AISTHE, nº 3, 2008 ISSN 1981-7827 Konstan, David In defense of Croesus, or Suspense as an aesthetic emotion IN DEFENSE OF CROESUS, OR SUSPENSE AS AN AESTHETIC EMOTION David Konstan University of Brown Abstract: Suspense is perhaps unique in being an emotion that responds specifically to narrative: without a story, with beginning, middle, and end, there is no suspense. Some have argued the reverse as well: it is not a story if it does not produce suspense (Brewer and Lichtenstein 1981). Suspense, which is compounded of hope and fear (Ortony, Clore, and Collins 1988), anticipates a conclusion: hence its connection with narrative closure. Paradoxically, there is suspense even where the outcome of a story is known (Carroll 1996). Suspense thus provides rich material for the poetics of emotion, yet it has rarely been examined in connection with classical literature and emotion theory. Keywords: Suspense, Emotion, Narrative, Resumo : O suspense é talvez ímpar enquanto uma emoção que corresponde especificamente à narrativa: sem história, sem começo meio e fim, não há suspense (Brewer and Lichtenstein 1981). O suspense, que é composto de expectativa e medo (Ortony, Clore, and Collins 1988), antecipa uma conclusão: daí sua conexão com o desfecho da narrativa. Paradoxalmente, há suspense mesmo se o desenlace de uma história é conhecido (Carroll 1996). O suspense, portanto, provê matéria preciosa para a poética da emoção, ainda que raramente tenha sido examinado em conexão com a literatura clássica e a teoria da emoção. Palavras-chave: Suspense, Emoção, Narrativa "There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man someone standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, trouble will come for him."1 Suspense is a particularly relevant sentiment in connection with the "poetics of emotions," since it would seem to bear a special relationship to narrative -- and narrative is certainly at the heart of any conception of poetics. Indeed, there is a sense in which suspense 1 Anton Chekhov, "Gooseberries," in Constance Garnett, tr., The Wife and Other Stories (New York: Ecco Press, 1985), p. 283. 1 AISTHE, nº 3, 2008 ISSN 1981-7827 Konstan, David In defense of Croesus, or Suspense as an aesthetic emotion is inseparable from the idea of a story, and if this is so, then suspense would appear to be unique among emotions commonly identified -- supposing for a moment that it is an emotion -- in that it is essentially a response to an aesthetic phenomenon. Stories do not exist in nature, as it were; they are the product of a sense of order that we impose on events so as to give them a shape. Indeed, some have argued that the reverse is true as well: a narrative is a story only if it produces suspense.2 The closest terms in Aristotle's Poetics for a narrative are µῦθος , "story" or "plot," and σύστασις , a "composition" or "combination." As Aristotle puts it, of all the parts of tragedy - - he mentions µῦθος , character, diction ( λέξις ), thought ( διάνοια ), spectacle, and music (1450a90-10; cf. 13-14)-- "the most important is the combination of events [ ἡ τῶν πραγµάτων σύστασις ]" (1450a15). When he comes to defining σύστασις -- which, he repeats, is first and weightiest of all -- Aristotle recalls the definition of tragedy as "the imitation of an entire and complete action that has magnitude," and then stipulates that "what has a beginning, a middle, and an end is entire [ὅλον]" (1450b26-27). As the well-known writer of fiction, Patricia Highsmith, observes, in her guide to prospective authors entitled Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction : "Every story with a beginning, middle, and end has suspense; a suspense story presumably has it more so," although shortly afterwards she mentions a "successful playwright" who "is furious with Aristotle for having said that a story needed a beginning, middle and an end."3 Aristotle's definitions of these three moments in a composition are notoriously simple: "what does not of necessity come after something else, but another thing naturally exists or comes after it, is a beginning" (1450b27-28), and the end and middle are defined in similar terms. He concludes that "stories that are well composed" (τοὺς συνεστῶτας εὖ µύθους , 1450b32) must not begin or end just anywhere, but in accord with these specifications. That a story has a structure or constitution requires that it be conceived of as a whole: one cannot perceive that the action imitated or represented in a µῦθος is complete, as Aristotle requires that it be, until one has reached the end, and looked back on its entire trajectory. A spectator or reader knows when the tale has reached its finale, and is equally aware when it is still somewhere in the middle, and hence unfinished. It is this sense of 2 See W.F. Brewer and E.H. Lichtenstein, "Event Schemas, Story Schemas, and Story Grammars," in J. Long and A. Baddeley (Eds.), Attention and Performance IX (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1981), pp. 363-379. 