Presented to the Graduate Council of the North

A COMPARISON OF THREE TECHNIQUES OF TEACHING LITERATURE:

SILENT READING, SOLO PERFORMANCE, AND READERS THEATRE

DISSERTATION

Presented to the Graduate Council of the

North Texas State University in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

David R. Maberry, B. A., M. A.

Denton, Texas

December, 1975 Maberry, David R., A Comparison of Three Techniques of

Teaching Literature: Silent Reading, Solo Performance, and

Readers Theatre. Doctor of Philosophy (College Teaching:

Speech Communication and Drama), December, 1975, 231 pp.,

17 tables, bibliography, 35 titles.

The problem of this study was a comparison of the responses of students to three techniques of teaching literature: silent reading, solo performance, and readers theatre.

Students in three classes of grade nine and students in three classes of grade eleven were selected at three high schools in the north Texas area. There was a total of three hundred seventy-one students involved in the experiment.

Each of the three classes at each grade level in each high school received three presentations of three short stories.

Each class read one short story silently; each class heard one short story presented by solo performance; and each class heard one short story presented in the technique of readers theatre. Immediately after each presentation the students were administered a semantic differential to determine which technique of presentation stimulated the most appreciation of literature. At the same time they were administered a short objective test of ten items to determine which technique achieved more comprehension. Ten days later all students received the same test over all three stories to determine which technique stimulated the most retention.

1 2

Each of the five research hypotheses was tested in the null form. If a significant F was found for any of the hypotheses, a multiple comparison (Newman-Keuls') was applied to determine the source of the variance.

The readers theatre technique evoked a higher mean than either solo performance or silent reading and solo performance evoked a higher mean than did silent reading.

In each of the analysis of variance for each of the research hypotheses the results were significant beyond the

0.001 level. In using the Newman-Keuls' all results were significant at better than the 0.01 level.

Regardless of technique of presentation, there were lower scores on the retention test given ten days after the presentation than on the comprehension test given immediately after the presentations. However, the loss in mean was smaller for readers theatre than for solo performance or silent reading. The loss for solo performance was smaller than for silent reading.

At the same time retention of comprehension was tested, appreciation was also tested. The appreciation of silent reading declined by 1.46 while the appreciation of solo performance increased by 1.47, and the appreciation of readers theatre increased by 1.37.

Since the results of the experiment remained consistent regardless of which story was presented, it may be concluded that the technique, rather than the literature was responsible for the better results. 3

Since many teachers of literature state that one of the main purposes of teaching literature is to get students to enjoy literature, oral interpretation techniques should be employed.

Since the results were significant that oral presentation of literature was more successful than silent reading, further research could determine how much oral presentation should be used.

Since the oral interpretation of literature has a much longer history than the printed page, it should be kept in mind for further research that regardless of the success or convenience of any technique of presentation that perhaps no one technique should replace all others. There should be rather a blending of silent reading, solo performance, and readers theatre. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page LIST OF TABLES ...... iv

Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Statement of the Problem Purpose of the Study Hypotheses Background and Significance of the Study Definition of Terms Instruments Procedures for Collection of Data Procedures for Analysis of Data

II. SYNTHESIS OF RELATED LITERATURE ...... 11

History Oral Interpretation in Academe Oral Interpretation in the English Classroom Summary

III. METHODS AND PROCEDURES ...... 29

Description of the Instruments Procedure for Collecting the Data Procedures for Analysis of Data

IV. PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF THE DATA . . . . . 43

Treatment of the Data Data Relative to the Hypotheses Summary

V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . 57

Summary Conclusions Recommendations Subjective Observations Related to the Experiment

APPENDIX.-....- ....-.-.-...... 64

BIBLIOGRAPHY. .-....-...... 229

iii LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

I. Order of Technique Used in Presentation of the Short Stories ...... 30

II. Means for Achievement Tests at Ninth Grade Level ...... 33

III. Means for Evaluative Component of the Semantic Differential at the Ninth Grade Level . . . 34

IV. Means for Retention Tests at the Ninth Grade Level ...... 34

V. Schedule for High School I ...... 36

VI. Schedule for High School II ...... 36

VII. Schedule for High School III ...... 37

VIII. Number of Observations, Means, and Standard Deviations for the Achievement Tests . . . 45

IX. Summary of Analysis of Variance for the Achievement Tests ...... 46

X. Summary of Newman-Keuls for the Achievement Tests ...... 47

XI. Number of Observations, Means, and Standard Deviations for Retention of Achievement Tests. ....-...... 48

XII. Summary of Analysis of Variance for the Retention of Achievement Tests ...... 49

XIII. Summary of Newman-Keuls for the Retention of Achievement Tests...... 50

XIV. Number of Observations, Means, and Standard Deviations for the Appreciation Tests . . . 51

XV. Summary of Analysis of Variance for the Appreciation Tests...... 52

iv V

Table Page

XVI. Summary of Newman-Keuls for the Appreciation Tests ...... 52

XVII. Post Versus Retests Means, Analysis of Variance and Level of Significance for the Evaluative Componant of the Semantic Differential ...... 53 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Many times students of English have been told to read

Macbeth as preparation for discussions and evaluation or have been instructed to write papers on Shakespeare's use of iam- bic pentameter or the identity of the missing fourth murderer

in this play. Many times teachers of English have been dis- appointed when students failed to develop an appreciation for

Macbeth or any other literature. Perhaps some students turn

from literature because of the way it is sometimes taught.

Dorothy Mathews of the University of Illinois wrote,

I agree with those who believe that stimulating an interest in books is one of the most vital responsi- bilities of the teacher of English and also one of the most frequently neglected. I wonder how many times high school graduates can honestly say that their English classes instilled in them a lifelong love of reading.1

Most literature is taught through the technique of silent reading, discussion, and testing for facts contained within the literature. That technique does not seem to be accomplishing the goal of stimulating an interest in literature. Elizabeth Worrell of Northeast Missouri State College described what she considered a typical classroom situation.

1 Dorothy Mathews, "The Uses of Oral Interpretation in Directing and Motivating Outside Reading of High School Students," Oral Interpretation and the Teaching of English, edited by T. L. Fernandez (Champaign, Illinois, 1969), p. 59.

1 2

Once upon a time there was a teacher with a class of students, and they were "studying literature." They read, and they analyzed and they discussed--at least the teacher discussed, and the students supposedly listened. Then the teacher made out a list of questions on what he thought they should know about the story, and the students tried to answer the questions the way they thought2 he wanted them answered, and everyone passed the course.

In that typical classroom there was no mention of stimulating an interest in literature. According to J. H. Hook this lack of interest was caused by a lack of involvement with literature.

Literature should turn students on, not off. Many American teachers are so eager to have students learn facts about literature ("Who is the speaker?" "What is the rhyme scheme?" "When did Wordsworth live?") that many students never r eally become personally involved in the literature.

Hook went on to state that becoming involved meant to enjoy literature, which he thought was the most important reason for reading in the classroom. He quoted the late Paul

Landis of the University of Illinois, who, Hook said, was the best-loved teacher of literature there as saying, "My only objective is to help the youngsters have fun with reading. If they do that, everything else will follow." 4

Hook suggested that if more emphasis were placed on oral presentations of literature, a sense of fun with

2 Elizabeth Worrell, "Readers Theatre and the Short Story," Oral Interpretation and the Teaching of English, edited by T. L. Fernandez (Champaign, Illinois, 1969), p. 45.

J. N. Hook, The Teaching of High School English, 4th ed. (New York, 1972), p. 123.

4 Ibid., p. 180. 3 literature would result. He stated that a teacher should have ". . . touches of expertise and showmanship that a professional speaker, oral interpreter, or actor possesses." 5

Leslie Irene Coger of Southwest Missouri agreed with

Landis that enjoyment of literature would lead to better understanding of literature. She also agreed with Hook that oral performances would create that enjoyment. She wrote,

When literature becomes an enjoyable, personalized experience, it takes on a significance, a new excite- ment. The study of the written page becomes fun when it prepares the reader for sharing literary material with an audience. And reading literature aloud deepens the reader's understanding of the text, for in giving it voice he experiences the writing more completely,6 more comprehensibly, than he does in silent reading.

In 1965 a special National Council of Teachers of

English task force reported on language programs. One of their ten major recommendations was

The lack of planned attention to oral practice, to communicating ideas aloud, and to planned exercises in listening is a serious deficiency in many programs. Rigidly structured reading programs, without oral experiences, seem unlikely to achieve lasting growth. Only as progress is made in the use of oral language will there be substantial improvement in reading and writing. The interdependence of these language skills has been demonstrated in both research and practice. All forms of drama, from puppetry to formal acting, and the oral tradition of literature need to be given greater emphasis in schools. 7

5J. N. Hook, Paul H. Jacobs, and Raymond D. Crisp, What Every English Teacher Should Know (Champaign, Illinois, 1970), p. 54.

6 Leslie Irene Coger and Melvin R. White, Readers Theatre Handbook: A Dramatic Approach to Literature (Glenview, Illinois, 1967), p. 10.

7 Hook and Crisp, p. 56. 4

Since the objectives of teaching literature are to gain

better understanding and more enjoyment, literature's com-

monality with music should be considered, that is, that it

must be heard and often seen, to be understood, enjoyed and

appreciated. It becomes, therefore, helpful to examine new

techniques of teaching and presenting literature.

Statement of the Problem

The problem of this study was a comparison of the responses of students to three techniques of teaching literature: silent reading, solo performance, and readers theatre.

Purpose of the Study

The purposes of the study were to compare the traditional techniques of teaching literature (silent reading) with two oral interpretation approaches (solo performance and readers theatre), and to evaluate the differences in achievement and appreciation of literature which resulted from the three techniques of presentation.

Hypotheses

To carry out the purposes of this study, the following hypotheses were tested:

1. When students were taught by technique B (Solo Per- formance), they would achieve significantly higher mean scores on the achievement test than when they were taught by technique A (Silent Reading). 5

2. When students were taught by technique C (Readers

Theatre), they would achieve significantly higher mean scores on the achievement test than when they were taught by A or B.

3. When students were taught by technique B, they would achieve significantly higher mean scores on the appreciation test than they would when taught by technique A.

4. When students were taught by technique C, they would achieve significantly higher mean scores on the appreciation test than when taught by A or B.

5. Students would achieve significantly higher mean scores on the retention test when they were taught by

a. technique B than they would when taught by

technique A.

b. technique C than they would when taught by

A or B.

Background and Significance of the Study

Since silent reading has been the chief technique for presenting literature to students, and since that technique has not achieved the purpose of creating a devotion to books among those students, new techniques need to be introduced to the classroom. Students do not enter school with a need to be taught to speak as they need to be taught to read and write.8 Even if a teacher senses that improvement in oral

English influences learning in other matters, he may be

8Walter Loban, "Oral Language and Learning, " Oral Language and Reading (Champaign, Illinois, 1969), p. 101. 6 puzzled concerning what measures to take, and curriculum guides seldom address the problem.9

Recently some teachers have begun to question this neglect. Walter Loban of the University of California at

Berkeley wrote that one teacher who emphasized oral language was described by her former pupil, John Steinbeck (1955):

I have had many teachers who told me soon-forgotten facts but only three who created in me a new thing, a new attitude and a new hunger. I suppose that to a large extent I am the unsigned manuscript of that high school teacher. What deathless power lies in the hands of such a person.10

In order to create or revive a positive attitude and a hunger for reading, new techniques of presenting literature are needed. Since before there was any writing or reading, there was spoken language, literature grows from spoken language. Why not present literature orally and let it be a living experience?

The different responses to techniques of silent reading, solo performance, and readers theatre at different age levels illustrate that oral presentations have educational value.

Definitions of Terms

Oral communication is the process by which a speaker and a listener try to influence each other. It is the in- tegrating factor in achieving productive interpersonal

9Ibid., p. 101. 1 0 Ibid., p. 111. 7 relationships, in achieving the creative development and enjoyment of the arts, and in achieving creative rational decision making.1 1

Oral interpretation is the communication of the reader's impression of the author's ideas and feelings to the eyes and ears of the audience, so that the audience understands the ideas, experiences and feelings, and appreciates the author's literary skills.1 2 Oral interpretation includes solo performances, choral reading, readers theatre, chamber theatre, and multiple platform readings. Oral interpretation, unlike acting, is presentational rather than representational.

For the purposes of this study, solo performance was defined as one person presenting an oral interpretation of a piece of literature.

Readers theatre was defined as a group activity in which a piece of literature is communicated from manuscript to an audience through the oral interpretation approach of vocal and physical suggestion.1 3

Instruments

The instrument chosen for use in measuring appreciation and attitude toward literature was a semantic differential.

The semantic differential was used because as Fred N.

1 1 Deldee M. Herman, Oral Interpretation in the Secondary School (Skokil, Illinois, 1972), p. vii.

1 2 Otis J. Aggert and Elhert R. Bowen, Communicative Reading (New York, 1966), p. 6.

1 3 Coger and White, p. 4. 8

Kerlinger wrote, "The semantic differential is a method of observing and measuring the psychological meaning of things, usually concepts."14 Since literature and reading, either silent or oral, may be considered concepts and since people have attitudes toward these concepts, the semantic differential was appropriate. People's responses to literature are usually emotional or psychological. The reactions may be good or bad, beautiful or dull. People attach connotative meanings to literature rather than denotative meanings. Ker- linger wrote of the semantic differential, "We have here a useful and perhaps sensitive tool to help in the exploration of an extremely important area of psychological and educational concern: connotative meaning."15 These connotative meanings are often the result of attitude, and attitude toward the short story and literature was one of the chief concerns of this study. A semantic differential of eighteen bi-polar adjectives was used to test the attitude toward the three methods of presentation. There were eight sets to test evaluation, six sets to test activity, and four sets to test potency.

The achievement was tested by an objective test made for this study. There were ten multiple choice questions for each story. To determine that the tests are of the same

1 4 Fred N. Kerlinger, Foundations of Behavioral Research: Educational and Psychological Inquiry (New York, 1964), p. 564. 1 5 Ibid., p. 579. 9 difficulty, five English teachers were asked to check the questions for validity and two classes were administered the test to check for reliability. Retention was tested ten days later by administering a thirty-item test composed of the three ten-item tests administered immediately after each presentation. The questions were combined into one test with the order scrambled. At the same time every student was given one of the three semantic differentials to determine

if appreciation had remained the same.

Procedures for Collection of Data

Students in three classes of grade nine and students in three classes of grade eleven were selected at three high schools in the north Texas area. There were a minimum of twenty students in each class. Each of the three classes at each grade level in each high school received three presentations of three short stories. Each class read one short story silently; each class heard one short story presented by solo performance; and each class heard one short story presented in the techniques of readers theatre. The presentations were given at two-day intervals. Each presentation lasted approximately twenty minutes. Immediately after each presentation the students were administered a semantic differential to determine which method of presentation stimulated the most appreciation of the literature. At the same time they were administered a short objective test of ten items to determine which method achieved more learning of 10

content and meaning. All students received the same test on

the same short story. Ten days later all students received

the same test over all three stories to determine which

method stimulated the most retention. In each case the presentation and testing were accomplished for one story in one class period.

Procedures for Analysis of Data

After the data from the three high schools had been collected, the scores for Technique A (Silent Reading) were pooled; the scores for Technique B (Solo Performance) were pooled; and the scores for Technique C (Readers Theatre) were pooled. The pooling of all the scores helped show that any significant difference in means was caused by the technique of presentation rather than by difference in background, ability, or age.

Each hypothesis was tested in the null form and the level of significance was reported. If a significant F was found for any of the hypotheses, a multiple comparison

(Newman-Keuls) was applied to determine the source of the variance.

Findings were drawn and conclusions formulated from the findings. Appropriate implications and recommendations are included. CHAPTER II

SYNTHESIS OF RELATED LITERATURE

History

The art of oral interpretation has long been a part of

literature and teaching. Oral arts were of great importance

in Ancient Greece. Literature, to the Greeks, was really

something to hear or to recite instead of something to read. 1

The Greeks were blessed with a rich language, and they sought

supremacy in its use just as they sought supremacy in the use of arms. Nothing pleased a Greek more than to find a worthy opponant for a verbal battle. Socrates is the best known example of that Greek trait. His debates, as recorded by

Plato, are a prized part of literature to this day.2

In classical Greece few things were more important than the spoken word.

They set such store by it that they were loath to en- trust their most sacred truths to any other form of communication so that writing had a hard time striking roots in that vocal soil.

Today people are so accustomed to trusting the written word that it may be hard to conceive of a time when all

'Eugene Bahn and Margaret L. Bahn, A History of Oral Interpretation (Minneapolis, 1971), p. 2. 2Ibid.

3Ibid., p. 3.

11 12 literature was oral. In the days of classical Greece, the author passed the living word directly to the audience and there could be immediate understanding of his message.

If the hearer did not understand, he could question the author at once, and explanations could be offered to make the meaning clear. Or perhaps the hearer might not agree with the author. There and then, by argument and discussion, author and audience could clear up any misunderstanding and, if necessary, adjust the author's words to arrive at a mutually acceptable statement.

So important was the oral tradition to the Greeks that it became a part of medical treatment. Empedocles, a renowned physician, believed in the value of words in treat- ing disorders of the mind and body.

He tells of one man so possessed by the furies that he was ready to murder his own father. He was brought back to a more normal frame of mind by Empedo- cles himself who chanted soothing words to the accom- paniment of his lyre until the violent passions sub- sided and the patient's mental balance was restored.5

Long after writing had been invented Aristotle said that Greeks could better remember their laws by repeating them aloud.6 Laws were considered helpful to man rather than as means of prohibition, and it was not uncommon for someone to recite various laws at social gatherings. 7

In the Odyssey, Homer describes how the minstrel, a favored member of the royal court, told stories of valor to inspire, entertain and move the audience. The minstrel extolled deeds of the great and passed from generation to

4lbid. 5Ibid., p. 4.

6Ibid., p. 5. 71bid., p. 6. 13

generation the history of the people, which gave Greeks

pride in their ancestors.8

Herodatus introduced a new function for oral interpre-

tation. He began to recite history. Poetry had been Homer's

tool, but Herodatus preferred to depict historical events

through prose. He earned his living by traveling through the

country reciting history. His recitations were the founda-

tions for his later fame as a historian.9

The Greeks had trained themselves to retain what they heard, and it was not uncommon for students to be able to

recite much, or all, of Homer by heart. Greek teachers and

fathers considered memorization to be the backbone of educa-

tion, and the ability to recite or speak well was the main

requirement for an educated man.1 0

Listening, imitating, memorizing, the Greeks learned from each other at every opportunity, and ultimately the idea became implanted in their minds that recitation was not merely a privilege or a pastime, but an important duty which the educated man owed to his fellows. Epicurus, in his discussion of the wise man, said that he must, among other things, be grateful for criticism, establish T 1school, and if he is asked to do so, read in public.

