THE
ART OF DIALOGUE
Written
by
Mike
D. Burke and Rachel Burke
In a story an author uses many devices and
techniques to get many different things across to their audience. They use plot
devices, MacGuffins, and other such sorcery at the hand of the creative
pen-smith to move their characters from scene to scene or to have the
characters themselves force the actions of the universe. One such device that
is within the tool box of the writer is: dialogue. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote
a Sherlock Holmes short story titled, “The Problem of Thor Bridge” in which a
one, Neil Gibson, known as the Gold King and a former senator of the United
States approaches Holmes to investigate the murder of his wife, Maria. As well
as to clear his children’s governess, Grace Dunbar, of the crime. An analysis
of this short story makes a few things apparent for certain: Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle uses dialogue to create a fast paced narrative; introduce plot devices,
and to help the reader discover character wants and needs in context and
subtext.
In “The Problem of Thor Bridge” Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle uses dialogue to create a fast paced narrative. There is a point where in the story he uses
dialogue to make the moment of Holmes’ discovery of the major clue in the case,
the fact that Miss Dunbar couldn’t have committed the crime herself, before
seeing that indeed she didn’t commit the crime; that the author says , “No, no,
Watson, I will not admit that it is possible. Where a crime is coolly
premeditated, then the means of covering it are coolly premeditated also. I
hope, therefore, that we are in the presence of a serious misconception.”
“But there is so much
to explain.”
“Well, we shall set
about explaining it. When once your point of view is changed, the very thing
which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth. For example, there is this
revolver. Miss Dunbar disclaims all knowledge of it. On our new theory she is
speaking truth when she says so. Therefore, it was placed in her wardrobe. Who
placed it there? Someone who wished to incriminate her. Was not that person the
actual criminal? You see how we come at once upon a most fruitful line of
inquiry.”
He uses this moment in
dialogue to have Holmes realize that indeed there is much, much, more to the
case than what seems to be. Instead of giving us a long description on how
Holmes and Watson ride in the carriage and Holmes’ mulls it over in his head,
he involves the reader by engaging Watson, our narrator, into the inner
workings. This moves us faster from mystery to discovery, which makes the story
move faster in the reader’s mind. In another example from the passage we have
the author leading us to what will become the resolution, “A clue, Mr. Holmes?
What is it?”
“It all depends upon
the behavior of Dr. Watson’s revolver,” said my friend. “Here it is. Now,
officer, can you give me ten yards of string?”
The village shop
provided a ball of stout twine.
“I think that this is
all we will need,” said Holmes. “Now, if you please, we will get off on what I
hope is the last stage of our journey.”
By using the dialogue
to introduce us to the very clue that will lead us to the resolution he creates
a foreshadowing climax in the mere matter of what seems like a moment. He
forces this sense of emergency within the voices of the characters which make
us, as the reader, feel there sense of urgency to discover the truth behind
this murder. Using dialogue as a writing tool to create a fast paced narrative
in order to keep the story going at an interesting pace was Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle’s gift to the generations of creative people of the world. He showed us
that there isn’t always a need to have a long, tedious explanation of setting
and action to move the story along from exposition to climax to resolution.
Within the confines of the Sherlock Holmes’
mystery, “The Problem of Thor Bridge” as written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the
author uses dialogue to introduce plot devices. “Yes, on the floor of
my wardrobe under my dresses.”
“You could not guess
how long it had been there?”
“It had not been there
the morning before.”
In this small, brief
but important moment the author introduces the rifle as a point of interest,
i.e., a plot device. Dialogue through character discovery is one of the most creative
and best ways to have the reader discover knowledge unknown to them in which
are important to come to the explanation of the resolution. This use was an
intricate device in which the author, the famous and brilliant Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle masterfully uses dialogue to have the character’s discover the ‘clue’ of
the ‘rifle’.
Dialogue within character conversation can be
used for many different purposes, such as discovering character desires through
the context of their speech and also the subtext of the words they choose to
say. An example of this can be seen early on when Neil Gibson says, “I suppose
you are within your rights — and maybe doing your duty — in asking such a
question, Mr. Holmes.”
“We will agree to
suppose so,” said Holmes.
“Then I can assure you
that our relations were entirely and always those of an employer towards a
young lady whom he never conversed with, or ever saw, save when she was in the
company of his children.”