3 Patricia Highsmith, Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (Boston: The Writer, Inc., 1966), pp. 1, 11. 2 AISTHE, nº 3, 2008 ISSN 1981-7827 Konstan, David In defense of Croesus, or Suspense as an aesthetic emotion something not yet finished, of a way still to go before the narrative reaches its natural end, that induces, I wish to argue, the feeling of suspense. That is, it is not simply the awareness of some immediately impending threat in the course of the action, such as a tree or rock about to topple on an unsuspecting passer-by. Such scenes generate tension in the audience, of course. However, this is not the same response as suspense, and in fact has no particular connection with the completeness of an action or story: it is merely an event, and an event, or even a sequence of events, does not generate suspense concerning the outcome of a narrative. To be sure, some events in real life have, or seem to have (if properly selected or attended to), an order that resembles a complete action or πρᾶξις , to use Aristotle's term; more particularly, a few such actions have, according to Aristotle, found expression in a limited number of myths, to which the tragedians returned again and again just because they had the appropriate narrative shape. But such coherent episodes are generally speaking at best a part of an entire life, and Aristotle cautions against imagining that a proper story can be constructed around all the events in a person's biography. As he puts it: "It is not a single story if, as some people imagine, it is about a single individual: for many indefinite things befall a single individual. Thus many actions pertain to a single individual, but no single action arises from them" (1451a16-19). Without a single or coherent action, there can be no expectation of an ending -- no sense that one is in the middle of a story rather than at the beginning or near the finale -- and hence no suspense. Modern discussions of suspense often describe it as compounded of hope and fear,4 which are treated as two emotions aroused in anticipation of the conclusion -- the hope that things will turn out all right for the appropriate characters in the story, and the fear that they may not. Hope and fear, as prospective emotions, call to mind the Stoic pair of desire or appetite (ἐπιθυµία) and fear or aversion ( φόβος ), two of the four generic πάθη , along with distress ( λύπη ) and pleasure ( ἡδονή), under which all emotions are subsumed. It is natural, in turn, to associate this composite sentiment of hope and anxiety with Aristotle's pair, pity (ἔλεος ) and fear (φόβος ), which he stipulates as the emotions proper to tragedy. Thus, Ari Hiltunen, in a study of suspense in film entitled Aristotle in Hollywood , affirms that "Aristotle's concept of fear can best be understood by the word suspense. The audience are aware of threatening danger and would like to warn the character but of course cannot do 4 E.g. Andrew Ortony, Gerald L. Clore, and Allan Collins, The Cognitive Structure of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 3 AISTHE, nº 3, 2008 ISSN 1981-7827 Konstan, David In defense of Croesus, or Suspense as an aesthetic emotion so."5 Although pity, in turn, is not the same thing as hope, it would seem to represent a comparable investment in the fortunes of the persons in a drama. And yet, the difference between pity and hope is instructive here. Aristotle is discussing, of course, the emotional responses specific to tragedy, and so both the emotions he indicates are reactions to misfortune, as opposed to hope, which at least imagines a more positive outcome. But on the usual, textbook understanding of suspense as a "state of uncertainty, anticipation and curiosity as to the outcome of a story or play, or any kind of narrative in verse or prose," which arise "particularly as they affect a character for whom one has sympathy,"6 one might certainly entertain at least the hope that events, even in a tragedy, will take a turn for the better, if not in the end, at least locally and for the time being. Indeed, many Greek tragedies, such as Sophocles' Philoctetes or Euripides' Iphigenia among the Taurians , do end up favoring the protagonists. Nor need our knowledge of the conclusion, which is often given in advance in the case of the familiar myths that form the plots of tragedy, entirely eliminate the possibility of some more positive expectation.