The importance of the oral word and the oral recital of literature did not die in Greece. Rather, it spread to the west as new nations began to establish their own adaptations of the oral traditions of Greece.

8Ibid., p. 19. 9Ibid., p. 20. 1 0 Ibid., p. 22. 1 1 Ibid., p. 23. 14

As Rome became more prosperous and powerful, an ever- growing interest in the Arts began to flourish. In the

Augustan Age (43 B. C. to 14 A. D.), oral reading developed rapidly. Until this time oral literature in Rome had been

largely made up of speeches by orators who endeavored to sway men's minds in order to gain offices of state. During the Augustan era ability as an administrator became the means of maintaining office rather than the ability to be a persuasive speaker. However, the public had enjoyed these speeches and were willing to accept another form of oral entertainment.12 The poets gave the public its wish. Not only were the poets entertaining, but also they had as their chief goal to be good citizens and extol the virtues of

Rome.13

In Rome much emphasis was placed on the oral interpretation of poetry, but other forms of literature were also recited. Romans loved to hear history described by men like

Livy, Timegenes and Pliny. 4 These uses of oral presentations were also employed.

In fields rather remote from literature, and again repeating the Greek pattern, the ancient Roman laws, dating back to 451 B. C., were repeated orally and were the chief subject of a school boy's studies up to the time of Cicero. Here, too, the spoken word was the vehicle for the preservation and propagation of the group mores. The therapeutic values of spoken literature, well recognized in the Roman world as in the Greek, were expounded by Cilsus, who made numerous

1 2 Ibid., 1 p. 31. 3 Ibid., p. 33. 1 4 Ibid., p. 43. 15

references to them. In his De Medicina he suggested reading aloud for such diverse physical ailments as relief of stomach disorders, indigestion, and cronic cough, while in the field of mental health he recommended story telling, memorized recitation or reading for the treatment of insanity and nervous disturbances. 15

Greece and Rome had their gods, supernatural figures

and warriors, but in the Middle Ages the dominant figure in

Europe was Christ. The favorite stories became those of

simple humans struggling to imitate the virtues and lives of

the saints as depicted in the Bible.1 6

A whole new world opened up for the men who could carry the Bible's message abroad for the edification and salvation of their fellow mortals. This was a rich field for those skilled in oral communication. Through all the mutations which took place between the days of the early apostles who went out into the world to pro- claim the gospel of love and forgiveness, to the terror ridden times caused by religi s dissession, the role of the interpreter was vital.

St. Anthony was one of the early saints to declare the value of a good reader. His parents died when he was about eighteen and left him a very wealthy young man, but he could not decide what to do with his life. One day he happened into a church where the story of the rich young ruler was being read. Anthony was so impressed by what he heard that he thought the message was specifically meant for him, and he gave his money to the people of the village and entered a monastery.17

1 5Ibid., p. 44.

1 6 Ibid., p. 49.

17Ibid. ,p. 50. 16

St. Augustine had one of the most profound influences upon his time. He also made comments on the practices of oral performance. One of the practices of the church during his time was the reading aloud of testimonies of people who had been blessed by miraculous cures. St. Augustine believed that ". . . the more eloquently the testimony was read, the greater the emotional impact the event would have upon the listening congregation.',18

St. Augustine agreed with the Greek idea that a word was not a word until it was spoken. He urged speakers for the church to master the art of eloquence, which he thought was the best way to hold a man's attention and influence his thinking.

Benedict of Nursia (480-554? A. D.) established the

Benedictine Rule, which was to prevail in monasteries for centuries. The Benedictine Rule stated rules for reading aloud in church services and at meal times. He was deeply impressed with the importance of reading aloud well.

In the monastery, the monk who was assigned to be the reader at meals for the ensuing week was given a special blessing on the Sunday before he entered on his duties. While the reading was in progress, the monks were forbidden to speak even in a whisper; if they required anything at the table they must so indicate by visable signs, but not by speech, for only the voice of the reader was to be heard. After leaving the table, the monks were advised to rest in silence or to read alone. If they did read, they were not to disturb others, an injunction which would imply that even when reading alone, they read aloud.19

1 8 Ibi p.1 9 2.bid . 54 18Ibid. , p. 52. 191bid., p. 54. 17

The Benedictine Rule acquired wide acceptance which lasted for centuries. The monasteries became the centers of learning and culture and one of their most lasting traditions was good oral reading.2 0

When Pope Gregory sent St. Augustine and a group of missionaries to England in 597 A. D., they entered a land with no political unity and an extremely low rate of literacy.

With the establishment of the Catholic church in England came the tradition of oral reading.

While churchmen tried to perfect their oral reading in order to spread the gospel, other men realized there were entertainment values in oral readings. The scops and gleemen realized there would be audiences for pagan literature.

Possibly the author of Beowulf was one of these.2 1

When William of Normandy invaded England, he brought with him minstrels. Their main function was to entertain, but it was also their duty to reveal various events which were to take place at court. The church, the scops, gleemen, and minstrels all had their influence on each other and literature.

The churchmen learned the gleeman's art, and the gleeman learned some Bible stories. When the Normans came, they added romantic tales of chivalry and exotic descriptions of faraway places. As man's horizon ex- panded to take in more of the world, literature was enriched and preserved and made ready for the coming

2 0 Ibid., p. 55.

2 1 Ibid., p. 58. 18

Renaissance. In large measurethe men who preserved it were the tellers of tales.

With the coming of the Renaissance came a renewed

interest in the oral techniques of the ancients. Many educa-

tors had never lost interest in a need for good oral delivery.

In the sixteenth century one of the most famous schools was

that of Johann Sturm in Strassburg. He required extensive oral work. When his students were seven they began to read and speak in Latin, and to memorize the catechism in German.

By the time they were fourteen they were studying rhetoric, using Greek and Latin orations, and acting in the comedies of Terence and Plautus.2 3

With the coming of the Renaissance many books on the theory of reading aloud were written to guide the gentleman, student and educator. One of the earliest books written about a theory of reading aloud in English was Pastime of

Pleasure by Stephen Hawes in 1509. Books were rare in

England because paper was not yet manufactured there. There- fore, many students did not own books and the teachers themselves often did not have all the books from which they wished to teach. These teachers would study the work of

Stephen Hawes to learn to recite properly other works to their students.2 4

2 2 Ibid. p. 80.

2 3 Ibid. p. 87.

2 4 Ibid., p. 89. 19

After paper became more available, one of the most

popular methods of teaching was for the instructor to read

from existing texts and have the students write their own

copies of what they heard. Teachers tried to be good readers

so as to give their students an understanding of the meaning

as well as the exact wording of the selection.

A teacher's voice, his diction, and understanding were of major importance in conveying the majesty and beauty of the literature he read. People at that time had difficulty in separating the oral aspects of delivery from the written elements of style. As a result, a fine poem might go unrecognized if it were badly recited or read.2 5

When Henry VIII appointed himself head of the English

Church in 1534, he decreed that every parish buy a large

Bible and put it in the church for all to read. People

thronged to read or to hear the Bible read to them.

As literature became more prolific so did the practice

of reading aloud. Samuel Pepys and his friends would often

gather for an evening of merrymaking where story telling and

reading aloud were always a part of the evening's program.

When Pepys spent an evening at home, he and his wife would often read aloud to each other. 2 6

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries entertainment, literary criticism, religion, and education continued to use oral literature. It was also employed in propaganda and matters of health. During this time England

2 5 Ibid., p. 89.

2 6 Ibid. p. 105. 20

became aware of her strength, her power and her future pos-

sibilities.

This awareness gave vent to creative and imagina- tive expression in the realm of architecture, government, religion, the theatre, education, and literature. It was in the last five that oral exprgs ion in its several forms was to be a vital force.

In the eighteenth century the clergy of England were

severely criticized for their poor preaching and inadequate

reading of the liturgy. The Tatler reported that "If our

preachers would learn to speak and our readers to read, within six months we should not have a dissenter within a

mile of a church in Great Britain." 2 8 All through that

century elocutionists tried to find the best method for im-

proving the clergy both in speaking and reading. Thomas

Sheridan argued that they should imitate nature and be con-

versational.29 Others argued for a more mechanical method of training. Authors and poets were interested in oral

interpretation because they felt they could get the best

criticism of their works from live audiences. Melville is said to have read aloud every chapter of Moby Dick to his wife in order to watch and hear her reactions before moving

2 7 Ibid. p. 109.

28 Keith Brooks, Eugene Bahn, and L. La Mont Okey, The Communicative Act of Oral Interpretation (Boston, 1967), p. 11.

2 9 Mary Margaret Robb, Oral Interpretation of Literature in American Colleges and Universities: A Historical Study of Teaching Methods (New York, 1968), p. 30. 21 on to the next chapter.3 0 Authors today still prefer to evaluate poetry which is read aloud.

In the early American colonies most speech and oral reading was influenced by the elocutionists of England.

Then in the nineteenth century speech and interpretation training began to develop in the curriculum of colleges and private schools. Reading from the page and recitation were practiced. The interest in reading and recitation was not confined to the academic world. In large and small communi- ties, readers could draw large crowds. Many leading teachers of elocution and many prominent actors gave programs throughout the country to audiences who flocked to hear them.

Writers, too, such as Hariet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain were among the many who entertained the public with oral interpretation programs.

Toward the turn of the century, elocution began to lose favor because it had become too exaggerated and melodramatic.

Some people criticized reading because they said it stifled bodily action. Still oral interpretation remained an important entertainment form. That was evidenced by the popularity of the Chautaugua programs throughout the United States. The coming of phonographs, radio, and television provided more outlets for the oral interpretation of literature. Until that time most oral interpretation was done in solo performance.

3 0 Don Geiger, Oral Interpretation and Literary Study (San Francisco, 1958), p. 15. 22

In 1956, Charles Laughton and the First Drama Quartet

presented an oral interpretation of George Bernard Shaw's

Don Juan in Hell and interest in oral interpretation was

renewed. Gradually, however, oral interpretation came to

be thought of primarily as a form of entertainment. Its

study was often relegated to an introductory course in de-

partments of Speech and Drama.

Oral Interpretation in Academe

Even among the members of the National Association of

Academic Teachers of Public Speaking, known today as the

Speech Communication Association of America, there was some

doubt as to the importance of oral interpretation at one

time:

Although it was to be another thirty years (1955) before the Association officially established seventeen interest groups, the oral interpretation people were already meeting as a group. Their interests were sub- stantially polarized at the 1926 convention when Gertrude Johnson responded to a suggestion from the convention floor that interpretive reading had about faded from the scene. She rose and called a meeting of all interested in interpretation. It was reportedly the largest and most enthusiastic group at the convention. At that time a committee was formed. Reading programs were initiated the following year and have to this day remained the most popug r, best attended programs of the annual convention.

Oral interpretation was established and remains an

integral part of the academic world, but usually it is being taught and used only for its entertainment value. Only recently has interest turned to the possible value of oral

3 1 Brooks, Bahn, and Okey, p. 18. 23

interpretation as a method of teaching other subjects more

effectively.

Oral Interpretation in the English Classroom

Although many instructors of English recognize the

importance of oral communication and oral interpretation,

they do not teach much about them. The reasons are varied.

One reason is time. Many English teachers feel compelled to

finish the anthology from which they teach, and silent read-

ing is more conducive to speed. Speed reading, however, is

not conducive to the acquisition of beauty, and therefore,

sometimes destroys much of literature.32 Many teachers of

English are not prepared in techniques of oral interpreta-

tion, and therefore avoid its use.33

Generally, research suggests that there is a need for more use of oral interpretation as a method of teaching

literature. Generally, it is agreed that oral interpretation can help with the following: it makes the study of literature more enjoyable; it increases understanding of the literature's content and meaning.34

3 2 Dorothy Mathews, "The Uses of Oral Interpretation in Directing and Motivating Outside Reading of High School Students," Oral Interpretation and the Teaching of English (Champaign, Illinois, 1969), p. 50.

3 3 T. L. Fernandez, "Findings and Recommendations of the ISCPET Conference on Oral Interpretation," Oral Interpreta- tion and the Teaching of English (Champaign, Illinois, 1969), p. 72.

34 Ibid., p. 81. 24

Not only do teachers of oral interpretation assume that literature can be studied by oral performance, but many creators of literature assume that their work is to be read aloud. Shakespeare assures the subject of Sonnet 81, "You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)35Where breath most breaths--even in the mouths of men.

Teachers of oral interpretation and authors are not the

only people who have testified to the value of oral interpretation as a method of teaching literature. Francis L.

McCurdy wrote,

Moreover, the critics, the most scientific of the humanists, attest to the insights gained by oral reading. David Daiches qualifies, it is true, but says, nonetheless, "There are some who can be brought to enter into the rich vitality of a work more effectively by having it read aloud slowly, with proper phrasing and emphasis, than by the most careful analysis of the structure. R. P. Blackmur, who asserts that literature is made afresh as it is known afresh, explains that "it can be fresh only in performance--that is in reading, seeing, and hearing3jhat is actually in it at this place and this time."

Margaret M. Neville stated that today teachers place so much emphasis on rapid reading that students are encouraged to cover pages as fast as possible, and she thinks some books deserve that kind of reading, but she said there is another kind of reading which should be encouraged. She wrote:

There is such a thing as creative reading, whereby the reader enters into a kind of partnership with the writer. He gets on the same wavelength and so is prepared to receive the artist's message. He recreates in

3 5 Frances L. McCurdy, "Oral Interpretation as an Ap- proach to Literature," Oral Interpretation and the Teaching of Literature, (Champaign, Illinois, 1969), p. 9.

3 6 Ibid. , p. 11. 25

his own mind the images transmitted by the writer's work. Since words are primarily oral symbols, 3 Towever, it would be well for him to hear these sounds.

Laren V. Grissom, who is Director of Student Teaching and Professor of English Education at Northeast Missouri

State College, wrote the following about oral interpretation and English teachers.

One of my earliest impressions had to do with the uniqueness of every student teacher's needs and compe- tencies. However, after two years or so, I became convinced that some factor other than intelligence and general background was influencing the classroom performance of certain student teachers of English. To be sure, the difference was especially noticeable in the literary area, but it also affected performance in other types of lesson. In countless conferences with student teachers, I probed this matter and finally isolated enrollment in oral interpretation as the ap- parent cause of the important difference described above. More specifically, the student teachers who had experienced one or more courses in oral interpretation were more dynamic and more effective in communicating with their students both verbally and nonverbally. . . . These teachers were clearly more successful in making their students' experienc w ith literature colorful, dramatic, and meaningful.

In 1969 an experiment was conducted at Monmouth College in which prospective English teachers enrolled in a basic course in Oral Interpretation which was designed specifically for them. The reaction of the students was quite positive.

The following example was typical.

In my opinion, the oral interpretation course offered experience and training which I feel is

3 7 Margaret M. Neville, "Oral Interpretation as an Aid to the Understanding of Literature," Oral Interpretation and the Teaching of Literature (Champaign, Illinois, 1969), p. 18. 3 8 Fernandez, p. 79. 26

extremely important for the success of a secondary school English teacher. The primary goal of the student teacher was to elicit group participation, interest, and understanding. Reaction to and interaction with the oral readings produced and enhanced discussions, which I believe to be of great value in the learning experience. For example, four students were assigned to present book reviews. Two of the reviews were prepared as lectures on the content of the book, while the second two focused upon oral interpretations of passages from the book. The book reviews incorporating oral interpretation were more successful in eliciting positive responses from the classroom audience than those presented as lectures.3 9

Another student who participated in a Readers Theatre presentation for that same class wrote,

In my opinion, the Readers Theatre form meets two basic needs in teaching literature. First, it provides a variety of approach needed to enhance English Classes and thereby offsets the analytical assassination of literature. Second, it brink the students into direct contact with the literature.

After the experimental class was over, T. L. Fernandez drew the following conclusion.

Perhaps the most significant conclusion to be drawn is that teachers of English and teachers of Speech have a common interest in the development of skills in oral interpretation. The Guidelines reflect the common interest and the value of pooling the attitudes, ideas, and experiences of the speech specialist and the English specialist to enhance the preparation of future teachers as well as the teaching of English.4

SUMMARY

Oral interpretation has long had a place in the teaching of literature. From ancient Greece until the nineteenth century oral literature was a vital part of life. The

3 9Ibid., p. 80. 40 Ibid. 4 1 Ibid., p. 81. 27 elocutionists with their over-emphasis upon specific gesture and manners of line interpretation inflicted an unnatural quality to oral reading which caused it to lose popularity for a while, but it never faded from the scene.

Speech and English departments had become separate entities, and within Speech departments specialization was rapidly growing. Oral interpretation became a discipline unto itself. Now with the humanities becoming more united, oral interpretation has implications for other subjects, particularly the study of literature. Mary Margaret Robb wrote,

One of the most encouraging developments was the inclusion of oral interpretation as an elective satis- fying the humanities requirement in many liberal arts programs. The remarkable growth in this subject at the Univers y of California, Berkeley, was due to this status.

As interest is growing in the use of oral interpretation as a technique of teaching literature, new kinds of research are needed. Fernandez suggested the following:

Research and investigation into the use of oral interpretation as an instrument in the teaching of English should be continued. There is a particular need to discover what the behavioral aspects of this exercise are and how they function. Oral interpretation is ob- viously a participatory learning experience. Attempts must be made to determine more validly whether the student of literature does indeed discover literature more quickly, appreciate literature more intensely, and retain what he has learned more efficiently when he has parti pated as an oral reader in the act of literature.

4 2 Robb, p. 219.

4 3 Fernandez, p. 81. 28

Mark S. Klyn also suggested the need for more research.

He wrote that most research in oral interpretation has dealt

with the history of oral interpretation. Klyn thinks that

now we need research to determine the effects of oral in-

terpretation on students. He wrote that there is no longer

any need to justify oral interpretation as a method for

developing performers.

Most teachers of oral interpretation define their sub-

ject as primarily a mode of teaching literature. Most

teachers love to talk about their subject and the marvelous

results that come from students by approaching literature.

Klyn asserts that there is no real evidence to support these

claims. He maintains that the only available evidence is

the subjective experience of teachers actually using the

method. He stated that we needed to answer some specific

questions through research. Those questions are: What, if

anything, can oral interpretation do for or to students that

other methods cannot do or accomplish? What are the facts

about the performance of literature in relation to audiences?

