. More importantly, I lived all of my life (well up to that point) believing that I did not belong in the states, that I did not fit within the American culture. I always saw myself as Bosnian first and nothing else. Last summer though changed my outlook, world, and identity more than I ever imaged. For fourteen years, I fought so hard to be Bosnian and succeed in America so I can contribute to my homeland to only realize in the end just how much of life I missed out on due to my extensive focus on the Bosnian world of my memories. Needless to say, my trip was a learning experience. I learned that I did not fully belong in the Bosnian world. For instance, living a part of your childhood in Bosnian and being born there truly does not mean the culture will accept you as Bosnian. I've lived most of my life in the states, and that certainly reflected throughout this trip. Additionally, because Texas is not well-populated with a Bosnian community, I spent so much time away from the Bosnian culture. Yes, of course I speak the language fluently, and yes, of course I will always embrace the Bosnian traditions, but I will never know anything of Bosnia past my childhood. Honestly, this is hard to accept. 

Going on this summer trip, I did leave being in one world (the world I created and expected), yet I came back with a wakeup call that makes me, more than ever, appreciate the small things of our daily America life. For instance, a McDonald's on every corner, our acceptance for diversity, our shopping, our cars, our caring ways, and the safety of being here. Taking this trip made me accept that my world is not purely Bosnian. My world is that of a Bosnian-American; I would describe myself as Bosnian born, Texas raised. Because of this awakening, I no longer see being Bosnian as the only hat I wear or as the only part of me. For instance, sitting here today typing this at the TWU library, I see myself as a stressed out graduate student who simply wants to earn her degree this summer. 

"All Fiction can be Profitably Regarded as Argument"

I think we're all pretty familiar with works like Farenheit 451 and 1984. The rise of power--tyranny is facilitated by a lack of knowledge. I'll gladly let the government "take" my gun (I don't have a gun) before I'll let them take my books. But what about our guilty pleasure reads? What about our Meg Cabots. Sophia Kinsellas, and Veronica Roths?  Don't worry. I'm not going to talk exclusively about romantic comedies. If I were, though, I'd say it's fiction making a dangerous argument about female fulfillment.
I'm a fan of O'Henry. You may know or recognize "The Gift of the Magi"story: he sells his watch to buy her combs, she sells her hair to buy his watch chain. Simple. Sweet. and Clean. My favorite O'Henry story is "The Last Leaf." I finished it crying in the middle of The Commons. Here's a summary and the full-text if you're interested. It isn't long.
We could make good analyses for many O'Henry arguments in this piece. There are observations on class, immigration, propriety, sickness, and social mores. Still, the argument I like to believe O'Henry is making is that hope has power. Sometimes, you're so ready to give up you're just waiting for the wind to come along and pluck the last leaf from the branch. You don't know someone painted the damn thing on, but you find a way to persist until spring comes.

"All fiction can be profitably regarded as argument." -Ronald Sukenick

Sukenick's quote above almost mimics that of Mark Twain's "Truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense." If fiction is to make sense as Twain so brilliantly believed, then fiction must have a purpose, and most tend to associate purpose with persuasion.With that said, Sukenick's quote proves true. The more I think about this quote, the more sense Sukenick's claim makes. Most students of literature have almost been trained to see fiction as a form of argument. I've certainly been trained to do this: to look for this "big message" of fiction. Looking for the "big message" is a great example of argument in fiction.

To be more precise though, I've taken Sukenick's quote and applied it to one of my favorite texts, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. When rereading this text, I am always looking for the argument/arguments Hosseini makes with the story of Amir and Hassan. It is my belief that Hosseini is commenting on the bigger, far more real world of Afghanistan. For instance, I almost believe that Khaled Hosseini is arguing that even with the challenges many Afghans faced, there is still hope to build a better, more positive world because positive stories like that of Amir and Hassan make Afghanistan what it is. I truly think that Hosseini's argument centers on the people of Afghanistan. I refuse to think that he is simply telling a story because we tell stories (we share fictional narratives in particular) to create links between people, to comment on human nature and the bigger world. With this, people relate to narratives, and because of this attraction, narratives (fictional or not) will continue to be powerful. Narratives stick with audiences. I may not know enough about Afghanistan, but I know the story of Amir and Hassan, and I agree with Hosseini's argument that within time, we will rebuild/glue ourselves/our countries together.

