{"id":31,"date":"2015-05-27T23:28:01","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T06:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/?page_id=31"},"modified":"2015-06-05T16:08:30","modified_gmt":"2015-06-05T23:08:30","slug":"1-5-campfire-stories","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/1-5-campfire-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"1.5 – Campfire Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.\u201d \u2013 <\/em>H.P. Lovecraft<\/p>\n

My family went camping together a lot when I was younger, and my dad always loved to scare the kids with campfire stories. You probably would know many of them \u2013 a young couple parks their car in the woods, ignoring a radio broadcast about an escaped murderer with a hook for a hand. As the night progresses, they hear a scraping sound on the car door. One of them is urged to check it out \u2013 and finds a rusty metal hook stuck to their door.<\/p>\n

This story probably appears predictable and rote, but elements of it fascinate me. Nearly every element lacks concrete detail, but this is the only reason the story is successful. Think about how it would be different if we were told they were in Black Hill Forest in Wyoming or the teens were Chris the jock and Susie the academic or if the radio broadcast described the killer as \u201cfive foot ten, dark hair, blue eyes.\u201d (And really, you\u2019d hope a news warning would contain at least a little information like that!) The story ends abruptly \u2013 how would it be different if we see the kids get murdered, or find out later that they were?<\/p>\n

Scary stories operate in negative spaces, creating a blank canvass for its audience to project their deepest fears onto. One of the reasons bad horror movies fail is because they spend too long showing or explaining the monster \u2013 they end up leaving the audience with something much tamer than the nightmare they came up with. The really scary stories, though, don\u2019t unmask their villains. They leave the horror unexplained, a Gregorian knot that we cannot cut through.<\/p>\n

King\u2019s tale of the witches is a good scary story because it fits these criteria. It sketches rather than describes – the witch\u2019s contest, the witch of unknown origin or gender, the story that contains all the evil in the world \u2013 and invites the reader to fill in the negative spaces. The tension of what the story contains is never resolved, which means it contains everything you fear it does, and more.<\/p>\n

This story reminded me of a few great \u201cweird fiction\u201d stories. They are all about the dangers of learning forbidden knowledge, and they all draw horror from unknowable, unexplained sources. In Lovecraft\u2019s At the Mountains of Madness<\/em><\/a>, Antarctic explorers come across an ancient alien city and discover the secret origin of humanity. They also learn the city has been taken over by an unspeakable evil, which they catch a glimpse of as they are leaving. What they see is terrifying, driving one of the explorers mad, but when the reader expects the monster to be described, we read: \u201cThe words reaching the reader can never even suggest the awfulness of the sight itself. It crippled our consciousness\u2026\u201d There are no answers or resolutions to be found here. Looking for them will drive you insane.<\/p>\n

Robert Chamber\u2019s short story collection The King in Yellow<\/em><\/a> also features an object of unknowable terror. The second act of the titular play is told to contain the eldritch secrets of the universe, but will drive any reader insane. We never have the chance to read it ourselves, of course, but the premise demands speculation. A character named Hildred reads the first act and then attempts to burn the book, but his eyes fall on the next page. \u201cIf I had not caught a glimpse of the opening words in the second act I should never have finished it.\u201d The temptation of solving the unsolvable riddle is too much to resist \u2013 he snatches it from the flames, reading and rereading it to himself. At the end of the story, we are told he has died in an asylum.<\/p>\n

King writes that we are \u201cfearful of enigmas,\u201d (25) and the endurance of scary stories proves him right. As Chamberlin says, stories are how we make sense of the world \u2013 so it follows that, when faced with a story that we can\u2019t make sense of, we feel the need to figure it out. We might tell the protagonist not to open the door in a horror movie, but we want them to \u2013 we keep watching, because we need to solve the riddle of what\u2019s on the other side. I think it\u2019s part of human nature that given the choice, most of us would ask to hear the witch\u2019s story, or open Pandora\u2019s box, or read The King in Yellow<\/em>, or look back at the Mountains of Madness. We can\u2019t imagine anything scarier than not knowing \u2013 though of course, as these stories warn us, there\u2019s plenty of scarier things out there anyway.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, here\u2019s a new campfire story for you:<\/p>\n

A long time ago, there was a city walled off from the rest of the world. The city did not know crime or sickness, and any issues between its citizens had quick and happy resolutions.<\/p>\n

In this city lived a curious man named Mark. Mark was always asking questions: \u201cWhy is the city walled off from the rest of the world?\u201d \u201cThis is the world. There is nothing outside. We have everything we need here,\u201d said the townspeople.<\/p>\n

But Mark found a rusted iron gate built into the wall. \u201cHow can that be true if there\u2019s a gate here?\u201d he asked. \u201cThat gate has never been opened. There is nothing outside. We have everything we need here,\u201d said the townspeople.<\/p>\n

Frustrated, Mark found his friend Meg and asked her to help him plan an expedition. \u201cThere must be something out there,\u201d said Mark, \u201cand I will find it.\u201d Meg agreed to help him prepare. Soon Mark set off, carrying notebooks to record what he learned and draw what he saw, and enough supplies to last him for weeks.<\/p>\n

Months later, the rusted iron gate opened again. A man with an unkempt beard and sunken eyes slipped through, quickly and carefully closing the gate behind him. He made his way to Meg\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

Meg couldn\u2019t believe her eyes when she saw the man. \u201cMark? Where were you? You were supposed to be back months ago!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI got lost,\u201d Mark replied. \u201cI was trying to find my way back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are your notebooks? I need to hear all about it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI stopped recording things after the first few days. I destroyed my notebooks soon after.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMark, what did you see?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark did not answer, but looked at Meg with an expression that clearly meant, \u201cI will take that secret to my grave.\u201d Meg was confounded, not understanding why Mark would withhold what he had learned, or what he could have seen that would have made him do so. And although she had never heard the word or felt the feeling before, Meg knew she had been betrayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe you would keep secrets from me!\u201d She ran out the door and began to rally the townspeople. \u201cMark went outside, but he won\u2019t tell us what he found! Let\u2019s see what he thinks is so special about beyond the gate.\u201d She threw the gate open and went outside. The townspeople, their curiosity newly aroused, followed closely.<\/p>\n

Outside of the city, Meg found herself in the middle of a large library. Bookshelves were stacked to the clouds, and labyrinthine corridors stretched out in all directions, as far as the eye could see. Awestruck, Meg approached a shelf and opened a book.<\/p>\n

As the first words wormed their way into her brain, Meg realized in horror what the books contained. She turned around to warn the townspeople, but they had already made their way into the library, and were already starting to read. One by one, their faces contorted in expressions of terror, and they dropped their books to the ground.<\/p>\n

The citizens of the town never discussed what they learned that day. But it was no help, and their pristine city began to crumble anyway. That\u2019s the truth about stories, of course: once you tell one, it can never be put back.<\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

Chambers, Robert. “The King in Yellow.” Project Gutenberg. <\/em>July 6, 2003. Accessed May 27, 2015. <http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/8492\/8492-h\/8492-h.htm><\/p>\n

Lovecraft, H.P. “At the Mountains of Madness.” Project Gutenberg. <\/em>April 2015. Accessed May 27, 2015. <http:\/\/gutenberg.net.au\/ebooks06\/0600031h.html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.\u201d \u2013 H.P. Lovecraft My family went camping together a lot when I was younger, and my dad always loved to scare the kids with campfire stories. You probably would know many of them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27639,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-31","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27639"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}