In the way in which the
author has the character of Neil Gibson choose the words, “relations”,
“employer” and “conversed with, or ever saw…” give us the feeling of how the
character himself in context, at face value is trying to distance himself from
the situation, yet within subtext, as sensed by Holmes as well as the
perceptive reader is letting us in on the inner machinations of the
subconscious choices of the character within the story. To reinforce this
analysis here is another example from the story in which the author shows us
that Holmes himself has discovered the subtext of his client’s statement,
“Bluff, Watson, bluff! When I considered the passionate, unconventional,
unbusinesslike tone of his letter and contrasted it with his self-contained
manner and appearance, it was pretty clear that there was some deep emotion
which centred upon the accused woman rather than upon the victim. We’ve got to
understand the exact relations of those three people if we are to reach the
truth. You saw the frontal attack which I made upon him, and how imperturbably
he received it. Then I bluffed him by giving him the impression that I was
absolutely certain, when in reality I was only extremely suspicious.”
“Perhaps he will come
back?”
“He is sure to come
back. He must come back. He can’t leave it where it is. Ha! Isn’t that a ring?
Yes, there is his footstep. Well, Mr. Gibson, I was just saying to Dr. Watson
that you were somewhat overdue.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was revolutionary in
the use of dialogue; in his time and indeed in what is now considered to be the
modern age of writing. There are many difficulties which lie before a writer of
either mastery or novice and dialogue is one of them. In his own discovery and
experimentation, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in this short story and in his many
others before and after has help generations of writers. He has helped them
discover new ways into which they can; create fast paced narrative to keep the
reader’s attention, introduce plot devices and create situations in which
characters had revealing moments. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was indeed, a master
in the art of dialogue.
The
Need to Transcend
Written
by
Mike
D. Burke and Rachel Burke
Poetry can reach the ear and heart of anyone if it is the
right words of phrases. No subject is off the table with such endless
imagination as the poets have. Each stanza of a poem can take you on a journey
of internal discovery. Although he died at a young age, John Keats, is one of
England’s most famous and well-studied poets of all time. In his poem, Ode to a Nightingale he speaks of the
beauty of the nightingale song and his need to transcend this life and join it
any way he can, even in death. An analysis that can be drawn here is that Keats
believes it is human nature to desire to transcend mortality. By which way is
the best though and the most honest way to do so? Through alcohol? Through
death? Can it actually be achieved at all?
Alcohol is a small but false form of transcendence. It
can only hope to possibly touch upon the reality of it if at all. Alcohol
brings people false dreams and prophecies in which it harbors it’s deceitful
yet playful way. In stanza two in lines seven, eight and nine, Keats writes, “With
beaded bubbles winking at the brim,/And purple-stained mouth;/That I might
drink, and leave the world unseen” (KEATS 17-19). So right here he uses these
lines to discuss how the sweet elixir of wine might make him able to leave his
body and fly with the nightingale off to another land where he may be as free
as it. Interesting to note the imagery he denotes in these lines immediately
bringing to mind a dark wine, a red wine. This could be a small subconscious
note touching on his fondness for death. Yet after considering this form of
transition he reconsiders his pure desires and states, “Away! away! for I will
fly to thee,/Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,/But on the viewless wings
of Poesy,” (KEATS 31-33). Realizing quickly that this is not the way for him to
join the nightingale. However, alcohol can lead to a fatal transcendence, the
transition from life to death.
Death is something to be sought after, for it is a morbid
form of transcendence. The juxtaposition of life and death and their different
beauties is amazingly fantastic in the way Keats uses wording and descriptions
to bring us to the conclusion of life being but a different form of death.
Describing transcendence in such a simplistic way without us actually realizing
anything of the nature has happened. “Darkling
I listen; and, for many a time/I have been half in love with easeful Death”
(KEATS 51-52). Here Keats’ narrator admits to longing for death for some time
now, saying it’s something he has been in love with for some time now. Keats
was a romanticist and could easily find a way to make such a morbid subjects
seem lovely. With love and death being in the same line it also brings to light
the duality of life and death in the sense and mind of the poet. Could death really
be so bad if it brought forth his desire to be with the immortal world? Yet in
question itself as a form of leaving the mortal world, death is indeed a form
of transcendence but transcendence to what? Is death not indeed just another
realm of perception?
Transcendence itself begs the question of reality. Do we
accept all that lies before us or do we question all that we know? If we are able to leave that which we are and
become something else other than what we have known ourselves to be for all
this time then what could be real? Keats again calling upon his mastery of
language uses tonality to discuss with us the question that beckons all of us
eventually. “Was it a vision, or a waking dream?/Fled is that music:—Do I wake
or sleep?” (KEATS 79-80). The way he leaves his dream-like pattern of speech
and addresses the audience in a manner of talking to himself saying a question
aloud really brings in the reader in such a way as to make him/her question
their own existence in this world, can anyone truly join the nightingale?
There’s a simplistic beauty to the way this poem, Ode to a Nightingale hits you. It’s in
how the narrator yearns to be free of the shackles that bind him to this mortal
realm. Keats knew that the need to transcend passed the material world is a
primary human desire. His poetic representation of it is haunting and begs all
of us to somehow transcend ourselves.
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