Does it aid in comprehension? Is there something inherent

in the situation of performance that almost forces people to

"enjoy, enjoy'"? 4 4

4 4 Mark S. Klyn, "Potentials for Research in Oral Interpretation," Western Speech, XXIX (Spring, 1965), 108-113. CHAPTER III

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

The purpose of this study was to test the general

hypotheses that presenting literature to high school students

through two oral interpretation techniques (solo performance

and readers theatre) would create more appreciation, compre-

hension and retention of literature. To accomplish this

purpose the overall design selected for this study was a

counter balanced design because the experimental treatments

were applied in a restrictively random manner to naturally

assembled groups wherein each group received all treatments,

but in different order.

Three English classes were selected from grades nine

and three from eleven from each of three high schools in the

north Texas area. Each class was presented three short

stories. Each of the stories were of approximately the same

length, the same literary value, the same literary genre, and

by the same author. All three stories were of a sixth grade

reading level as determined by a formula developed by Edward

Fry. All the selections were presented by the same person

or persons to avoid involving different levels of talent or

lEdward Fry, "Readability Formula That Saves Time: Readability Graph," Journal of Reading, XI (April, 1968), 513-516.

29 30

enthusiasm. The stories were presented in the following

order at each grade level at each school.

TABLE I

ORDER OF TECHNIQUE USED IN PRESENTATION OF THE SHORT STORIES

Short Story I Short Story II Short Story III

Class I Silent Reading Solo Performance Readers Theatre

Class II Solo Performance Readers Theatre Silent Reading

Class III Readers Theatre Silent Reading Solo Performance

The stories used were

I. "Here There Be Tygers" by Ray Bradbury.

II. "The Exiles" by Ray Bradbury.

III. "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury.

Description of the Subjects

The subjects for this study came from three high schools

in the north Texas area. High School I was a private high school with a population of approximately six hundred students. High School II was a rural high school with a population of approximately four hundred students. High School

III was a city school with a population of approximately one thousand students.

At each high school three classes of regular English were chosen to receive the experimental treatments. The 31

classes in each of the three schools were of about the same

size, usually twenty to twenty-five students in each class.

Since there were three high schools involved, there were one

hundred eighty-three ninth graders and one hundred eighty-

eight eleventh graders involved for a total of three hundred

seventy-one students in the study.

Description of the Instruments

Seven measuring instruments were used in this study.

Three of these instruments were ten-item multiple choice

tests designed specifically for this study to test comprehension. There was a separate test designed to cover the

content of each short story.

To check the reliability and validity of the tests five

English teachers were asked to respond to the difficulty of the tests. Each of the teachers agreed that the tests were of the same level of difficulty. One of these teachers then had two of her classes read the stories. After they had read the stories, they took the tests. Each class consisted of between twenty and twenty-five students. The testing resulted in the following mean scores: "The Exiles," 7.3;

"A Sound of Thunder," 7.5; and "Here There Be Tygers," 7.4. These tests are included as Appendix A (Test for "Here There

Be Tygers"), Appendix B (Test for "The Exiles"), and Appen- dix C (Test for "A Sound of Thunder"). The fourth test was a combination of the above mentioned comprehension tests. This test contained thirty items, or all the items from the 32

first three tests; however, the questions were in a scrambled order. This test was used to test retention. It is included

as Appendix D.

Three Semantic Differentials were used to test appre-

ciation of the stories. Each Semantic Differential contained the same eighteen sets of bipolar adjectives but the order and

poles were changed for each story. Each pair of bipolar ad-

jectives was arranged on a seven-step continuum. Eight of

the eighteen scales were selected to have high loading on the evaluative (attitude) factor. Of the remaining ten, six

were weighted on the activity factor and four were loaded on

the potency factor. The loading of the adjectives was established by referring to Charles Egerton Osgood. 1 The scores on the eight evaluative (attitude) scales only were summed

to yield an attitude score.

Each individual scale was rated from "one" to "seven."

A score of "one" represented the extreme negative attitude score; "four" represented a neutral attitude; and "seven" represented the extreme positive attitude. When the eight evaluative scales were summed a score ranging from seven to fifty-six was possible. The Semantic Differentials are included as Appendix E ("Here There Be Tygers"), Appendix F

("The Exiles"), and Appendix G ("A Sound of Thunder").

1 Charles Egerton Osgood, George J. Suci, and Percy H. Tannenbaum, The Measurement of Meaning (Urbana, Illinois, 1957), p. 284. 33

Procedures for Collecting the Data

As a test of the workability of this experiment, a

pilot study was conducted in a ninth grade class of a north

Texas area junior high school on March 19, 20, 21, 1975.

There were twenty-four students in the class. On March 19,

1975, the students read silently "The Exiles" by Ray Brad- bury. On March 20, 1975, the students watched and heard a

readers theatre presentation of "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray

Bradbury. On March 21, 1975, the students watched and heard

a solo performance of "Here There Be Tygers" by Ray Bradbury.

Immediately after each presentation, achievement was tested

by a ten-item objective test which had ten as the perfect

score. The results follow:

TABLE II

MEANS FOR ACHIEVEMENT TESTS AT NINTH GRADE LEVEL

Technique Means

Silent Reading 4.87

Solo Performance 7.13

Readers Theatre 7.62

Also after each presentation a Semantic Differential was given each student to determine the appreciation of each

story. The highest score for the evaluative adjectives would have been fifty-six. The results follow: 34

TABLE III

MEANS FOR EVALUATIVE COMPONENT OF THE SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL AT THE NINTH GRADE LEVEL

Technique Means

Silent Reading 34.87

Solo Performance 46.50

Readers Theatre 42.75

Ten days later retention was tested with a fifteen-item

true or false test (five items for each story) with the

following results.

TABLE IV

MEANS FOR RETENTION TESTS AT THE NINTH GRADE LEVEL

Technique Means

Silent Reading 3.25

Solo Performance 3.75

Readers Theatre 3.60

As a result of the pilot study, three sets of adjec-

tives on the Semantic Differentials were replaced and the

wording of one question about "A Sound of Thunder" was

changed. 35

The fifteen-item true or false test for retention was replaced by a thirty-item multiple choice test made up of the three ten-item tests for comprehension. At the time of the retention test, every one was given another Semantic Differen-

tial to see if appreciation had remained the same. One-

third of the students received the Semantic Differential for

"Here There Be Tygers," one-third the Semantic Differential

for "The Exiles" and one-third received the Semantic Differ-

ential for "A Sound of Thunder."

It was also learned that teachers must be reminded in

classrooms where the experiment is performed not to comment

on performances. It is probable that the large number of

extremely high responses on the Semantic Differential for

"Here There Be Tygers" may have been due to the teacher's

plea for the students to show their appreciation for the

presentations. Nonetheless, the pilot study and its results

appeared to verify the hypotheses of this study and it

demonstrated that the project was feasible.

For the purposes of the study the schedules for the

three schools were set up and used as shown in Tables V, VI,

and VII.

In each class in each high school, the same procedures

were employed to carry out the experiment. The classroom

teacher was asked in advance to make no announcements, de-

scriptions, or requests for response. She was asked to 36

TABLE V

SCHEDULE FOR HIGH SCHOOL I

Short Story I Short Story II Short Story III

Class I Silent Reading Solo Performance Readers Theatre April 28 April 29 April 30

Class II Solo Performance Readers Theatre Silent Reading April 29 April 30 May 1

Class III Readers Theatre Silent Reading Solo Performance April 30 May 1 May 2

Retest for all classes on May 12

TABLE VI

SCHEDULE FOR HIGH SCHOOL II

Short Story I Short Story II Short Story III

Class I Silent Reading Solo Performance Readers Theatre May 5 May 6 May 7

Class II Solo Performance Readers Theatre Silent Reading May 6 May 7 May 8

Class III Readers Theatre Silent Reading Solo Performance May 7 May 8 May 9

Retest for all classes on May 19 37

TABLE VII

SCHEDULE FOR HIGH SCHOOL III

Short Story I Short Story II Short Story III

Class I Silent Reading Solo Performance Readers Theatre May 12 May 13 May 14

Class II Solo Performance Readers Theatre Silent Reading May 13 May 14 May 15

Class III Readers Theatre Silent Reading Solo Performance May 14 May 15 May 16

Retest for all classes on May 26

simply turn the class over for one period for the experiment. The introduction to the day's activity was as follows. The introduction follows:

Today we are going to read silently "Here There Be Tygers" by Ray Bradbury. As soon as you finish reading, please turn your stories over and wait for the others to finish. When everyone has finished reading the stories, you will each be given two tests. One of the tests is a multiple choice test over the content of the story. The other test is concerned with your attitude toward the story. It will be explained to you later. The grades on these tests will not affect your grade in English, but please do as well as you can. Let's read.

For the solo performance, the beginning of the introduction was changed to "Today I am going to read to you . . ." and the rest remained the same. For the Readers Theatre presentations, the introduction was changed to "Today we are going to read to you . . ." and the rest remained the same. 38

At the end of each presentation, each student in the class was given the two tests and an explanation of the

Semantic Differential was given. The pair of adjectives, good and bad, was used to explain how to mark the papers.

It was explained that nearest good was very positive, nearest bad was very negative and that the middle area was neutral or "I don't care either way." Each student was asked to

complete the tests and turn both papers over when finished.

Since the stories were all approximately the same

length, the average silent reading time was about the same.

It took about twenty-five to thirty minutes for the ninth graders to read any one of the stories. The eleventh graders

read at a slightly more rapid speed. The solo performance

and readers theatre presentations lasted approximately

twenty-five minutes. The tests never took more than fifteen

minutes to complete. Therefore, each experiment was easily

accomplished within the allotted time of a class period.

Each student was asked to place his three initials in

the upper left-hand corner of each test paper.

Ten days later the experimenter returned to each class-

room to administer the thirty-item test for retention. At

that same time every third student received a Semantic Dif-

ferential for one story--"Here There Be Tygers," "The Exiles," or "A Sound of Thunder." This was done as a check to see if appreciation was also retained. 39

After the experiment was completed all the initials were matched. Each student should have had three achievement tests, four semantic differentials and one retention test.

If a student had missed any one of the presentations or the

retention test, his papers were discarded and the data was not used. Papers for twenty-seven students were discarded.

Since all three stories were of the same sixth grade

reading level, and since all the classes were regular English

classes in which there were supposed to be no slow students,

no teachers expressed any concern that the students would

not be able to read the material. Except for a few extremely

low scores on silent reading (one out of a possible ten),

there was no indication that students either did not or

could not read the stories.

To insure that there was no bias toward any one tech-

nique, all introductions were made as illustrated earlier.

One reader did all of the solo performances. The same team

of three men did all the readers theatre performances. All

male casts were used because the three stories concerned had

no female characters. The members of the readers theatre

cast were graduate students. One had B. A. and M. A. degrees

in Speech and Drama with a considerable amount of work in

oral interpretation. The other members of the cast were

both graduate students in Speech Communication and Drama and

each has done considerable work in oral interpretation which

includes readers theatre. 40

It was important to the experiment that all presentations be presented with the same enthusiasm and the same degree of talent since the techniques were the things being

tested. That is why these people made the presentations.

That is also why the classroom teacher was asked to say

nothing because her remarks might have prejudiced the stu-

dents' reactions to the presentations.

To make sure that one story was not more popular than

the other, the order and techniques of presentation were

changed so that each class had all three stories but in

different order and different modes. This is illustrated

in Tables V, VI, and VII.

In order to accomplish the experiment it was necessary

to spend six days in each school. Because of the way the

experiment was set up, it was necessary to begin in some

classrooms on Monday. In other classrooms the study began

on Tuesday. And in others on Wednesday. The readers

theatre cast performed in all classrooms in all schools on a

Wednesday. That was done to facilitate the schedules of

the performers.

All of the stories were adapted for solo performance

and readers theatre scripts. The stories and the adapta-

tions appear as Appendices H, I, J, K, L, and M.

For the solo performance the reader used a five-by-

seven black notebook to hold the script. He did not use a

speaker's stand because there was not always one available. 41

He used only one prop which was for "A Sound of Thunder."

In that story a sign appears in the opening scene and again

in the closing scene. The second time it appears some

spellings have been altered by the events of the story. It

is necessary for the audience to see both signs to under-

stand the story's ending. The same sign was used in the

readers theatre presentation. It is included in the text

for those who read it silently.

In all readers theatre presentations the readers used

the same kind of five-by-seven black notebooks as scripts.

Movement was kept to a minimum because all performances were

done in classrooms where space was not always readily

available. Teachers desks were sat on to illustrate the

performers were in a rocket ship; then the performers would walk to the other side of the room to illustrate they were walking on a new planet or were assuming new characters.

There were no costumes used in any of the presentations

because techniques rather than gimics were stressed.

Procedures for Analysis of Data

After the data from the three high schools had been

collected, the scores for Technique A (Silent Reading) were

pooled; the scores for Technique B (Solo Performance) were

pooled; and the scores for Technique C (Readers Theatre) were pooled. The pooling of all the scores helped show that

any significant difference in means was caused by the 42 technique of presentation rather than by difference in background, ability or age.

Each hypothesis was tested in the null form and the

level of significance was reported. If a significant F was

found for any of the hypotheses, a multiple comparison

(Newman-Keuls) was applied to determine the source of the

variance.

Findings were drawn and a conclusion formulated from

the findings. Appropriate implications and recommendations were included. CHAPTER IV

PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA

The basic purposes of this study were to compare the traditional technique of teaching literature (Silent Reading) with two oral interpretation approaches (Solo Performance and Readers Theatre), and to evaluate the differences in achievement and appreciation of literature which resulted from those three techniques of presentation.

To carry out the purposes of this study, the following hypotheses were formulated:

1. When students were taught by technique B (Solo

Performance), they would achieve significantly

higher mean scores on the achievement tests than

when they were taught by technique A (Silent Read-

ing).

2. When students were taught by technique C (Readers

Theatre), they would achieve significantly higher

mean scores on the achievement test than when they

were taught by A or B.

3. When students were taught by technique B, they

would achieve significantly higher mean scores on

the appreciation test than they would when taught

by technique A.

43 44

4. When students were taught by technique C, they

would achieve significantly higher mean scores on

the appreciation test than when taught by A or B.

5. Students would achieve significantly higher mean

scores on the retention test when they were taught

a. technique B than they would when taught by

technique A.

b. technique C then they would when taught by

A or B.

Treatment of Data

After the data from the three high schools were collected the scores for technique A (Silent Reading) were pooled; the scores for technique B (Solo Performance) were pooled; and the scores for technique C (Readers Theatre) were pooled. The pooling of all the scores was to help show that any significant difference in means was caused by the technique of presentation rather than by students' difference in background or ability or age.

Each hypothesis was tested in the null form and the level of significance was reported.

Data Relative to the Hypotheses

The number of observations, the means and the standard deviations for the achievement tests are shown in Table VIII.

The achievement was tested by a ten-item multiple choice test 45 given immediately after each presentation.

TABLE VIII

NUMBER OF OBSERVATIONS, MEANS, AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR THE ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

Technique Number of Means Standard Observations Deviations

Silent Reading 371 6.42 1.99

Solo Performance 371 7.09 1.74

Readers Theatre 371 7.40 1.67

The information in Table VIII indicated that the means do change with the technique of presentation. The readers theatre technique evoked a higher mean than either solo performance or silent reading and solo performance evoked a higher mean than did silent reading. The standard deviation was larger for silent reading than for the other two techniques. The standard deviation was smaller for readers theatre than for solo performance.

A summary of the Analysis of Variance for the achievement tests is provided in Table IX.

Hypotheses 1 and 2 are reflected in Tables VIII and IX.

Since the F for these hypotheses was significant beyond

0.001 level the null hypothesis was rejected.

It was stated in Chapter III the level of significance would be reported. That was done in order to illustrate 46

TABLE IX

SUMMARY OF ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE FOR THE ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

Source of Degrees of Sums of MS F P Variance Freedom Squares

Between Subject 370 3012.69

Within Subjects 742 797.33

A (Treatments) 2 188.36 94.18 114.44 (0.001

Residual 740 608.97 0.82

Total 1112 3810.02

which techniques were more effective at whatever level. In each of the analysis of variance the results were significant beyond the 0.001 level. In using the Newman-Keuls' all results were significant at the 0.01 level, and therefore, that level was reported. The tables are not available to test beyond the 0.01 level with the Newman-Keuls.

The level of significance indicate that the techniques of presentation did, indeed, lead to a highly significant difference in the comprehension and appreciation of literature.

According to the analysis of variance a difference so great could occur only one in a thousand times by chance alone.

According to the more stringent Newman-Keuls test, the same was true at the .01 level of significance. It was also shown that solo performance was more successful than silent reading at the .001 level of significance according to the 47 analysis of variance and at the .01 level according to the

Newman-Keuls. That indicated that a difference as great as

.98 could be found less than one per cent of the time by chance alone.

The results of a Newman-Keuls' test for the achievement tests at the .01 level of significance are shown in Table X.

TABLE X

SUMMARY OF NEWMAN-KEULS ' FOR THE ACHIEVEMENT TESTS AT THE .01 LEVEL OF SIGNIFICANCE

Techniques Ranked Mean Range Means Difference Products

C-A 7.40-6.42 = 0.98 0.19*

C-B 7.40-7.09 = 0.31 0.17*

B-A 7.09-6.42 = 0.67 0.17*

*Significant result.

If the mean difference exceeds the range product value, the means are significantly different.

As a further test of the research hypothesis, the

Newman-Keuls' was applied to the data in Table VIII. The

Newman-Keuls' further verified that hypotheses 1 and 2 should be accepted as tenable. That is, the achievement was greater with solo performance than with silent reading, and readers theatre produced greater achievement than either solo performance or silent reading. 48

The number of observations, means, and standard devia-

tions for the retention tests for achievement which were

given ten days after the three presentations were completed

are presented in Table XI.

TABLE XI

NUMBER OF TESTS, POST AND RETENTION MEANS, AND POST AND RETENTION STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR THE RETENTION OF ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

Technique Number Post Test Retention Post Test Retention of Tests Means Test Means S. D. Test S. D.

Silent Reading 370 6.42 4.86 1.99 1.94

Solo Per- formance 370 7.09 6.06 1.74 1.76

Readers Theatre 370 7.40 6.64 1.67 1.71

The information in Table XI illustrates that regardless

of technique of presentation, there were lower scores on the

retention test given ten days after the presentations than

on the comprehension test given immediately after the presen-

tations. However, the loss in mean was smaller for readers

theatre than for solo performance or silent reading. The

loss for solo performance was smaller than for silent read-

ing. For the readers theatre the difference in score was

0.76, or less than one point; for solo performance the loss was 1.03, or just over one point; for silent reading the 49 loss was 1.56, or slightly over one and a half points. That would indicate that the students forgot more of what they read silently than what they saw and heard.

A summary of the analysis of variance for the retention of achievement tests is presented in Table XII.

