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EXIT DOES NOT EXIST: Intellectual Horror in Radio Narrative

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EXIT DOES NOT EXIST: Intellectual Horror in Radio Narrative 4,195 Words!Burke, Zach EXIT DOES NOT EXIST: Intellectual Horror in Radio Narrative !H.P. Lovecraft, arguably the most influential horror author of the last century, believes that the “oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”1 In consideration of format, radio plays prove particularly adept in playing to this construct of horror. After all, the most direct, successful platform from which horror and disturbance can be projected is the inward- facing stage of the audience’s own imagination. As an intermediate between the more passive experience of television and the reader-reliant nature of literature, the radio play’s mental engagement makes it the best poised to most effectively prey upon the intellectual insecurities, vulnerabilities, and fears of its audience. !As a fundamental aspect of this assertion, it is important to understand the intellectual and psychological relationship between works of this genre (to whatever degree they are deemed “horror”) and listeners themselves. Questions arise: How does enjoyment exist when the immediate intention is to elicit a negative response? Why 1 Lovecraft, H. P. "Introduction." Supernatural Horror in Literature. New York: Dover Publications, 1973. N. pag. Print. 1 4,195 Words!Burke, Zach would an audience readily engage works that terrify and unnerve, repel and disgust? Upon immediate reflection, this dynamic of pain-as-pleasure may appear masochistic, at best, and sadistic at worst. The answer, however, is that horror’s relationship with the audience functions just as tragedy does - a narrative structure which produces equally unpleasant, if not often exactly the same, internal responses, i.e. apprehension, depression, and hopelessness. !In David Hume’s essay “Of Tragedy,” in which Hume examines this seeming paradox of pleasure through displeasure, he writes that audiences of tragedy are “pleased in proportion as they are afflicted.”2 As the audience’s sense of loss grows more profound, and the narrative’s descent more severe, the more audiences find to admire and adore in the work. These “uneasy passions,” as Hume terms them, produce an excitement equal to their devastation, as if the audience were charmed by the lash. !This conflicting dynamic is not as incongruous as it appears at first glance. Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle’s essay “Reflections on the Poetic,” as referenced by Hume, describes the distinctions between pleasure and pain as fluid and instantaneous. Fontenelle elucidates this point through the bizarre example of an “instance of tickling,” from which “it appears that the movement of pleasure, pushed a little too far, becomes pain; and that the movement of pain, a little moderated, becomes pleasure.”3 Although perhaps overly phenomenological, Fontenelle’s example clearly articulates the “how” of this conflicting dynamic. Unfortunately, it does not address “why” this paradigm functions like it does. 2 Hume, David. "Of Tragedy." Four Dissertations. London: Millar, 1757. N. pag. Print. 3 Fontenelle, Bernard L. "Section 36." Reflections on the Poetic. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print. 2 4,195 Words!Burke, Zach !Noël Caroll, however, does concern himself with “why.” Author of The Philosophy of Horror; Or, Paradoxes of the Heart, Caroll directly links Hume’s discussion of tragedy with the nature of horror narratives, beginning with an explanation of Hamlet’s longstanding death grip on its audiences. Indeed, the “interest that we take in the deaths of Hamlet, Gertrude, Claudius, et al.,” he explains, “is not sadistic, but is an interest that the plot has engendered in how certain forces, once put in motion, will work themselves out. Pleasure derives from having our interest in the outcome of such questions satisfied.”4 Thus, although both horror and tragedy produce “uneasy passions” within their audiences - morbid curiosity, powerless wonderment, fear of dark, inevitable conclusions - the fulfillment of the stimulus sought by each relies upon proper intellectual satisfaction being produced at the narrative’s close. !How is this intellectual contract between audience and narrative fulfilled? By answering the question proposed by a story’s opening in a logical, mentally engaging way. No audience enjoys feeling cheated by utterly unforeseeable circumstance. Were deus ex machina at play in Hamlet, with the tragic hero able to inexplicably halt the crushing gears put in motion by his own inaction, the impact of Shakespeare’s story would be dramatically reduced. Just the same, should the protagonist of a horror story cheat death or worse through authorial intervention, avoiding consequence without intelligible cause, the entire narrative deflates. Robbed of their fear, either for the well- being of the protagonist or for the validity of the scenario, audiences become mentally disengaged. 4 Carroll, Noël. The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart. New York: Routledge, 1990. Print.pg. 182 3 4,195 Words!Burke, Zach !Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt, a short story adapted for radio by Ernest Kinoy on Dimension X in 1951 and X Minus One in 1955, exemplifies this intellectual necessity through its successful horror arc. The narrative begins benignly enough: a husband and wife purchase a state of the art “nursery” for their two children, Wendy and Peter. Of course, Bradbury’s concept approaches the fantastic, as the “nursery” is itself “a miraculous theatre of virtual reality.”5 In essence, the parents have installed a room that shapes whim and fantasy into real, sensory experience. As the father says, “when you felt like a quick jaunt to a foreign land, a quick change of scenery. Well, here it was!”6 Similarly, the rest of the house propagates the same spoon-fed lifestyle, suggesting a world overly rich with technological amenities and instant gratification. With this narrative foundation in place, Bradbury’s audiences can begin to pick at the problems posed by the existence of such a realm. !Were The Veldt pure tragedy, the audience would begin to speculate as to the nursery’s corrupting influence in broader strokes, such as the dissolution of the family unit. Because The Veldt is horror, its audience anticipates something far more insidious and, “as it will turn out, [the nursery] is also, necessarily, a theatre of cruelty.”7 As Peter and Wendy become more and possessive of their new space, the authority of the parents is subverted by the nursery, and the children obsess over illusionary safaris into the African plains. 5 Tofts, Darren, Annemarie Jonson, and Alessio Cavallaro. Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2002. 155. Print. 6 Bradbury, Ray. "The Veldt." The Vintage Bradbury; Ray Bradbury's Own Selection of His Best Stories. New York: Vintage, 1965. N. pag. Print. 7 Tofts, Jonson, Cavallaro. 155. 4 4,195 Words!Burke, Zach !Disturbed by the lions who stalk the nursery walls - constantly feeding in the distance on unseen prey - Peter and Wendy’s parents decide to decommission not only the nursery, but the entire house in the coming week. Naturally, the children, who the family psychologist says display “the usual violence, a tendency towards slight paranoia” in feeling “persecuted by their parents,"8 do not react well. When ominous signs of growing aggression appear inside the nursery - a blood smeared wallet, the mother’s scarf stained red, screams from the nursery both strange and familiar - the audience knows “what the Hadley parents cannot see:” that their decision to unplug the room “is already too late.”9 It is this growing tension, this latent knowledge of the story’s potential, that drives successful horror. All that remains is for Bradbury to supply a satisfactory answer. !For The Veldt, the fulfillment of this answer comes in the climactic scene where Peter and Wendy trap their parents inside the nursery, locking the door from the outside. Here, the illusionary lions become all to real, encircling the parents, and, as Bradbury writes, the parents suddenly realize “why those other screams had sounded familiar.”10 Having been given all the clues, the audience, too, now understands the horrific parallels between what images Wendy and Peter called to mind the weeks previous and what has come to pass. Like tragedy, the audience’s interest “in how certain forces, once put in motion, will work themselves out” becomes satisfied by having been given all the pieces beforehand, with no inexplicable twists. 8 Bradbury, Ray. "The Veldt." GENERIC RADIO WORKSHOP OTR SCRIPT: X Minus One. Ed. Ernest Kinoy. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 July 2014. 9 Tofts, Jonson, Cavallaro. 157. 10 Bradbury, 263 5 4,195 Words!Burke, Zach ! Bradbury succeeds through a natural progression of compounding details. At the story’s open, able to suspect what the parents cannot, the audience is given room to ponder the nursery’s dark influence over the children. Moreover, as warning signs grow increasingly apparent - remnants of bloody clothing, the pride’s ramping aggression towards parental entries into the room - the question of horror evolves, morphing from a simple “if something bad will happen” into “when and how.” With the increasingly tangible physical nature of the room growing in parallel to these questions, it feels not only natural, but necessary, for The Veldt to close with the parents’ murder, an act framed by the exact image of the pride’s feeding in the distance referenced earlier in the story. Here, the “uneasy passions” of Hume’s tragic sense are perfectly mirrored, replaced only by darker meditations, and once again audiences are “pleased in proportion as they are afflicted.” !Successful fulfillment of this intellectual contract makes horror a powerful medium, capable of eliciting extreme reactions in its audience. But is horror, as a label, limiting? It certainly doesn’t need to be. If horror can be defined as “a genre that represents the need for suppression,” especially “if the horror shown is interpreted as expressing uncomfortable and disturbing desires which need to be contained,”11 then the presence of “horror” in popular storytelling is far more readily apparent.
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