Fiction is all about argument; fiction always has a rhetorical purpose. As such, because fiction always has a rhetorical purpose, Sukenick's quote above proves true. Our fictional narratives are based on the world we live in, on our history, and as a result, we can use fictional narratives to create pieces like The Kite Runner that simply stick.

“All fiction can be profitably regarded as argument.”-Ronald Sukenick

            We can indeed profit a great deal by regarding fiction as argument.  Fiction is an intentional object.  That does not mean we need to be beholden to intentions.  But what it does mean is that we can read with an eye toward intention, toward what stance the text is arguing.  I’ll stick with the text as the agent here, not to kill authors, but to acknowledge that some prefer them dead.

            I think the calculus is simple here:  If texts are discourse, then they are acts of communication, and acts of communication are intentional.  They have purpose.  That purpose does not have to be grand.  It does not need to be a firm ethical stance on some political or social issue.  But it can be.

            To keep things as nerdy as possible, I offer the Star Wars Prequels as a case study.  Despite their massive box office success, these films are largely regarded as a disappointment, and I think that is in some ways fair.  The acting is terribly wooden, and some of the digital effects have not aged well at all.  More significantly, they often seem at great odds with what was established in the original trilogy.  Fans have identified numerous “plot holes” or discrepancies between what Obi Wan and Yoda tell Luke about Anakin, the Jedi, and the Republic and what the Prequel films show the viewer about them.

            But if we view these discrepancies as intentional choices instead of mistakes, we can then consider the intention behind them.  Instead of saying the films failed because we see a different version of Anakin than the one Obi Wan tells us about, we can discuss why the films show a different Anakin and why Obi Wan effectively lies to us about him (in short because lying is Obi Wan’s magic force power—“these aren’t the droids you’re looking for).  I suggest that the reason the films show us a different Anakin than the one Obi Wan told us about is to point to the inherent ethical flaw in seeing Anakin and Darth Vader as two separate individuals.

            My point here is not to say that reading the Star Wars prequels intentionally is a path towards enjoying them, but it is profitable in the sense that it opens ground for a conversation we were not having before, and it might just lead towards a greater appreciation of them.

A common thread I read in my peers’ previous blogs answering this question —  “Why another Cinderella?”— suggests our continuous obsession with this masterplot. (By “our” here I am referring to the human race; as Smith points out there are variants found around the world. The variants are so prolific that we have yet to truly point to an ur-text. The amount of scholars who have taken this task up again and again, the task of identifying, counting, and documenting the Cinderella-type, speaks to the fascination it holds.) This common thread seems to be the ability of this masterplot to adaptation. Ted suggests Robocop as a variant. Barbara Hernstein Smith notes how often we assign the Cinderella-type to celebrities, “Read the Real-Life Cinderella-Story of Sylvester Stallone” (142). Holli celebrates an identity for Cinderella beyond the Euro-centric blue-eyed, blonde. Why do we need to keep bringing her back though? Why can Cinderella not have remained the character she was in her fairy tale beginning? Why do we, as human race, want to see her in different ways, played by different actors, in different gendered spaces, over and over and over again, adaptation after adaptation?

I feel that part of our fascination is that Cinderella doesn’t have an origin. However, and here is the part I find fascinating, the masterplot’s origin is everywhere and anywhere.  The Cinderella tale, for me, operates much like the creation masterplot. As communities, we create and promulgate creation stories, creation myths, creation tales, creation constructs. Is there a single community/civilization/society that is missing one? My point is that Cinderella is malleable. Cinderella can be anyone. She/he/they can operate within any gender. She can operate within any age. Now, we happen to be obsessed with youth. So, she is, all too often, a teenager. But there are variants that play with age as well.

In some of the earlier fairy-tale types, like the “Donkeyskin” tale, she was younger. This is uncomfortable for us, so we adapted, revised, and forgot. I will end here noting though that the amount of adaptation and memory loss depends on the social mores of a community. For example, for those unfamiliar with Perrault’s “Donkey Skin,” the story of this Cinderella has little to do with a stepmother and stepsisters and more to do with a father, the king, wanting to marry his daughter, the princess. In France, there was a film made as late as 1970, not really that long ago, titled Peau d'Âne. Catherine Deneuve played both the dying queen and Peau d'Âne, the princess.  Maybe the real question is what is the Cinderella-type we are choosing and why do we continue to clamour for the same damned Cinderella over and over again?