TABLE XII

SUMMARY OF ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE FOR THE RETENTION OF ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

Source of Degree of Sums of MS F P Variance Freedom Squares

Between Subjects 369 2839.10

Within Subjects 740 1398.66

A (Treatment) 2 608.91 304.45 284.50 (0.001

Residual 738 789.75 1.07

Total 1109 4237.77

Hypothesis 5 is reflected in Tables XI and XII. Since the F for this hypothesis was significant beyond the .001 level, the null hypothesis was rejected.

The results of a Newman-Keuls' test for retention of achievement tests at the .01 level of significance are shown in Table XIII.

When the means were ranked and one subtracted from the other, it was illustrated that there was a much larger difference between readers theatre and silent reading than 50

TABLE XIII

SUMMARY OF NEWMAN-KEULS' FOR THE RETENTION OF ACHIEVEMENT TESTS AT THE .01 LEVEL OF SIGNIFICANCE

Techniques Ranked Mean Range Means Difference Products

C-A 6.64-4.86 = 1.78 0.22*

C-B 6.64-6.06 = 0.58 0.19*

B-A 6.06-4.86 = 1.20 0.19*

*Significant result. between solo performance and silent reading. The difference between readers theatre and silent reading and the difference between solo performance and silent reading were both greater than one point. However, the difference between readers theatre was quite a bit less than one point. That would further indicate that the students remembered more of what they saw and heard than they did of what they read silently. It would also indicate that they remember more when they hear and see a variety of people than when they hear only one.

As a further test of the research hypothesis, the

Newman-Keuls' further verified that hypothesis 5 should be accepted as tenable. That is, the retention of achievement was greater with solo performance than with silent reading, and readers theatre produced greater retention than either solo performance or silent reading. 51

The number of observations, the means, and the standard deviations for the appreciation tests are shown in Table XIV.

The appreciation was tested by a semantic differential con- sisting of eighteen pairs of bipolar adjectives. Only the eight pairs of adjectives which were evaluative were used in scoring the test. Therefore, the highest possible score was fifty-six.

TABLE XIV

NUMBER OF OBSERVATIONS, MEANS, AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR THE APPRECIATION TESTS

Technique Number of Means Standard Observations Deviations

Silent Reading 121 34.66 7.39

Solo Performance 124 38.38 7.10

Readers Theatre 123 40.81 7.40

In Table XIV it can be seen that the means for the three techniques go in the same order as the means for comprehension and retention did. Solo performance has a higher mean than silent reading and readers theatre has a higher mean than either solo performance or silent reading.

Hypotheses 3 and 4 are reflected in Tables XIV and XV.

Since the F for these hypotheses was significant beyond the

.001 level, the null hypothesis was rejected. 52

TABLE XV

SUMMARY OF ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE FOR THE APPRECIATION TESTS

Source of Degrees of Sums of MS F P Variance Freedom

Between Subjects 370 51392.51

Within Subjects 742 14862.66

A (Treatments) 2 7120.01 3560.00 340.24 (.001

Residual 740 7742.65 10.46

Total 1112 66255.18

The results of a Newman-Keuls' test for the appreciation tests at the .01 level of significance are shown in

Table XVI.

TABLE XVI

SUMMARY OF NEWMAN-KEULS FOR THE APPRECIATION TEST AT THE .01 LEVEL OF SIGNIFICANCE

Ranks Initial Ranked Means Range Groups Means Difference Products

3-1 3-1 40.81-34.66 = 6.15 0.69*

3-2 3-2 40.81-38.38 = 2.43 0.61*

2-1 2-1 38.38-34.66 = 3.72 0.61*

*Significant result. 53

The Newman-Keuls' verified that hypotheses 3 and 4 should be accepted as tenable. That is, the appreciation was greater with solo performance than with silent reading, and readers theatre produced greater appreciation than either solo performance or silent reading.

There was no research hypothesis to test the retention of appreciation. However, every third subject in the experiment received a semantic differential for one of the three techniques of presentation. The following table reflects

the results of these tests.

TABLE XVII

POST VERSUS RETEST MEANS, ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE AND LEVEL OF SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE EVALUATIVE COMPONENT OF THE SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL

Technique Post SD Retest SD F Level of Means Means Signifi- and N and N cance

Silent Reading N=371 7.49 N=124 7.42 34.40 0.001 34.80 33.34

Solo Performance N=371 6.34 IN=125 6.30 75.11 0.001 37.45 38.92

Readers Theatre N=371 7.40 N=122 6.90 31.49 0.001 41.46 41.46

In Table XVII it is shown that the means for apprecia-

tion of the stories read silently declined after a ten-day

lapse of time while the appreciation for the stories pre-

sented by solo performance and readers theatre increased. 54

The appreciation of silent reading declined by 1.46 while the appreciation of solo performance increased by 1.47, and the appreciation of readers theatre increased by 1.37. Solo performance showed a slightly larger increase than did readers theatre; however, the readers theatre mean remained larger than either of the other two techniques.

There was a larger difference in the F for solo performance and readers theatre than for silent reading. That was caused by the fact that there was less variance within the responses to solo performance than in either silent reading or readers theatre.

Since the presentation by silent reading shows a decline in appreciation, while both the oral interpretation techniques show an increase in appreciation, it is accurate to say that the two oral interpretation techniques caused the formation of a more lasting appreciation of literature.

In most things connected with memory, that which was good initially is remembered as being better than it actually was, and that which was unpleasant is remembered as worse than it was. The increase in appreciation of literature caused by solo performance and by readers theatre could be compared to the current trend to remember and emulate the good old days. That which was good in the good old days becomes outstanding when reflected upon in a later time.

That which was inconvenient in the good old days is forgotten or ignored; thus it was with silent reading. Donald A. 55

Norman refers to this kind of memory as reconstructing rather than remembering. He maintains that it happens frequently. 1

Summary

It has been the purpose of this chapter to present the data of the study. The data are summarized in the following points:

1. Research Hypothesis 1, that when students were

taught by technique B (Solo Performance), they

would achieve significantly higher mean scores on

the achievement test than when they were taught by

technique A (Silent Reading) was confirmed at

better than the .01 level.

2. Research Hypothesis 2, that when students were

taught by technique C (Readers Theatre), they would

achieve significantly higher mean scores on the

achievement test than when they were taught by A or

B was confirmed at better than the .01 level.

3. Research Hypothesis 3, that when students were

taught by technique B, they would achieve signifi-

cantly higher mean scores on the appreciation test

than they would when taught by technique A was con-

firmed at better than the .01 level.

'Donald A. Norman, Memory and Attention: An Introduc- tion to Human Information Processing (New York, 1969), p. 184. 56

4. Research Hypothesis 4, that when students were

taught by technique C, they would achieve signifi-

cantly higher mean scores on the appreciation test

than when taught by A or B was confirmed at better

than the .01 level.

5. Research Hypothesis 5, that students would achieve

significantly higher mean scores on the retention

tests when they were taught by

a. technique B than they would when taught by

technique A.

b. technique C than they would when taught by A

or B. Both parts a and b of this hypothesis

were confirmed at better than the .01 level.

6. There was no research hypothesis concerning the

lasting effects of appreciation. Appreciation was

tested at the same time the retention tests were

given. The results were the same as those for

research hypothesis 5, and were confirmed at better

than the .01 level. CHAPTER V

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The purpose of this chapter is to summarize the findings of this study, to draw conclusions based on these findings, and to make recommendations for implementation and further research.

Summary

The problem of this study was a comparison of the responses of students to three techniques of teaching literature: silent reading, solo performance, and readers theatre.

The purposes of the study were to compare the traditional technique of teaching literature (silent reading) with two oral interpretation approaches (solo performance and readers theatre), and to evaluate the differences in achievement and appreciation of literature which resulted from the three techniques of presentation.

The subjects participating in the study were three hundred seventy-one students enrolled in regular English classes in three high schools in the North Texas area.

Five hypotheses consistent with the stated purposes were formulated. Following are restatements of the hypothesis with a summary of the findings. The tenability of each hypothesis of this study was tested in the null form at the

57 58

.01 level of significance (Newman-Keuls') and at the 0.001

level of significance for the analysis of variance.

In Chapter III it was stated that the level of signifi-

cance would merely be reported. Since all the results were

significant at the 0.001 level for the analysis of variance

and at the 0.01 level for the Newman-Keuls', those levels

were reported.

All hypotheses were tested by an analysis of variance

and then by the Newman-Keuls' to ascertain wherein lay the

differences.

Research Hypothesis 1, that when students were taught

by technique B (Solo Performance), they would achieve sig-

nificantly higher mean scores on the achievement test than

when they were taught by technique A (Silent Reading) was

confirmed at the .01 level.

Research Hypothesis 2, that when students were taught

by technique C (Readers Theatre), they would achieve signifi-

cantly higher mean scores on the achievement test than when

they were taught by A or B was confirmed at the .01 level.

Research Hypothesis 3, that when students were taught

by technique B, they would achieve significantly higher mean

scores on the appreciation test than they would when taught by technique A was confirmed at the .01 level.

Research Hypothesis 4, that when students were taught by technique C, they would achieve significantly higher mean scores on the appreciation test than when taught by A or B was confirmed at the .01 level. 59

Research Hypothesis 5, that students would achieve significantly higher mean scores on the retention tests when they were taught by

a. technique B than they would when taught by technique

b. technique C than they would when taught by A or B

was confirmed at the .01 level.

Conclusions

Consistent with the purposes of this study and based on the analysis of the data, certain conclusions are offered with reference to the population studied:

1. Oral methods of presenting literature to English classes result in greater appreciation and achievement and also better retention, and therefore should be used more often.

2. A variety of readers as employed in readers theatre maintains more interest and allows more comprehension of narration and character differences.

3. Since many teachers of literature state that one of the main purposes of teaching literature is to get students to enjoy literature, oral interpretation techniques should be employed.

4. The results of the experiment indicate that students become more involved in the literary experience when presented orally. That involvement led to higher mean 60 scores both in the post-tests and retention tests which were given ten days after the presentation.

5. Since the results of the experiment remained consistent regardless of which story was presented, it may be concluded that the technique, rather than the literature, was responsible for the better results, and therefore teachers of English should be trained in oral interpretation.

Recommendations

Further research is recommended in the several areas relative to the effectiveness of using oral interpretation techniques as a means of teaching. Since in this experiment experienced readers were used, it is recommended that research be done to see if using the students from the English classes would be effective. Also, it is recommended that the English students write their own adaptations of the stories to be presented either by solo performance or readers theatre. Participating themselves should cause even more involvement in the literature.

A second area of research would be to compare recorded and/or filmed performances with live performances to see if there would be a difference in the response. If there were as good responses to mechanically reproduced performances, the teacher who feels unqualified to direct live performances, could utilize the oral interpretation techniques that way. 61

A third area of research which is recommended is to use oral interpretation techniques at other grade levels and with other areas of subject matter. For example, lessons in history would lend themselves to adaptation to readers theatre. The grade level could be lowered to try these techniques in elementary and middle school classrooms.

Since the techniques of solo performance and readers theatre had effective results in the experiment, further research should be done concerning the preparation of teachers of literature. Research could determine whether teachers of English have been prepared to work with these techniques, and if they have not, should they be?

Since the results were significant that oral presentation of literature was more successful than traditional silent reading, further research could determine how much oral presentation should be used. Should it be used all the time or half the time or perhaps only as introduction to each new type of literature? That kind of research could also determine whether or not there would be a saturation point where students become so accustomed to oral presentation that it became a bore as has silent reading.

Since the oral interpretation of literature has a much longer history than the printed page, it should be kept in mind for further research that regardless of the success or convenience of any technique of presentation, that perhaps no one technique should replace all others. There should 62 rather be a blending of silent reading, solo performance, and readers theatre.

Subjective Observations Related to the Experiment

During the course of the experiment, certain reactions were noted which are not reflected in the statistical data.

These reactions could not be tested, but may be of interest.

When students in the ninth grade were reading silently, there was a considerable amount of fidgiting and squirming.

That was more true in classrooms which were not air condi-

tioned. That was also more true in afternoon than in morning classes. That kind of activity was almost never noticed during either the solo performances or the readers theatre presentations.

When the students read silently, there was very little change of facial expression, but when they were listening to the stories read to them, it became visually obvious that they were enjoying the story. During the solo performances and the readers theatre performances, they readily laughed at funny lines and shuddered when gory passages were read.

At the end of no session of silent reading did any student ask where the stories could be found so that they might read more, but at the end of many oral performances students did ask where they could find more stories by the same author which would indicate an appreciation for the author and a desire to become further involved with 63 literature which is one of the chief aims of classes in literature.

While the students responses to the oral performances were enthusiastic, the teachers were somewhat reserved in their reactions. They all seemed to enjoy themselves, but only two expressed a desire to use the oral techniques of presentation. Both of these were speech teachers who also taught sections of English. The older teachers seldom expressed an interest in learning the results of the study. APPENDICES APPENDIX A

HERE THERE BE TYGERS

1. The mission of the rocket ship was to: a. find new places for men to live. b. defeat the armies of hostile planets. c. both a. and b. d. none of the above. 2. Chatterton believed the purpose of exploring new planets was to: a. establish new friends for Earth. b. drag out the minerals and run away. c. test new atomic weapons away from the Earth's atmosphere. d. expand the territories of the United States. 3. Captain Forester told Chatterton that: a. he agreed with Chatterton's philosophy. b. he would go around and look at the new planet, see how it seemed. c. he would not leave the rocket without weapons. d. he would only stop on the planet for six hours. 4. There was an earthquake; a. when the rocket ship landed. b. when Forester left the rocket ship. c. when Chatterton left the rocket ship. d. none of the above. 5. The men first realized they were in a very strange place: a. when they discovered all the grass was evenly mowed. b. when they discovered they could fly. c. when they drank wine. d. all of the above. 6. Koestler thought the purpose of the planet: a . was to make them happy. b. to provide them with the minerals Earth needed. c. to capture the Earth people through the disguise of kindness. d. all of the above. 7. The men could not stop Chatterton from drilling because: a. he had an atomic bomb aboard ship. b. he practically owned the expedition.

65 66

c. he was their commanding officer. d. both b. and c. 8. For dinner the men ate: a. rations they had aboard ship. b. fish which were raw. c. game which they had hunted. d. fish which were cooked by a magic stream. 9. Driscoll said the planet reminded him of: a. a dream he had once had in early July. b. the night he and his brother had spent the night on the courthouse lawn. c. the night he was married. d. his first trip into space ten years ago. 10. The men were not afraid to sleep outside: a. even though Chatterton had died horribly. b. even though they did not really understand the planet. c. both a. and b. d. they had their weapons if anything attacked them. APPENDIX B

THE EXILES

1. The doctor said Perse died because: a. Perse had suffered shock. b. Perse thought he had a silver needle in his heart. C. Perse had been given too much morphine. d. Perse had a heart attack when the rocket ship lost altitude. 2. All of the men on the rocket ship were: a. expensive, talented, well-oiled toys. b. all college graduates, C. all bachelors. d. all of the above. 3. The exiles lived on the planet: a. Jupiter. b. Mars. C. Venus. d. Saturn. 4. The leader of the exiles was: a. Edgar Allan Poe. b. William Shakespeare. C. Charles Dickens. d. Nathaniel Hawthorne. 5. The exiles thought they could be saved by: a. Having Dickens talk to the Earth men. b. Frightening the Earth men away before they landed. C. Attacking the ship with snakes and bodies when it landed. d. all of the above. 6. The men aboard the ship were dedicated to: a. science and progress. b. destroying Earth's enemies. C. destroying witchcraft. d. destroying the exiles. 7. The exiles were all: a. writers of stories about the supernatural. b. writer of horror stories. C. both a. and b. d. none of the above.

67 68

8. The exiles were finally destroyed: a. when the last of the books were burned by the captain. b. in the battle with the men from the rocket ship. c. when they tried to run to a different planet. d. both a. and b. 9. When one rocket man thought he saw the Emerald City, he was told to: a. become an exile for believing in the supernatural. b. report to the ship's doctor. c. rededicate himself to science and progress. d. all of the above. 10. Before the ship had left New York, all the crew had: a. had nightmares. b. undergone rigid physical examination. c. vowed never to read the books of the exiles. d. all of the above. APPENDIX C

A SOUND OF THUNDER

1. The owners of the Time Safari would: a. guarantee nothing but one dinosuar. b. guarantee each hunter a safe journey through time. c. guarantee nothing. d. none of the above. 2. The government had strict rules for time travel because: a. they did not want to cause an imbalance in nature's future. b, they wanted to protect the ecology of the past. c. they were dishonest and wanted to collect the payoffs. d. they were afraid men would be lost in time. 3. When a person was traveling in time, he: a. could not leave the path, b. could kill only a marked animal. c. could get a partial refund if he did not kill an animal. d. all of the above. 4. Eckels did not kill an animal because: a. he felt compassion for the animal. b. he panicked. c. his rifle was not powerful enough. d. the guide told him he could not. 5. Eckels was forced to: a. pay a large fine for leaving the path. b. remove the bullets from the animal. c, both of the above. d. none of the above. 6. Travis, the guide, was: a. sympathetic toward Eckels. b. more severe than he needed to be. c. angry because he might lose his business. d. both c. and b. 7. If the dinosaur had not been shot, it would have died when: a. it was trapped in a tarpit. b. a large tree fell on it. c. it fought another dinosaur. d. none of the above.

69 70

8, For all the hunters the killing of the dinosaur was: a. a gratifying experience. b. a sickening experience, c. an experience from which they wanted a souvenir. d. all of the above. 9. The name, "The Sound of Thunder", comes from: a. the sound the dinosaur made when he came through the woods. b. the sound the dinosaur made when he died. C. the sound of the bullet when Eckels died. d. all of the above. 10. The death of the butterfly caused: a, Eckels to pay a large fine. b. a different president to be elected. C. both a. and b. d. none of the above. APPENDIX D

1. The mission of the rocket ship in "Here There Be Tygers" was to: a. find a new places for men to live. b. defeat the armies of hostile planets. c. both a. and b. d. none of the above. 2. In "Here There Be Tygers" Captain Forester told Chatterton that: a. he agreed with Chatterton's philosophy. b. he would go around and look at the new planet, see how it seemed. c. he would not leave the rocket without weapons. d. he would only stop on the planet for six hours. 3. The Exiles were finally destroyed: a. when the last of the books were burned by the captain. b. in the battle with the men from the rocket ship. c. when they tried to run to a different planet. d. both a. and b. 4. In "The Exiles" before the ship had left New York, all the crew had: a. had nightmares. b. undergone rigid physical examinations. c, vowed never to read the books of the exiles. d. all of the above. 5. In "The Exiles" when one rocket man thought he saw the Emerald City, he was told to: a. become an exile for believing in the supernatural. b. report to the ship's doctor. c. rededicate himself to science and progress. d. all of the above. 6. In "Here There Be Tygers" Chatterton believed the purpose of exploring new planets was to: a. establish new friends for Earth, b. drag out the minerals and run away. c. test new atomic weapons away from the Earth's atmosphere. d. expand the territories of the United States.

