MASTERCLASS

Helen Walters explores how you can tell tales of the inexplicable in your short fiction, with an example story by Nathaniel Hawthorne

TO READ THE STORY https://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Wak.shtml

This month’s story is an odd little tale. In ‘Wakefield’ by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a man steps out of his life.

He rents an apartment near his house so he can keep an eye on his home and his wife whilst living under the radar. Then he steps back in again after twenty years.

Why do I describe it as an odd little tale? Partly because of the inexplicability of what happens, and partly because of the way in which it is told. As always, you will get the most out of this masterclass if you read the story for yourself: www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Wak.shtml

Let’s start by looking at the way the narrative is framed. We have a narrator who tells the reader that he first saw Wakefield’s story in a magazine or newspaper. This indicates that we have a story within a story, but note how the narrator tells us the story is ‘told as truth’. The narrator also tells us that he only remembers the outline of the story, which raises the question of the status of everything else the narrator tells us about the story.

We’ve discussed the illusory nature of fiction in this column before, but this story takes it to a whole new level. Let’s look at how this works in more detail.