71 72

7. The exiles in "The Exiles" lived on the planet: a. Jupiter. b. Mars. c. Venus. d. Saturn. 8. In "Here There Be Tygers" Driscoll said the planet reminded him of: a. a dream he had once in early July. b. the night he and his brother had spent the night on the courthouse lawn. c. the night he was married. d, his first trip into space ten years ago. 9. In "A Sound of Thunder" the death of the butterfly caused: a. Eckels to pay a large fine. b. a different president to be elected. c. both a. and b. d. none of the above. 10. In "A Sound of Thunder" the government had strict rules for time travel because: a. they did not want to cause an inbalance in nature's future. b. they wanted to protect the ecology of the past. c. they were dishonest and wanted to collect the payoffs. d. they were afraid men would be lost in time. 11. If the dinosaur had not been shot, in "A Sound of Thunder" it would have died when: a. it was trapped in a tarpit. b. a large tree fell on it. c. it fought another dinosaur. d. none of the above. 12. The name, "A Sound of Thunder", comes from: a. the sound the dinosaur made when he came through the woods. b. the sound the dinosaur made when he died. c. the sound of the bullet when Eckels died, d. all of the above. 13. In "The Exiles: the leader of the exiles was: a. Edgar Allan Poe. b. William Shakespeare. c. Charles Dickens. d. Nathaniel Hawthorne. 73

14. In "The Exiles" the doctor said Perse died because: a. Perse had suffered shock. b. Perse thought he had a silver needle in his heart. c. Perse had been given too much morphine. d. Perse had a heart attack when the rocket ship lost altitude. 15. In "The Exiles" all the men on the rocket ship were: a. expensive, talented, well-oiled toys. b. all college graduates. c. all bachelors. d. all of the above. 16. In "Here There Be Tygers "the men were not afraid to sleep outside: a. even though Chatterton had died horribly. b. even though they did not really understand the planet. c. both a. and b. d. they had their weapons if anything attacked them. 17. In "The Exiles" the exiles thought they could be saved by: a. having Dickens talk to the Earth men. b. frightening the Earth men away before they landed. c. attacking the ship with snakes and bodies when it landed. d. all of the above. 18. In "The Exiles" the exiles were all: a. writers of stories about the supernatural. b. writers of horror stories. c. both a. and b. d. none of the above. 19. In "The Exiles" the men aboard the ship were dedicated to: a. science and progress. b. destroying Earth's enemies. c. destroying witchcraft. d. destroying the exiles. 20. In "A Sound of Thunder" for all the hunters the killing of the dinosaur was: a. a gratifying experience. b. a sickening experience. c. an experience from which they wanted a souvenir. d. all of the above. 21. In "A Sound of Thunder" Travis, the guide was: a. sympathetic toward Eckels. b. more severe than he needed to be. c. angry because he might lose his business. d. both c. and b. 74

22. In "A Sound of Thunder: the owners of the Time Safari would: a. guarantee nothing but one dinosaur. b. guarantee each hunter a safe journey through time. c. guarantee nothing. d. none of the above. 23. In "Here There Be Tygers" for dinner the men ate: a. rations they had aboard the ship. b. fish which were raw. c. game which they had hunted. d. fish which were cooked by a magic stream. 24. In "Here There Be Tygers" Koestler thought the purpose of the planet: a. was to make them happy. b. to provide them with the minerals Earth needed. c. to capture the Earth people through the disguise of kindness. d. all of the above. 25. In "A Sound of Thunder" Eckels was forced to: a. pay a large fine for leaving the path. b. remove the bullets from the animal. c. both of the above. d. none of the above. 26. In "A Sound of Thunder" when a person was traveling in time, he: a. could not leave the path. b. could kill only a marked animal. c. could get a partial refund if he did not kill an animal. d. all of the above. 27. In "A Sound of Thunder" Eckels did not kill an animal because: a. he felt compassion for the animal. b. he panicked. c. his rifle was not powerful enough. d. the guide told him he could not. 28. In "Here There Be Tygers" the men could not stop Chatterton from drilling because: a. he had an atomic bomb aboard ship. b. he practically owned the expedition. c. he was their commanding officer. d. both a. and c. 29. In "Here There Be Tygers" the men first realized they were in a very strange place: 75

a. when they discovered all the grass was evenly mowed. b. when they discovered they could fly. c. when they drank wine. d. all of the above. 30. In "Here There Be Tygers" there was an earthquake: a. when the rocket ship landed. b. when Forester left the rocket ship. c. when Chatterton left the rocket ship. d. none of the above. APPENDIX E

HERE THERE BE TYGERS

T he purpose of this study is to measure your feelings toward the short story, "Here There Be Tygers", by having you judge it on a series of scales. There are seven positions on each scale. Please place an X in the box that best represents your true impression on each scale. The middle box is neutral.

1. Vague : : : : : :w:! Clear 2. Good Bad 3, Tiring : : : : : : :4 : Entertaining 4. Act ive : : : : : : : : Inactive 5, Predictable Surprising 6. Worthless Valuable .7. Memorable Forgettable

8.9, Weak Strong 9.4 Unusual : : : _ _ : _ _ _ : : : : : : : : : :. Ordinary 10. Pleasant Lifeless : :a:": _ _ _: _ _ _:s 11. Captivating Boring 12. Difficult Easy 13. Improbable Probable 14. Believable Unbelievable 15. Uninteresting Interesting 16. organized Confused 17. Enjoyable Dull 180 Unabsorbing Absorbing

76 APPENDIX F

THE EXILES

The purpose of this study is to measure your feelings toward the short story, "The Exiles", by having you judge it on a series of scales. There are seven positions on each scale. Please place an X in the box that best represents your true impression of the story. The middle box is neutral.

1. Enjoyable : : ______: _ _ :_ _ : : _ _: Dull 2. Ordinary : ______: _ _ : _ _ : _ _ : Unusual : ______: _ _ : _ _ : _ _ : _ _ : 3. Boring : ______: _ _ : _ _ : _ _ : Captivating 4. Entertaining : _ _ _ : _ _ : _ _ :_ _ _ : _ _: : Tiring 5. Good : _ __: _ _:__ :_ __: _ _: : Bad :_ _ : :" " : 6. Active : :" :f :" :" :" :" :" Inactive ...... ~w. : .. : 7. Predictable : : : : : : Surprising : _ _ :" " ":" 8. Vague : _ _ : " :" : Clear 9. Fascinating : ...... : ... : :... : .... :. ... :. . . :. Uninteresting : :f :s :" :" :" :w :" 10. Believable : : ": ": ": : : : Unbelievable ..... ,.. ..,...... "... 11. Probable :...... : : : : : : : Improbable : :f :" :f :f :" :w :" 12. Easy : : ": ": ": : : : Difficult 13. Forgettable : :" :w :" :" :" :" :" Memorable 14. Worthless Valuable 15. Lifeless Pleasant 16. Weak Strong 17. Confused Organized 18. Absorbing Unabsorbing

77 APPENDIX G

A SOUND OF THUNDER

The purpose of this study is to measure your feelings toward the short story, "A Sound of Thunder", by having you judge it on a series of scales. There are seven positions on each scale. Please place an X in the box that best represents your true impression of the story. The middle box is neutral.

1. Good Bad : : e: ": .: : : : 2. Active Inactive 3. Surprising : :" :" :" :" :" :s : Predictable 4. Vague Clear 5. Entertaining : :. :e :s :" :. :w : Tiring 6. Worthless Valuable 7. Difficult : :" :" :w :w :" :" :" Easy 8. Improbable Probable 9. Believable Unbelievable : :.:A: ": ": : 10. Fascinating Uninteresting 11. Captivating Boring 12. Pleasant Lifeless 13. Weak Strong 14. Unusual Ordinary 15. Confused Organized 16. Enjoyable Dull 17. Abosrbing Unabsorbing 18. Memorable Forgettable

78 Copyrighted Material Omitted, pp. 78-151 of the Appendices. APPENDIX K

HERE THERE BE TYGERS

READER I: "You have to beat a planet at its own game.

Get in and rip it up, kill its snakes, poison

its animals, dam its rivers, sow its fields,

depollinate its air, mine it, nail it down, hack

at it, and get the blazes out from under when

you have what you want. Otherwise, a planet

will fix you good. You can't trust planets.

They're bound to be different, bound to be bad,

bound to be out to get you, especially this far

out, a billion miles from nowhere, so you get

them first. Tear their skin off, I say. Drag

out the minerals and run away before the night-

mare world explodes in your face. That's the

way to treat them."

READER II: The rocket ship sank down toward planet 7 of

star system 84. They had traveled millions upon

millions of miles; Earth was far away, her system

and her sun forgotten, her system settled and

investigated and profited on, and other systems

152 153

rummaged through and milked and tidied up, and

now the rockets of these tiny men from an

impossibly remote planet were probing out to

far universes. In a few months, a few years,

they could travel anywhere, for the speed of

their rocket was the speed of a god, and now

for the ten-thousandth time one of the rockets

of the far-circling hunt was feathering down

toward an alien world.

READER III: No. :r have too much respect for other worlds

to treat them the way you want to Chatterton.

It's not my business to rape or ruin, anyway,

thank God. I'm glad I'm just a rocket man.

You're the anthropologist-mineralogist. Go

ahead, do your mining and ripping and scraping.

I'll just watch. I'll just go around looking

at this new world, whatever it is, however it

seems. I like to look. All rocket men are

lookers or they wouldn't be rocket men. You

like to smell new airs, if you're a rocket man,

and see new colors and new people if there are

new people to see, and new oceans and islands." 154

READER I: "Take your gun along."

READER III: "In my holster."

READER II: They turned to the port together and saw the

green world rising to meet their ship.

READER III: "I wonder what it thinks of us?"

READER T: "It won't like me. I'll see to it, it won't

like me. And I don't care, you know, I'm out

for the money. Land us over there, will you,

Captain; that looks like rich country if I ever

saw it."

READER II: It was the freshest green color they had seen

since childhood. Lakes lay like clear blue

water droplets through the soft hills; there were

no loud highways, signboards or cities. It's a

sea of green golf links, thought Forester, which

goes on forever. Putting greens, driving greens,

you could walk ten thousand miles in any direction

and never finish your game. A Sunday planet, a

croquet-lawn world, where you could lie on your

back, clover in your lips, eyes half shut, smiling

at the sky, smelling the grass, drowse through

an eternal Sabbath, rousing only on occasion to 155

turn the Sunday paper or crack the red-striped

wooden ball through the wicket.

READER III: "If ever a planet was a woman, this one is."

READER I : "Woman on the outside, man on the inside. All

hard underneath, all male iron, copper, uranium,

black sod. Don't let the cosmetics fool you."

READER II: He walked to the bin where the Earth Drill waited.

Its great screw-snout glittered bluely, ready to

stab seventy feet deep and suck out corks of

earth, deeper still with extensions into the

heart of the planet. Chatterton at it.

READER I: "We'll fix your planet, Forester, but good."

READER III: "Yes, I know you will."

READ ER II: The rocket landed.

READER. I: "It's too green, too peaceful. i don't like it.

We'll go out with our rifles."

READER III: "I give the orders, if you don't mind."

READER I: "Yes, and my company pays our way with millions

of dollars of machinery we must protect; quite

an investment."

READER II: The air of the new planet 7 in star system 84

was good. The port swung wide. The men filed 156

out into the greenhouse world. The last man

to emerge was Chatterton, gun in hand. As

Chatterton set foot to the green lawns, the

earth trembled. The grass shook. The distant

forest rumbled. The sky seemed to blink and

darken imperceptibly. The men were watching

Chatterton when it happened.

READER III: "An earthquake:"

READER II: Chatterton's face paled. Everyone laughed.

READER I: "Nonsense'" The trembling died away at last.

READER III: "Well, it didn't quake for us, so it must be

that it doesn't approve of your philosophy."

READER I: "Coincidence. Come on now, on the double, I

want the Drill out here in half hour for a few

samplings."

READER III: "Just a moment. We've got to clear the area

first, be certain ther're no hostile people or

animals. Besides, it isn't every year you hit

a planet like this, very nice; can you blame us

if we want to have a look at it?"

READER I: "All right, let's get it over with."

READER III: They left a guard at the ship and they walked 157

away over fields and meadows, over small hills

and into little valleys. Like a bunch of boys

out hiking on the finest day of the best summer

in the most beautiful year in history, walking

in the croquet weather where if you listened

you could hear the whisper of the wooden ball

across grass, the click through the wicket, the

gentle undulations of voices, a sudden high drift

of women's laughter from some ivy-shaded porch,

the tinkle of ice in the summer tea pitcher.

READER II: "Hey."

READER III: Said Driscoll, one of the younger crewmen, sniff-

ing the air.

READER II: "I brought a baseball and bat; we'll have a game

later. What a diamond!"

READER III: The men laughed quietly in the baseball season,

in the good quiet wind for tennis,in the weather

for bicycling and picking wild grapes.

READER II: "How'd you like the job of mowing all this?"

LEADER III The men stopped.

READER I: "I knew there was something wrong; This grass;

it's freshly cut'" 158

READER III: Chatterton spat on the green grass and rubbed

it with his boot.

READER I: "I don't like it, I don't like it. If anything

happened to us, no one on Earth would ever know.

Silly policy: if a rocket fails to return, we

never send a second rocket to check the reason

why."

READER III: "Natural enough. We can't waste time on a

thousand hostile worlds, fighting futile wars.

Each rocket represents years, money, lives. We

can't afford to waste two rockets if one rocket

proves a planet hostile. We go on to peaceful

planets. Like this one."

READER II: "I often wonder, what happened to all those lost

expeditions on worlds we'll never try again."

READER I: "They were shot,stabbed, broiled for dinner.

Even as we may be, any minute. It's time we

got back to work, Captain':"

READER III: They stood at the top of a little rise.

READER II: "Feel."

READER I: Said Driscoll, his hands and arms out loosely.

READER II: "Remember how you used to run when you were a 159

kid, and how the wind felt. Like feathers on

your arms. You ran and thought any minute you'd

fly, but you never quite did."

READER I: The men stood remembering. There was a smell

of pollen and new rain drying upon a million

grass blades. Driscoll gave a little run.

READER II: "Feel it, by God, the wind. You know, we never

have really flown by ourselves. We have to sit

inside tons of metal, away from flying, really.

We've never flown like birds fly, to themselves.

Wouldn't it be nice to put your arms out like

this-" He extended his arms. "And run."

READER I: He ran ahead of them, laughing at his idiocy.

READER II: "And fly.'"

READER I: He flew. Time passed on the silent gold

wristwatches of the men standing below. They

stared up. And from the sky came a high sound

of almost unbelievable laughter.

READER I: "Tell him to come down now, He'll be killed."

READER III: Nobody heard. Their faces were raised away

from Chatterton; they were stunned and smiling.

At last Driscoll landed at their feet. 160

READER II: "Did you see me? I flew:"

READER III: They had seen.

READER II: "Let me sit down, oh, Lord, Lord. I'm a sparrow,

I'm a hawk, God bless me. Go on, all of you,

try it; It's the wind, it picked me up and

flew me."

READER I: "Let's get out of here. It's a trap, it wants

us all to fly in the air. Then it'll drop us all

at once and kill us. I'm going back to the ship."

READER III: "You'll wait for my order on that."

READER II: The men were frowning, standing in the warm-cool

air, while the wind sighed about them. There

was a kite sound in the air, a sound of eternal

March.

READER III: "I'll chance it next. If I'm killed, back to

the ship all of you."

READER I: "I'm sorry, I can't allow this, you're the

captain. We can't risk you."

READER II: He took out his gun.

READER I: "I should have some sort of authority or force

here. This game's gone on too long; I'm ordering

us back to the ship." 161

READER III: "Holster your gun."

READER I: "Stand still, you idiot; Haven't you felt it?

This world's alive, it has a look to it, it's

playing with us, biding its time."

READER III: "I'll be the judge of that. You're going back

to the ship, in a moment, under arrest, if you

don't put up that gun."

READER I: "If you fools won't come with me, you can die

out here. I'm going back, get my samples, and

get out."

READER III: "Chatterton. "

READER I: "Don't try to stop me!"

READER II: Chatterton started to run. Then, suddenly, he

gave a cry. Everyone shouted and looked up.

READER III: "There he goes."

READER TI: Chatterton was up in the sky.

Night had come on like the closing of a great

but gentle eye. Chatterton sat stunned on the

side of the hill. The other men sat around him,

exhausted and laughing. He would not look at

them, he would not look at the sky, he would

only feel of the earth, and his arms and his 162

legs and his body, tightening in on himself.

READER III: "Oh, wasn't it perfect! said a man named Koestler.

READER IT They had all flown, like orioles and eagles and

sparrows, and they were all happy.

READER III: "Come out of it, Chatterton, it was fun, wasn't

it?"

READER I: "It's impossible. There's only one way for it

to do it; it's alive. The air's alive. Like a

fist it picked me up. Any minute now, it can

kill us all. It's alive."

READER III:. "All right, say it's alive. And a living thing

must have purpose. Suppose the purpose of this

world is to make us happy."

READER II: As if to add to this, Driscoll came flying up,

canteens in each hand. "I found a creek, tested

and found pure water, wait'll you try it'"

READER III: Forester took a canteen, nudged Chatterton with

it, offering a drink. Chatterton shook his head

and drew hastily away. He put his hands over

his face.

READER I: "It's the blood of this planet. Living blood.

Drink that, put that inside you and you put this 163

world inside you to peer out your eyes and

listen through your ears. No thanks!"

READER II: Forester shrugged and drank.

READER III: "Wine! "

READER I: "It can't be'"

READER II: "It is: Smell it, taste it! A rare white wine.

French domestic."

READER I: "Poison."

READER II: They passed the canteens around.

READER III: They had idled on through the gentle afternoon,

not wanting to do anything to disturb the peace

that lay all about them. They were like very

young men in the presence of great beauty, of a

fine and famous woman, afraid that by some word,

some gesture, they might turn her face away, avert

her loveliness and her kindly attentions. They

had felt the earthquake that had greeted Chatterton,

and they did not want earthquake. Let them enjoy

this Day After School Lets Out, this fishing

weather. Let them sit under the shade trees or

walk on the tender hills, but let them drill no

drilling, test no testings, contaminate no

contaminations. 164

READER I: They found a small stream which poured into a

boiling water pool. Fish, swimming in the cold

creek above, fell glittering into the hot spring

and floated, minutes later, cooked, to the surface.

READER II: Chatterton reluctantly joined the others, eating.

READER I: "It'll poison us all. There's always a trick

to things like this. I'm sleeping in the rocket

tonight. You can sleep out if you want. To

quote a map I saw in medieval history: 'Here

there be tygers.' Some time tonight when you're

sleeping, the tigers and cannibals will show up."

READER III: "I'll go along with you, this planet is alive.

It's a race itself. But it needs us to show off

to, to appreciate its beauty. What's the use of

a stage full of miracles if there's no audience?"

READER II: But Chatterton was busy. He was bent over,

being sick.

READER: "I'm poisoned! Poisoned'"

READER IT: They held his shoulders until the sickness passed.

They gave him water. The others were feeling

fine.

READER III: "Better eat nothing but ship's food from now 165

on. It'd be safer."

READER I: "We're starting work right now. We've wasted

a whole day. I'll work alone if I have to.

I'll show this infernal place:"

READER II: "He doesn't know when he's well off. Can't we

stop him, Captain^"

READER III: "He practically owns the expedition. We don't

have to help him, there's a clause in our con-

tract that guarantees refusal to work under

dangerous conditions. So... do unto this Picnic

Ground as you would have it do unto you. No

initial-cutting on the trees. Replace the turf

on the greens. Clean up your banana peels after

you. "

READER I: Now, below, in the ship was an immense humming.

From the stoarge port rolled the great shining

Drill. Chatterton followed it, calling directions

to its robot radio. "This way, here."

READER TI: "The fool."

READER I: "Now. ,"

READER TI: The Drill plunged its long screw-bore into the

green grass. Chatterton waved up at the other

men. 166

READER T: "Watch this"

READER II: The Drill stood in the center of a little sea

of grass. For a moment it plunged away, bringing

up moist corks of sod which it spat unceremoniously

into a shaking analysis bin. Now the Drill gave

a wrenched, metallic squeal like a monster inter-

rupted at its feed. From the soil beneath it

slow bluish liquids bubbled up.

READER I: "Get back, you fool!"

READER II: The Drill lumbered in a prehistoric dance. It

shrieked like a night train turning on a sharp

curve, throwing out red sparks. it was sinking.

The black slime gave under it in a dark convulsion.

With a coughing sigh, a series of pants and

churnings, the Drill sank into a black scum like

an elephant shot and dying, trumpeting, like a

mammoth at the end of an Age, vanishing limb by

ponderous limb into the pit.

READER II: "Fool, fool, you know what that is, Driscoll?

It's tar. The fool machine hit a tar pit!"

READER I: "Listen, listen! This way, over here."

READER II: But like the old tyrants of the earth, the 167

dinosaurs with their tubed and screaming necks,

the Drill was plunging and thrashing in the one

lake from where there was no returning to bask

on the firm and understandable shore. Chatterton

turned to the other men far away.

READER I: "Do something, someone."

READER II: The Drill was gone. The tar pit bubbled and

gloated, sucking the hidden monster bones. The

surface of the pool was silent. A huge bubble,

the last, rose, expelled a scent of ancient

petroleum, and fell apart. The men came down

and stood on the edge of the little black sea.

Chatterton stopped yelling.

READER III: After a long minute of staring into the silent

tar pool, Chatterton turned and looked at the

hills, blindly, at the green rolling lawns. The

distant trees were growing fruit now and dropping

it, softly, to the ground.

READER I: I'll show it."

READER III: "Take it easy, Chatterton."

READER I: "I'll fix it."

READER III: "Sit down, have a drink." 168

READER I: "I'll fix it good, I'll show it it can't do this

to me."

READER III: "Wait a minute now."

READER I: "I know what to do, I know how to fix it!"

READER III: "Stop him!" He ran, then remembered he could

fly. "The A-Bomb's on the ship, if he should

get to that. ."

READER II: The other men had thought of that and were in

the air. A small grove of trees stood between

the rocket and Chatterton as he ran on the ground,

forgetting that he could fly, or afraid to fly,

or not allowed to fly, yelling. The crew headed

for the rocket to wait for him, the captain

with them. They arrived, formed a line, and

shut the rocket port. The last they saw of

Chatterton he was plunging through the edge of

the tiny forest. The crew stood waiting.

Chatterton didn't come out on the other side of

the small woodland.

READER III: "Go bring him in."

READER II: Two men flew off. Now, softly, a great and

gentle rain fell upon the green world. 169

READER III: "The final touch. We'd never have to build

houses here. Notice it's not raining on us. It's

raining all around, ahead, behind us. What a

world "

READER I: They stood dry in the middle of the blue, cool

rain. The sun was setting. The moon, a large

one the color of ice, rose over the freshened

hills.

READER III: "There's only one more thing this world needs."

READER II: "Yes, said everyone, thoughtfully, slowly.

READER III: "We'll have to go looking," said Driscoll.

"It's logical. The wind flies us, the trees

and streams feed us, everything is alive. Perhaps

if we asked for companionship. ."

READER III: "I've thought a long time, today and other days,"

said Koestler. "We're all bachelors, been travel-

ing for years, and tired of it. Wouldn't it be

nice to settle down somewhere? Here, maybe.

On Earth you sweat just to save enough to buy

a house, pay taxes; the cities stink. Here,

you won't even need a house, with this weather.

If it gets monotonous you can ask for rain, 170

clouds, snow, changes. You don't have to work

here for anything. "

READER II: "It'd be boring. We'd go crazy."

READER III: "No, Koestler said, smiling. "If life got too

soft, all we'd have to do is repeat a few times

what Chatterton said: 'Here there be tygers,'

Listen'"

READER I: Far away, wasn't there the faintest roar of a

giant cat, hidden in the twilight forests? The

men shivered.

READER III: "A versatile world, " said Koestler dryly. "A

woman who'll do anything to please her guests,

as long as we're kind to her. Chatterton wasn't

kind."

READER III: "Chatterton, What about him?"

READER I: As if to answer this, someone cried from a distance.

The two men who had flown off to find Chatterton

were waving at the edge of the woods. Forester,

Driscoll,and Koestler flew down alone.

READER III: "What 's up?"

READER I: The men pointed into the forest. "Thought you'd

want to see this, Captain. It's eerie." One 171

of the men indicated a pathway. "Look here,

sir."

READER II: The marks of great claws stood on the path,

fresh and clear.

READER I: "And over here."

READER II: A few drops of blood. A heavy smell of some

feline animal hung in the air.

READER III "Chatterton?"

READER I: "I don't think we'll ever find him, Captain."

READER II: Faintly, faintly, moving away, now gone in the

breathing silence of twilight, came the roar

of a tiger.

The men lay on the resilient grass by the rocket

and the night was warm. "Reminds me of nights

when I was a kid," said Driscoll. "My brother

and I waited for the hottest night in July and

then we slept on the Court House lawn, counting

the stars, talking; it was a great night, the

best night of the year, and now, when I think

back on it, the best night of my life," Then

he added, "Not counting tonight, of course."

READER I: "I keep thinking about Chatterton," said Koestler. 172

READER III: "Don't. We'll sleep a few hours and take off.

We can't chance staying here another day. I

don't mean the danger that got Chatterton. No.

I mean, if we stayed on we'd get to liking this

world too much. We'd never want to leave."

READER TI: A soft wind blew over them.

READER 1: "I don't want to leave now." Driscoll put his

hands behind his head, lying quietly. "And it

doesn't want us to leave."

READER II: "If we go back to Earth and tell everyone what

a lovely planet it is, what then, Captain?

They'll come smashing in here and ruin it."

READER III: "No. First, this planet wouldn't put up with

a full-scale invasion. I don't know what it'd

do, but it could probably think of some interesting

things. Secondly, I like this planet too much;

I respect it. We'll go back to Earth and lie

about it. Say it's hostile. Which it.would be

to the average man, like Chatterton, jumping in

here to hurt it. I guess we won't be lying after

all."

READER iI: "Funny thing. I'm not afraid. Chatterton vanishes, 173

is killed most horribly, perhaps, yet we lie here,

no one runs, no one trembles. It's idiotic.

Yet it's right. We trust it and it trusts us."

READER I: "Did you notice, after you drank just so much

of the wine-water, you didn't want more? A

world of moderation."

READER III: They lay listening to something like a great

heart of this earth beating slowly and warmly

under their bodies.

READER I: Forester thought, I'm thirsty.

READER II: A drop of rain splashed on his lips.

READER III: He laughed quietly.

READER III: I'm lonely, he thought.

READER I: Distantly, he heard soft, high voices.

READER II: He turned his eyes in upon a vision. There was

a group of hills from which flowed a clear river,

and in the shallows of that river, sending up

spray, their faces shimmering, were the beautiful

women. They played like children on the shore.

And it came to Forester to know about them and

their life. They were nomads, roaming the. face

of this world as was their desire. There were 174

no highways or cities, there were only hills and

plains and winds to carry them like white feathers

where they wished. As Forester shaped the

questions, some invisible answerer whispered the

answers. There were no men. These women, alone,

produced their race. The men had vanished fifty

thousand years ago. And where were these women

now? A mile down from the green forest, a mile

over on the wine stream by the six white stones,

and a third mile to the large river. There, in

the shallows, were the women who would make fine

wives and raise beautiful children. Forester

opened his eyes. The other men were sitting up.

READER III: "I had a dream."

READER I: They had all dreamed.

READER II: "A mile down from the green forest. .

READER I: ". .. a mile over on the wine stream. ."

READER Ii: ". . .by the six white stones. . ." said Koestler.

READER III: and a third mile to the large river,"

said Driscoll, sitting there.

READER I: Nobody spoke again for a moment. They looked

at the silver rocket standing there in the star-

light. 175

READER II: "Do we walk or fly, Captain?"

READER III: Forester said nothing.

READER II: "Captain let's stay. Let's never go back to

Earth. They'll never come and investigate to

see what happened to us; they'll think we were

destroyed here. What do you say?"

READER I: Forester's face was perspiring. His tongue

moved again and again on his lips. His hands

twitched over his knees. The crew sat waiting.

READER III: "It'd be nice."

READER II: "Sure."

READER III: "But. . . we've got our job to do. People

invested in our ship. We owe it to them to go

back."

READER I: Forester got up. The men still sat on the ground,

not listening to him.

READER II: "It's such a fine, nice, wonderful night."

READER I: They stared at the soft hills and the trees and

the rivers running off to other horizons.

READER III: "Let's get aboard ship."

READER II: "Captain. . . "

READER III: "Get aboard." 176

READER I: The rocket rose into the sky. Looking back,

Forester saw every valley and every tiny lake.

READER II: "We should've stayed."

READER III: "Yes, I know."

READER II: "It's not too late to turn back."

READER III: "I'm afraid it is."

READER I: Forester made an adjustment on the port telescope.

READER III: "Look now. "

READER I: Koestler looked. The face of the world was

changed. Tigers, dinosaurs, mammoths appeared.

Volcanoes erupted, cyclones and hurricanes tore

over the hills in a welter and fury of weather.

READER III: "Yes, she was a woman all right. Waiting for

visitors for millions of years, preparing herself,

making her self beautiful. She put on her best

face for us. When Chatterton treated her badily,

she warned him a few times, and then, when he

tried to ruin her beauty, eliminated him. She

wanted to be loved, like every woman, for herself,

not for her wealth. So now, after she had offered

us everything, we turn our backs. She's the

woman scorned. She let us go, yes, but we can 177

never come back. She'll be waiting for us with

those.,..

READER I: He nodded to the tigers and the cyclones and

the boiling seas.

READER II: "Captain."

READER III: "Yes .o

READER II: "It's a little late to tell you this. But just

before we took off, I was in charge of the air

lock. I let Driscoll slip away from the ship.

He wanted to go. I couldn't refuse him. I'm

responsible. He's back there now, on that

planet.

READER I: They both turned to the viewing port. And

after a long while, Forester said,

READER III: "I'm glad. I'm glad one of us had enough sense

to stay."

READER II: "But he's dead by now'"

READER III: "No, that display down there is for us, perhaps

a visual hallucination. Underneath all the

tigers and lions and hurricanes, Driscoll is

quite safe and alive, because he's her only

audience now. Oh, she'll spoil him rotten. 178

He'll lead a wonderful life, he will, while

we're slugging it out up and down the system

looking for but never finding a planet quite

like this again. No, we won't try to go back

and 'rescue' Driscoll. I don't think 'she'

would let us anyway. Full speed ahead, Koestler,

make it full speed."

READER I: The rocket leaped forward into greater accelera-

tions. And just before the planet dwindled

away in brightness and mist, Forester imagined

that he could see Driscoll very clearly, walking

away down from the green forest, whistling quietly,

all of the fresh planet around him, a wine creek

flowing for him, baked fish lolling in the hot

springs, fruit ripening in the midnight trees,

and distant forests and lakes waiting for him

to happen by. Driscoll walked away across the

endless green lawns near the six white stones,

beyond the forest, to the edge of the large

bright river. . ." APPENDIX L

THE EXILES

READER I: Their eyes were fire and the breath flamed out

the witches' mouths as they bent to probe the

caldron with greasy stick and bony finger.

READERS I, "When shall we three meet again II In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"

READER I: They danced drunkenly on the shore of an empty

sea, fouling the air with their three tongues,

and burning it with their cats' eyes malevolently

aglitter:

READERS II, III: "Round about the cauldron go: In the poison'd entrails throw... Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble."

READER I: They paused and cast a glance about. "Where's

the crystal? Where the needles?"

READER II: "Here."

READER III: "Goods:"

READER II: "Is the yellow wax thickened?"

READER III: "Yes'"

READER II: "pour it in the iron mold"

179 180

READER III: "Is the wax figure done?" They shaped it like

molasses adrip on their green hands.

READER II: "Shove the needle through the heart'"

READER III: "The crystal, the crystal; fetch it from the

tarot bag. Dust it off; have a look'"

READER I: They bent to the crystal, their faces white.

READER II: "see, see, see..."

READER I: A rocket ship moved through space from the

planet Earth to the planet Mars. On the rocket

ship men were dying. The Captain raised his

head, tiredly. "We'll have to use the morphine."

READER III: "But, Captain-"

READER II: "You see yourself this man's condition."

READER I: The captain lifted the wool blanket and the

man restrained beneath the wet sheets moved and

groaned. The air was full of sulfurous thunder.

READER III: "I saw it - I saw it."

READER I: The man opened his eyes and stared at the port

where there were only black spaces, reeling

stars, Earth far removed, and the planet Mars

rising Large and red.

READER III: "I saw it - a bat, a huge thing, a bat with a 181

man's face, spread over the front port. Fluttering

and fluttering, fluttering and fluttering."

READER II: "Pulse?"

READER I: The orderly measured it.

READER III: "One hundred and thirty."

READER II: "He can't go on with that. Use the morphine.

Come along, Smith."

READER I: They moved away. Suddenly the floor plates were

laced with bone and white skulls that screamed.

The captain did not dare look down, and over the

screaming he said, "Is this where Perse is?"

turning in at a hatch. A white-smocked surgeon

stepped away from a body.

READER III: "I just don't understand it."

READER II: "How did Perse die?"

READER III: "We don't know, Captain. It wasn't his heart,

his brain, or shock. He just - died."

READER I: The captain felt the doctor's wrist, which changed

to a hissing snake and bit him. The captain did

not flinch.

READER II: "Take care of yourself. You've a pulse too."

READER I: The doctor nodded. 182

READER III: "Perse complained of pains - needles, he said -

in his wrists and legs. Said he felt like wax,

melting. He fell. I helped him up. He cried

like a child. Said he had a silver needle in

his heart. He died. Here he is. We can re-

peat the autopsy for you. Everything's physically

normal."

READER II: "That's impossible; He died of something'"

READER I: The captain walked to a port. He smelled of

menthol. and iodine and green soap on his polished

and manicured hands. His white teeth were

dentifriced, and his ears scoured to a pinkness,

as were his cheeks. His uniform was the color

of new salt, and his boots were black mirrors

shining below him. His crisp crew-cut hair

smelled of sharp alcohol. Even his breath was

sharp and new and clean. There was no spot to

him. He was a fresh instrument, honed and ready,

still hot from the surgeon's oven. The men with

him were from the same mold. One expected huge

brass keys spiraling slowly from their backs.

They were expensive, talented, well-oiled toys, 183

obedient and quick. The captain watched the

planet Mars grow very large in space.

READER II: "We'll be landing in an hour on that blasted

place. Smith, did you see any bats, or have

other nightmares?"

READER III: "Yes, sir. The month before our rocket took

off from New York, sir. White rats biting my neck, drinking my blood. I didn't tell. i was

afraid you wouldn't let me come on this trip."

READER II: "Never mind. i had dreams too. In all of my fifty years I never had a dream until that week

before we took off from Earth. And then every

night I dreamed i was a white wolf. Caught on a snowy hill. Shot with a silver bullet. Buried

with a stake in my heart." He moved his head

toward Mars. "Do you think, Smith, they know

we're coming?"

READER III: "We don't know if there are Martian people, sir."

READER II: "Don't we? They began frightening us off eight weeks ago, before we started. They've killed

Perse and Reynolds now. Yesterday they made Grenville go blind. How? I don't know. Bats, needles, dreams, men dying for no reason. I'd 184

call it witchcraft in another day. But this

is the year 2120, Smith. We're rational men.

This all can't be happening. But it is' Whoever

they are, with their needles and their bats, they'll

try to finish us all. Smith, fetch those books

from my file. I want them when we land."

READER I: Two hundred books were piled on the rocket deck.

READER II: "Thank you, Smith. Have you glanced at them?

Think I'm insane? Perhaps. It's a crazy hunch.

At that last moment I ordered these books from

the Historical Museum. Because of my dreams.

Twenty nights I was stabbed, butchered, a scream-

ing bat pinned to a surgical mat, a thing rotting,

underground in a black box; bad, wicked dreams.

Our whole crew dreamed of witch-things and were-

things, vampires and phantoms, things they couldn't

know anything about. Why? Because books on

such ghastly subjects were destroyed a century

ago. By law, Forbidden for anyone to own the

grisly volumes. These books you see here are

the last copies, kept for historical purposes

in the locked museum vaults." 185

READER I: Smith bent to read the dusty titles:

READER III: "Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar

Allan Poe. Dracula, by Bram Stoker. Frankenstein,

by Mary Shelley. The Turn of the Screw, by Henry

James. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington

Irving. Rappaccini's Daughter, by Nathaniel

Hawthorne. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,

by Ambrose Bierce. Alice's Adventures in Wonder-

land, by Lewis Carroll. The Willows, by Algernon

Blackwood. The Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum.

The Weird Shadow over Innsmouth, by H.P. Lovecraft.

And more' Books by Walter de la Mare, Wakefield,

Harvey, Wells, Asquith, Huxley - all forbidden

authors. All burned in the same year that

Halloween was outlawed and Christmas was banned'

But, sir, what good are these to us on the

rocket?"

READER II: "I don't know, yet."

READER I: The three hags lifted the crystal where the

captain's image flickered, his tiny voice

tinkling out of the glass: 186

READER II: "I don't know, yet."

READER I: They three witches glared redly into one another's

faces.

READER II: "We haven't much time," said one.

READER III: "Better warn Them in the City."

READER II: "They'll want to know about the books. It doesn't

look good. That fool of a captain"

READER III: "In an hour they'll land their rocket."

READER I: The three hags shuddered and blinked up at the

Emerald City by the edge of the dry Martian sea.

In its highest window a small man held a blood-

red drape aside. He watched the wastelands

where the three witches fed their caldron and

shaped the waxes. Farther along, ten thousand

other blue fires and laurel incenses, black

tobacco smoke and fir weeds, cinnamons and

bone dusts rose soft as moths through the Martian

night. The man counted the angry, magical fires.

Then, as the three witches stared, he turned.

The crimson drape, released, fell, causing the

distant portal to wink, like a yellow eye.

READER II: Mr. Edgar Allan Poe stood in the tower window, 187

a faint vapor of spirits upon his breath.

"Hecate's friends are busy tonight," he said,

seeing the witches, far below.

READER I: A voice behind him said.

READER III: "I saw Will Shakespeare at the shore, earlier,

whipping them on. All along the sea Shakespeare's

army alone, tonight, numbers thousands: the

three witches, Oberon, Hamlet's father, Puck -

all of them - thousands' Good Lord, a regular

sea of people."

READER I: "Good William."

READER II: Poe turned. He let the crimson drape fall shut.

He stood for a moment to observe the raw stone

room, the black-timbered table, the candle flame,

the other man, Mr. Ambrose Bierce, sitting very

idly there, lighting matches and watching them

burn down, whistling under under his breath,

now and then, laughing to himself.

READER I: "We'll have to tell Mr. Dickens now, We've

put it off too long. It's a matter of hours.

Will you go down to his home with me, Bierce?"

READER III: "I've just been thinking - what'll happen to us?" 188

READER I: "If we can't kill the rocket men off, frighten

them away, then we'll have to leave, of course.

We'll go on to Jupiter, and when they come to

Jupiter, we'll go on to Saturn, and when they

come to Saturn, we'll go to Uranus, or Neptune,

and then on to Pluto - "

READER III: "Where then?"

READER TI: Mr. Poe's face was weary; there were fire coals

remaining, fading, in his eyes, and a sad wild-

ness in the way he talked, and a uselessness of

his hands and the way his hair fell lankly over

his amazing white brow. He was like a satan of

some last dark cause,a general arrived from a

derelict invasion. His silky, soft, black

mustache was worn away by his musing lips. He

was so small his brow seemed to float, vast and

phosphorescent, by itself, in the dark room.

READER I: "We have the advantages of superior forms of

travel. We can always hope for one of their

atomic wars, dissolution, the dark ages come again.

The return of superstition. We could go back

them to Earth, all of us, in one night. So 189

they're coming to ruin this world too? They

won't leave anything undefiled, will they?"

READER III: "Does a wolf pack stop until it's killed its

prey and eaten the guts? It should be quite a

war. I shall sit on the side lines and be the

scorekeeper. So many Earthmen boiled in oil,

so many Mss. Found in Bottles burnt, so many

Earthmen stabbed with needles, so many Red Deaths

put to flight by a battery of hypodermic syringes-

ha'"

READER II: Poe swayed angrily, faintly drunk with wine.

READER I: "What did we do? Be with us, Bierce, in the

name of God' Did we have a fair trial before

a company of literary critics? No; Our books

were plucked up by neat, sterile, surgeon's

pliers, and flung into vats, to boil, to be

killed of all their mortuary germs. Damn them

all:"

READER III: "I find our situation amusing."

READER II: They were interrupted by a hysterical shout from

the tower stair.

READER III: "Mr. Poe: Mr. Bierce'" 190

READER I: "Yes, yes, we're coming:"

READER II: Poe and Bierce descended to find a man gasping

against the stone passage wall.

READER III: "Have you heard the news?" he cried immediately,

clawing at them like a man about to fall over

a cliff. "In an hour they'll land' They're

bringing books with them - old books, the witches

said' What're you doing in the tower at a time

like this? Why aren't you acting?"

READER I: "We're doing everything we can, Blackwood.

You're new to all this. Come along, we're

going to Mr. Charles Dickens' place -"

READER III: " - to contemplate our doom, our black doom,"

READER II: They moved down the echoing throats of the

castle, level after dim green level, down into

mustiness and decay and spiders and dreamlike

webbing.

READER I: "Don't worry. All along the dead sea tonight

I've called the others. Your friends and mine,

Blackwood - Bierce. They're all there. The

animals and the old women and the tall men with

the sharp white teeth. The traps are waiting; 191

the pits, yes, and the pendulums. The Red

Death." Here he laughed quietly. "Yes, even

the Red Death. I never thought - no, I never

thought the time would come when a thing like

the Red Death would actually be. But they asked

for it, and they shall have it'"

READER III: "But are we strong enough?"

READER I: "How strong is strong? They won't be prepared

for us, at least. They haven't the imagination.

Those clean young rocket men with their antiseptic

bloomers and fish-bowl helmets, with their new

religion. About their necks, on gold chains,

scalpels. Upon their heads, a diadem of micro-

scopes. In their holy fingers, steaming incense

urns which in reality are only germicidal ovens

for steaming out superstition. The names of

Poe, Bierce, Hawthorne, Blackwood - blasphemy

to their clean lips. Outside the castle they

advanced through a watery space, a tarn that

was not a tarn, which misted before them like

the stuff of nightmares. The air filled with

wing sounds and shirring, a motion of winds 192 and blackness. All down the empty seashore black figures spindled and waned, grew up and blew into black smoke on the sky. Bells rang in mountain towers and licorice ravens spilled out with the bronze sounds and spun away to ashes.

Over a lonely moor and into a small valley

Poe and Bierce hurried, and found themselves quite suddenly on a cobbled street, in cold, bleak, biting weather, with people stomping up and down stony courtyards to warm their feet; foggy withal, and candles flaring in the windows of offices and shops where hung the Yuletide turkeys. At a distance some boys, all bundled up, snorting their pale breaths on the wintry air, were trilling, "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," while the immense tones of a great clock continu- ously sounded midnight.

At a sign which read SCROOGE, MARLEY AND

DICKENS, Poe gave the Marley-faced knocker a rap, and from within, as the door popped open a few inches, a sudden gust of music almost swept them into a dance. 193

READER III: "What do you want?"

READER II: demanded Mr. Charles Dickens.

READER I: "We've come to plead with you again, Charles;

we need your help," said Poe.

READER III: "Help? Do you think I would help you fight

against those good men coming in the rocket?

I don't belong here, anyway. My books were

burned by mistake. I'm no supernaturalist, no

writer of horrors and terrors like you, Poe;

you, Bierce, or the others, I'll have nothing

to do with you terrible people'"

READER I: "You are a persuasive talker. You could go to

meet the rocket men, lull them, lull their

suspicions and then - then we would take care

of them."

READER II: Mr. Dickens eyed the folds of the black cape

which hid Poe's hands. From it, smiling, Poe

drew forth a black cat.

READER I: "For one of our visitors."

READER III: "And for the others?"

READER I: "The Premature Burial?"

READER III: "You are a grim man, Mr. Poe." 194

READER I: "I am a frightened and an angry man. I am a

god, Mr. Dickens, even as you are a god, even

as we all are gods, and our inventions - our

people, if you wish - have not only been threatened,

but banished and burned, torn up and censored,

ruined and done away with. The worlds we created

are falling into ruin. Even gods must fight;"

READER III: "So? Perhaps you can explain why we are here?

How did we come here?"

READER I: "War begets war. Destruction begets destruction.

On Earth, in the last half of the twentieth

century they began to outlaw our books. Oh,

what a horrible thing - to destroy our literary

creations that way! It summoned us out of -

what? Death? The Beyond? You must help us.

You have a good speaking manner. We need you."

READER III: "I repeat, I am not of you, I don't approve

of you and the others. I was no player with

witches and vampires and midnight things."

READER I: "What of A Christmas Carol?"

READER III: "Ridiculous! One story. Oh, I wrote a few

others about ghosts, perhaps, but what of that? 195

My basic works had none of that nonsense:"

READER I: "Mistaken or not, they grouped you with us.

They destroyed your books - your worlds too.

You must hate them, Mr. Dickens:"

READER III: "I admit they are stupid and rude, but that is

all. Good day["

READER I: "Let Mr. Marley come, at least!"

READER III: "No. "

READER II: The door slammed. Mr. Poe hurried along the

midnight shore of the dry sea. By fires and

smoke he hesitated, to shout orders, to check

the bubbling caldrons, the poisons and the

chalked pentagrams.

READER I: "Good; Fine; Mr. Blackwood stopped. He sat

like a child on the cold sand. He began to sob.

They tried to soothe him, but he would not

listen.

READER III: "I just thought. What happens to us on the

day when the last copies of our books are des-

troyed?"

READER I: "Don't speak of it:"

READER III: "We must. Now, now, as the rocket comes down, 196

you, Mr. Poe; you, Bierce - you grow faint.

Like wood smoke. Blowing away. Your faces

melt - Blackwood brooded gently. "I wonder

who I am. In what Earth mind tonight do I

exist? In some African hut? Some hermit

reading my tales? Is he the lonely candle in

the wind of time and science? The flickering

orb sustaining me here in rebellious exile?

Is it him? Or some boy in a discarded attic

finding me, only just in time! Oh, last night

I felt ill, ill, ill to the marrows of me, for

there is a body of the soul as well as a body of

the body, and this soul's body ached in all of

its glowing parts, and last night I felt myself

a candle, guttering. When suddenly I sprang up,

given new light, as some child, sneezing with

dust, in some yellow garret on Earth, once more

found a worn, time-specked copy of me! And so

I'm given a short respite!"

READER II: A door banged wide in a little hut by the shore.

A thin short man, with flesh hanging from him

in folds, stepped out and, paying no attention 197

to the others, sat down and stared at his clenched

fists.

READER III: "There's the one I'm sorry for. Look at him,

dying away. He was once more real than we, who

were men. They took him, a skeleton thought,

and clothed him in centuries of pink flesh and

snow beard and red velvet suit and black boot;

made him reindeers, tinsel, holly. And after

centuries of manufacturing him they drowned him

in a vat of Lysol, you might say."

READER II: The men were silent.

READER I: "What must it be on Earth? Without Christmas?

No hot chestnuts, no tree, no ornaments or drums

or candles - nothing; nothing but the snow and

wind and the lonely, factual people..."

READER II: .They all looked at the thin little old man with

the scraggly beard and faded red velvet suit.

READER I: "Have you heard his story?"

READE III: "I can imagine it. The glitter-eyed psychiatrist,

the clever sociologist, the resentful, froth-

mouthed educationalist, the antiseptic parents -"

READ IT: Blackwood did not continue. He fell forward with 198

a sigh. As he lay upon the ground he had time

to say only,

READER III: "How interesting. "

READER II: And then, as they all watched, horrified, his

body burned into blue dust and charred bone,

the ashes of which fled through the air in black

tatters.

READER I: "His last book gone. Someone on Earth just now

burned it."

READER II: A rushing sound filled the sky. They cried out,

terrified, and looked up. In the sky, dazzling

it with sizzling fire clouds, was the rocket

Around the men on the seashore lanterns bobbed;

there was a squealing and a bubbling and an odor

of cooked spells. Candle-eyed pumpkins lifted

into the cold clear air. Thin fingers clenched

into fists and a witch screamed from her withered

mouth:

READER Ir: "Ship, ship, break, fall! Ship, ship, burn alli Crack, flake, shake, melt! Mummy dust, cat pelt!"

READER I: "The powders!" 199

READER II: A thick hot smell of bitter almond, civet, cumin,

wormwood and orris!"

The rocket came down - steadily down, with the

shriek of a damned spirit: Poe raged at it.

He flung his fists up and the orchestra of heat

and smell and hatred answered in symphony!

Like stripped tree fragments, bats flew upward:

Burning hearts, flung like missles, burst in

bloody fireworks on the singed air. Down, down,

relentlessly down, like a pendulum the rocket

came. And Poe howled, furiously, and shrank

back with every sweep and sweep of the rocket

cutting and ravening the air! All the dead sea

seemed a pit in which, trapped, they waited the

sinking of the dread machinery, the glistening

ax; they were people under the avalanche!

READER I: "The snakes."

READER II: And luminous serpentines of undulant green hurtled

toward the rocket. But it came down, a sweep,

a fire, a motion, and it lay panting out exhaustions

of red plumage on the sand, a mile away.

READER I : "At it! The plan's changed! Only one chance. 200

Run! At it! At it! Drown them with our bodies

Kill them!"

READER III: And as if he had commanded a violent sea to

change its course, to suck itself free from

primeval beds, the whirls and savage gouts of

fire spread and ran like wind and rain and stark

lightning over the sea snads, down empty river

deltas, shadowing and screaming, whistling and

whining, sputtering and coalescing toward the

rocket which, extinguished, lay like a clean

metal torch in the farthest hollow. As if a

great charred caldron of sparkling lava had been

overturned, the boiling people and snapping

animals churned down the dry fathoms.

READER I: "Kill them!"

READER III: The rocket men leaped out of their ship, guns

ready. They stalked about, sniffing the air

like hounds. They saw nothing, They relaxed.

READER I: The captain stepped forth last. He gave sharp

commands. Wood was gathered, kindled, and a

fire leapt up in an instant. The captain

beckoned his men into a half circle about him. 201

READER II: "A new world. The old world left behind. A

new start. What more symbolic than that we

here dedicate ourselves all the more firmly to

science and progress. The books."

READER I: Firelight limned the faded titles: The Willows,

The Outsider, Behold This Dreamer, Dr. Jekyll

and Mr. Hyde, The Land of Oz, Pellucidar, The

Land That Time Forgot, A Mid-Summer Night's

Dream, and the monstrous names of Machen and

Edgar Allan Poe and Cabell and Dunsany and

Balckwood and Lewis Carroll; the names, the old

names, the evil names.

READER II: "A new world, With a gesture, we burn the last

of the old."

READER I: The captain ripped pages from the books. Leaf

by seared leaf, he fed them into the fire.

READER III: A scream.

READER I: Leaping back, the men stared beyond the firelight

at the edges of the encroaching and uninhabited

sea.

Another scream! A high and wailing thing, like

the death of a dragon and the thrashing of a 202

bronzed whale left gasping when the waters of a

leviathan's sea drain down the shingles and

evaporate. It was the sound of air rushing in

to fill a vacuum, where, a moment before, there

had been something!" The captain neatly dis-

posed of the last book by putting in into the

fire. The air stopped quivering. Silence!

The rocket men leaned and listened.

READER III: "Captain, did you hear it?"

READER II: "No."

READER III: "Like a wave, sir. On the sea bottom: I thought

I saw something. Over there. A black wave.

Big. Running at us."

READER II: "You were mistaken."

READER III: "There, sir:"

READER II: "What?"

READER III: "See it? There! The city: Way over: That

green city near the lake: It's splitting in

half. It's falling'"

READER I: The men squinted and shuffled forward. Smith

stood trembling among them. He put his hand to

his head as if to find a thought there. 203

READER III: "I remember. Yes, now I do. A long time back.

When I was a child. A book I read. A story.

Oz, I think it was. Yes, Oz. The Emerald City

of Oz..."

READER II:

READER III: "Yes, Oz, that's what it was, I saw it just now,

like in the story. I saw it fall."

READER II: "Smith'"

READER III: "Yes, sir?"

READER II: "Report to the ship's doctor."

READER III: "Yes, sir'"

READER II: "Be careful."

READER I: The men tiptoed, guns alert, beyond the ship's

aseptic light to gaze at the long sea and the

low hills.

READER III: "Why, there's no one here at all, is there?

No one here at all."

READER I: The wind blew sand over his shoes, whining. APPENDIX M

A Sound of Thunder

READER I: The sign on the wall seed to quaver under a

film of sliding warm water. Eckels felt his

eyelids blink over his stare, and the sign burned

in this momentary darkness:

TIME SAFARI, INC. SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST. YOU NAME THE ANIMAL. WE TAKE YOU THERE YOU SHOOT IT.

A warm phlegm gathered in Eckels' throat; he

swallowed and pushed it down. The muscles around

his mouth formed a smile as he put his hand slowly

out upon the air, and in that hand waved a check

for ten thousand dollars to the man behind the

desk.

READER II: "Does this safari guarantee I come back alive?"

READER III: "We guarantee nothing," said the official, "except

the dinosaurs." He turned. "This is Mr. Travis,

your Safari Guide in the Past. He'll tell you

what and where to shoot. If he says no shooting,

no shooting. If you disobey instructions, there's

204 205

a stiff penalty of another ten thousand dollars,

plus possible government action, on your return."

READER I: Eckels glanced across the vast office at a mass

and tangle, a snaking and humming of wires and

steel boxes, at an aurora that flickered now

orange, now silver, now blue. There was a sound

like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time, all

the years and all the parchment calendars, all

the hours piled high and set aflame.

READER III: A touch of the hand and this burning would, on

the instant, beautifully reverse itself. Eckels

rememberd the wording in the advertisements to

the letter. Out of chars and ashes, out of dust

and coals, like golden salamanders, the old years,

the green years, might leap. A touch of a hand

might do it, the merest touch of a hand.

READER II: "Unbelievable. A real Time Machine. Makes you

think. If the election had gone badly yesterday,

I might be here now running away from the results.

Thank God Keith won. He'll make a fine President

of the United States."

READER III: "Yes. We're lucky. If Deutscher had gotten in, 206

we'd have the worst kind of dictatorship. There's

an anti-everything man for you, a militarist,

anti-Christ, anti-human, anti-intellectual.

People called us up, you know, joking but not

joking. Said if Deutscher became President they

wanted to go live in 1492. Of course it's not

our business to conduct Escapes, but to form

Safaris. Anyway, Keith's President now. All

you got to worry about is--"

READER II: "Shooting my dinosaur," Eckels finish. .it for him.

READER I: "A Tyrannosaurus rex. The Tyrant Lizard, the

most incredible monster in history. Sign this

release. Anything happens to you, we're not

responsible. Those dinosaurs are hungry."

READER II: "Trying to scare me'"

READER III: "Frankly, yes. We don't want anyone going who'll

panic at the first shot. Six Safari leaders

were killed last year, and a dozen hunters.

We're here to give you the severest thrill a real

hunter ever asked for. Traveling you back sixty

million years to bag the biggest game in all of

Time. Your personal check's still there. Tear

it up." 207

READER I: Mr. Eckels looked at the check. His fingers

twitched.

READER III: "Good luck, Mr. Travis, he's all yours."

READER I: They moved silently across the room, taking their

guns with them, toward the Machine, toward the

silver metal and the roaring light.

READER III: First a day and then a night and then a day and

then a night, then it was day-night-day-night-day.

A week, a month, a year, a decade!

READER I: A.D. 2055.

READER II: A.D. 2019.

READER III: 1999;

READER I: 1957:

READER II: Gone!

READER III: The Machine roared.

READER I: They put on their oxygen helmets and tested the

intercoms.

READER III: Eckels swayed on the padded seat, his face pale,

his jaw stiff. He felt the trembling in his arms

and he looked down and found his hands tight on

the new rifle. There were four other men in the

Machine. Travis, the Safari Leader, his assistant, 208

Lesperance, and two other hunters, Billings and

Kramer. They sat looking at each other, and

the years blazed around them.

READER II: "Can these guns get a dinosaur cold?"

READER I: "If you hit them right. Some dinosaurs have

two brains, one in the head, another far down

the spinal column. We stay away from those.

That's stretching luck. Put your first two shots

into the eyes, if you can, blind them, and go

back into the brain."

READER III: The Machine howled. Time was a film run backward.

Suns fled and ten million moons fled after them.

"Think," said Eckels. "Every hunter that ever

lived would envy us today. This makes Africa

seem like Illinois."

READER I: The Machine slowed; its scream fell to a murmur.

The Machine stopped.

READER III: The sun stopped in the sky.

READER II: The fog that had enveloped the Machine blew away

and they were in an old time, a very old time

indeed, three hunters and two Safari Heads with

their blue metal guns across their knees. 209

READ I: "Christ isn't born yet. Moses has not gone to

the mountain to talk with God. The Pyramids

are still in the earth, waiting to be cut out

and put up. Remember that Alexander, Caesar,

Napoleon, Hitler - none of them exists."

READER III: The men nodded.

READER I: "That is the jungle of sixty million two hundred

and fifty-five years before President Keith."

READER III: He indicated a metal path that struck off into

green wilderness, over streaming swamp, among

giant ferns and palms.

READER I: "And that, is the Path, laid by Time Safari for

your use. It floats six inches above the earth.

Doesn't touch so much as one grass blade, flower,

or tree. It's an anti-gravity metal. Its pur-

pose is to keep you from touching this world of

the past in any way. Stay on the Path. Don't

go off it. I repeat. Don't go off. For any

reason, If you fall off, there's a penalty.

And don't shoot any animal we don't okay."

READER II: "hy?"

READER III: They sat in the ancient wilderness. Far birds' 210

cries blew on a wind, and the smell of tar and

an old salt sea, moist grasses, aid flowers the

color of blood.

READER I: "We don't want to change the Future. We don't

belong here in the Past. The government does't

like us here. We have to pay big graft to keep

our franchise. A Time Machine is finicky business.

Not knowing it, we might kill an important

animal, a small bird, a roach, a flower even,

thus destroying an important link in a growing

species."

READER II: "That's not clear."

READER I: "All right, say we accidentally kill one mouse

here. That means all future families of this

one mouse are destroyed, right?"

READER II: "Right."

READER I: "And all the families of the families of the

families of that one mouse' With a stamp of

your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen,

then a thousand, a million, a billion possible

mice'"

READER II: "So they're dead. So what?" 211

READER I: "So what?" Travis snorted quietly. "Well, what

about the foxes that'll need those mice to sur-

vive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For

want of ten foxes, a lion starves. For want of

a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite

billions of life forms are thrown into chaos and

destruction. Eventually it all boils down to

this: fifty-nine million years later, a caveman,

one of a dozen on the entire world, goes hunting

wild boar or saber-toothed tiger for food. But

you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in

that region. By stepping on one single mouse.

So the caveman, please note, is not just any

expendable man, no! It is comparable to slaying

some of Adam's grandchildren. The stomp of your

foot, one mouse, could start an earthquake, the

effects of which could shake our earth and destinies

down through Time, to their very foundations.

With the death of that one caveman, a billion

others yet unborn are throttled in the womb.

So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step off!

READER II: "I see. Then it wouldn't pay for us to touch the

grass?" 212

READER I: "Correct. Crushing certain plants could add

up infinitesimally. A little error here would

multiply in sixty million years, all out of

proportion. We don't know. We're guessing.

But until we do know for certain whether our

messing around in Time can make a big roar or

a little rustle in history, we're being careful."

READER II: "How do we know which animals to-shoot?"

READER I: "They're marked with red paint. Today, before

our journey, we sent Lesperance here back with

the Machine. He came to this particular era

and followed certain animals."

READER II: "Studying them?"

READER III: "Right, I track them through their entire exis-

tence, noting which of them lives longest. Very

few. How many times they mate. Not often.

Life's short. When I find one that's going to

die when a tree falls on him, or one that drowns

in a tar pit, I note the exact hour, minute, and

second. I shoot a paint bomb. It leaves a red

patch on his side. We can't miss it. Then I

correlate our arrival in the Past so that we 213

meet the Monster not more than two minutes before

he would have died anyway. This way, we kill

only animals with no future, that are never

going to mate again. You see how careful we

are?"

READER II: "But if you came back this morning in Time,

you must've bumped into us, our Safari! How did

it turn out? Was it successful? Did all of us

get through - alive?"

READER I: Travis and Lespearance gave each other a look.

READER III: "That'd be a paradox. Time doesn't permit that

sort of mess - a man meeting himself. When such

occasions threaten, Time steps aside. Like an

airplane hitting an air pocket. You felt the

Machine jump just before we stopped? That was

us passing ourselves on the way back to the

Future. We saw nothing. There's no way of tell-

ing if this expedition was a success, if we got

our monster, or whether all of us - meaning you,

Mr. Eckels - got out alive."

READER II: Eckels smiled palely.

READER I: "Cut that," said Travis sharply. "Everyone on

his feet!" 214

READER III: They were ready to leave the Machine.

READER I: The jungle was high and the jungle was broad

and the jungle was the entire world forever and

forever. Sounds like music and sounds like fly-

ing tents filled the sky, and those were pterodactyls

soaring with cavernous gray wings, gigantic bats

of delirium and night fever. Eckels, balanced

on the narrow Path, aimed his rifle playfully.

READER III: "Stop that! Don't even aim for fun, blast you!

If your gun should go off--"

READER II: "Where's our Tyrannosaurus?"

READER I: Lesperance checked his wristwatch.

READER III: "Up ahead. We'll bisect his trail in sixty

seconds. Look for the red paint! Don't shoot

till we give the word. Stay on the path. Stay

on the Path!"

READER I: They moved forward in the wind of morning.

READER II: "Strange, up ahead, sixty million years, Election

Day over. Keith made President. Everyone

celebrating. And here we are, a million years

lost, and they don't exist. The things we worried

about for months, a life-time, not even born or

thought of yet." 215

READER I: "Safety catches off, everyone' You, first shot,

Eckels. Second, Billings. Third, Kramer."

READER II: "I've hunted tiger, wild boar, buffalo, elephant,

but now, this is it. I'm shaking like a kid."

READER I:

READER III: Everyone Stopped. Travis raised his hand.

READER I: "Ahead, in the mist. There he is. There's His

Roayl Majesty now."

READER II: The jungle was wide and full of twitterings,

rustlings, murmurs, and sighs.

READER I: Suddenly it all ceased, as if someone had shut

a door.

READER III: Silence.

READER A sound of thunder.

READER III: Out of the mist, one hundred years away, came

Tyrannosaurus rex.

READER II: "It , it..."

REA D I: "Sh'"1

R FAD ITI: It came on great oiled, resillient, striding

legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the

trees, a great evil god. Each lower leg was a

piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk 216

in thick ropes of muscle. Each thigh was a ton

of meat, ivory and steel mesh. And from the great

breathing cage of the upper body those two deli-

cate arms dangled out front, arms with hands

which might pick up and examine men like toys,

while the snake neck coiled. And the head itself,

a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon

the sky. Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of

teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, ostrich

eggs, empty of all expression save hunger. It

closed its mouth in a death grin. It ran, its

pelvic bones crushing aside trees and bushes,

its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving

prints six inches deep wherever it settled its

weight.

READER II: "Why, why, it could reach up and grab the moon."

READER T: "Sh! He hasn't seen us yet."

READER TI: "It can't be killed."

READER TII: Eckels pronounced this verdict quietly, as if

there could be no argument. He had weighed the

evidence and this was his considered opinion.

The rifle in his hands seemed a cap gun. 217

READER II: "We were fools to come. This is impossible."

READER I: "Shut up'"

READER II : "Nightmare."

READER I: "Turn around. Walk quietly to the Machine.

We'll remit one half your fee."

READER II: "I didn't realize it would be this big, I mis-

calculated, that's all. And now I want out."

READER I: "It sees us',"

READER III: "There's the red paint on its chest'"

READER I: The Tyrant Lizard raised itself. Its armoured

flesh glittered like a thousand green coins.

The coins, crusted with slime, steamed. In the

slime, tiny insects wriggled, so that the entire

body seemed to twitch and undualte, even while

the monster itself did not move. It exhaled.

The stink of raw flesh blew down the wilderness.

READER II: "Get me out of here. It was never like this

before. I was always sure I'd come through

alive. I had good guides, good safaris, and

safety. This time, I figured wrong. I've met

my match and admit it. This is too much for me

to get hold of." 218

READER III: "Don't run. Turn around. Hide in the Machine."

READER II: "Yes."

READER I: Eckels seemed to be numb. He looked at his feet

as if trying to make them move. He gave a grunt

of helplessness.

READER III: "Eckels "

READER I: He took a few steps, blinking, shuffling.

READER III: "Not that way!"

READER I: The Monster, at the first motion, lunged forward

with a terrible scream. It covered one hundred

yards in six seconds. The rifles jerked up and

blazed fire. A windstorm from the beast's mouth

engulfed them in the stench of slime and old

blood. The Monster roared, teeth glittering with

sun.

READER III: Eckels, not looking back, walked blindly to the

edge of the Path, his gun limp in his arms,

stepped off the Path, and walked, not knowing it,

in the jungle. His feet sank into green moss.

His legs moved him, and he felt alone and remote

from the events behind.

READER I: The rifles cracked again. 219

READER III: Their sound was lost in shriek and lizard thunder.

READER I: The great level of the reptile's tail swung up,

lashed sideways. Trees exploded in clouds of

leaf and bransh.

READER III: The Monster twitched its jeweler's hands down

to fondle at the men, to twist them in half, to

crush them like berries, to cram them into its

teeth and his screaming throat.

READER I: Its boulder-stone eyes leveled with the men.

They saw themselves mirrored. They fired at

the metallic eyelids and the blazing black iris.

READER III: Like a stone idol, like a mountain avalanche,

Tyrannosaurus fell. Thundering it clutched

trees, pulled them with it. It wrenched and

tore the metal Path. The men flung themselves

back and away. The body hit, ten tons of cold

flesh and stone. The guns fired. The Monster

lashed its armored tail, twitched its snake jaws,

and lay still. A fount of blood spurted from its

throat. Somewhere inside, a sac of fluids burst.

Sickening gushes drenched the hunters. They stood,

red and glistening. 220

READER I: The thunder faded.

READER III: The jungle was silent. After the avalanche, a

green peace. After the nightmare, morning.

READER T: Billings and Kramer sat on the pathway and

threw up. Travis and Lesperance stood with

smoking rifles, cursing steadily.

READER III: In the Time Machine, on, his face, Eckels lay

shivering. He had found his way back to the

Path, climbed into the Machine.

READER I: Travis came walking, glanced at Eckels, took

cotton gauze from a metal box, and returned to

the others, who were sitting on the Path.

"Clean up."

READER III: They wiped the blood from their helmets. They

began to curse too. The Monster lay, a hill of

solid flesh. Within, you could hear the sighs

and murmurs in the furthest chambers as it died,

the organs malfunctioning, liquids running a

final instant from pocket to sac to spleen,

everything shutting off, closing up forever. It

was like standing by a wrecked locomotive or a

steam shovel at quitting time, all valves being 221

released or levered tight. Bones cracked; the

tonnage of its own flesh, off balance, dead

weight, snapped the delicate forearms, caught

underneath. The meat settled, quivering.

READER I: Another cracking sound. Overhead, a gigantic

tree branch broke from its heavy mooring, fell.

It crashed upon the dead beast with finality.

READER III: "There. Right on time. That's the giant tree

that was scheduled to fall and kill this animal

orignially. You want the trophy picture?"

READER I: The two men tried to think, but gave up, shaking

their heads. They let themselves be led along

the metal Path. They sank wearily into the

Machine cushions. They gazed back at the ruined

Monster, the stagnating mound, where already

strange reptilian birds and golden insects were

busy at the steaming armor.

READER III: A sound on the floor of the Time Machine stiffened

them. Eckels sat there, shivering.

READER II: "I'm sorry."

READER I: "Get up'"

READER III: Eckels got up. 222

READER I: "Go out on that Path alone," said Travis. He

had his rifle pointed. "You're not coming back

in the Machine. We're leaving you here!"

READER III: "Wait-"

READER I: "Stay out of this! This fool nearly killed us.

But it isn't that so much, no. It's his shoes!

Look at them! He ran off the Path. That ruins

us! We'll forfeit! Thousands of dollars of

insurance! We guarantee no one leaves the Path.

He left it. Oh, the fool! I'll have to report

to the government. They might revoke our licence

to travel. Who knows what he's done to Time, to

History!"

READER III: "Take it easy, all he did was kick up some dirt."

READER I: "How do we know? We don't know anything! It's

all a mystery! Get out here, Eckels!"

READER II: "I'll pay anything. A hundred thousand dollars!"

READER III: Travis glared at Eckels' checkbook and spat.

READER I: "Go out there. The Monster's next to the Path.

Stick your arms up to your elbows in his mouth.

Then you can come back with us."

READER II: "That's unreasonable!"

READER I: "The Monster's dead, you idiot. The bullets! 223

The bullets can't be left behind. They don't

belong in the Past; they might change anything.

Here's my knife. Dig them out'"

READER III: The jungle was alive again, full of the old

tremorings and bird cries. Eckels turned slowly

to regard the primeval garbage dump, that hill

of nightmares and terror. After a long time,

like a sleepwalker he shuffled out along the

Path.

READER I: He returned, shuddering, five minute later, his

arms soaked and red to the elbows. He held out

his hands. Each held a number of steel bullets.

Then he fell. He lay where he fell, not moving.

READER III: "You didn't have to make him do that."

READER I: "Didn't I? It's too early to tell." Travis

nudged the still body. "He'll live. Next time

he won't go hunting game like this. Okay." He

jerked his thumb wearily at Lesperance. "Switch

on. Let's go home."

READER III: 1492.

READER II: 1776.

READER I: 1812. 224

READER III: They cleaned their hands and faces. They changed

their caking shirts and pants. Eckels was up

and around again, not speaking. Travis glared

at him for a full ten minutes.

READER II: "Don't look at me. I haven't done anything."

READER I: "Who can tell?"

READER II: "Just ran off the Path, that's all, a little

mud on my shoes - what do you want me to do -

get down and pary?"

READER I: "We might need it. I'm warning you, Eckels, I

might kill you yet. I've got my gun ready."

READER II: "I'm innocent. I've done nothing'"

READER III: 1999.

READER II: 2000.

READER I: 2055.

READER III: The Machine stopped.

READER I: "Get out," said Travis.

READER III: The room was there as they had left it. But not

the same as they had left it. The same man sat

behind the desk. But the same man did not quite

sit behind the same desk. Travis looked around

swiftly. 225

READER I: "Everything okay here?' he snapped.

READER III: "Fine. Welcome home'"

READER II: Travis did not relax. He seemed to be looking

at the very atoms of the air itself, at the way

the sun poured through the one high window.

READER I: "Okay, Eckels, get out. Don't ever come back."

READER III: Eckels could not move.

READER I: "You heard me. What're you staring at?"

READER III: Eckels stood smelling of the air, and there was

a thing to the air, a chemical taint so subtle,

so slight, that only a faint cry of his sublimal

senses warned him it was there. The colors,

white, gray, blue, orange, in the wall, in the

furniture, in the sky beyond the window, were...

were... And there was a feel. His flesh twitched.

His hands twitched. He stood drinking the oddness

with the pores of his body. Somewhere, someone

must have been screaming one of those whistles

that only a dog can hear. His body screamed

silence in return. Beyond this room, beyond

this wall, beyond this man who was not quite the

same man seated at this desk that was not quite

the same desk... lay an entire world of streets 226

and people. What sort of world it was now, there

was no telling. He could feel them moving there,

beyond the walls, almost, like so many chess

pieces blown in a dry wind... But the immediate

thing was the sign painted on the office wall,

the same sign he.had read earlier today on first

entering. Somehow, the sign had changed:

TYME SEFARI INC. SEFARIS TU ANY YEER EN THE PAST. YU NAIM THE ANIMALL. WEE TAEKYUTHAIR. YU SHOOT ITT.

Eckels felt himself fall into a chair. He fumbled

crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He

held up a clod of dirt, trembling.

READER II: "No, it can't be. Not a little thing like that.

Noy "

READER I: Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold

and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and

very dead.

READER II: "Not a little thing like that! Not a butterfly"

cried Eckels.

READER I: It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small

thing that could upset balances and knock down 227

a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes

and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years

across Time. Eckels' mind whirled. It couldn't

change things. Killing one butterfly couldn't

be that important! Coald it?

READER III: His face was cold. His mouth trembled, asking:

"Who - Who won the presidential election yesterday?"

READER I: The man behind the desk laughed.

READER III: "You joking? You know very well. Deutscher,

of course! Who else? Not that fool weakling

Keith. We got an iron man now, a man with

guts: What's wrong?"

READER I: Eckels moaned. He dropped to his knees. He

scrabbled at the golden butterfly with shaking

fingers.

READER II: "Can't we," he pleaded to the world, to himself,

to the officials, to the Machine, "can't we

take it back, can't we make it alive again?

Can't we start over? Can't we - "

READER III: He did not move. Eyes shut, he waited, shivering,

He heard Travis breathe loud in the room; he

heard Travis shift his rifle, click the safety

catch, and raise the weapon. 228

READER I: There was a sound of thunder. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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