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Where Words Meet

Ambiguity in Endings – "Why Jesse’s Hair?"

– Or Why Writers, if They Know What They’re Doing, Can Break (Almost) Any Damned Rule They Want

by John B. Rosenman

Hi, this is my maiden voyage in these shark-infested waters, and I’ve decided to respond to an essay that my buddy Dave Wilson posted here on March 14. As you may recall, Dave mentioned a short story I wrote nearly twenty years ago. It’s called “Jesse’s Hair” and is about a 310 pound, six-foot-one country girl who falls obsessively in love with men, then rapes and kills them when they see her only as an ugly bitch and reject her advances. Not exactly boy meets girl, huh? In the story, Susanna likes to take souvenirs from her dead and reluctant paramours to remember them. It could be their ears, their bridgework, their belt buckle, or . . . their hair.

As Dave observes, one problem with the story’s first draft was that there was no compelling reason why I told the story of Jesse’s demise. He didn’t stand out in any significant way and was just another victim. The story could just as easily have been about “Claude’s Bridgework” or “Billy Joe Bob’s Belt buckle.” Dave notes, “A short story should have a point. . . . If a vampire flies in and kills a woman, drinks her blood, and flies away, why is that a story we want to hear?” Why is that particular woman significant? He adds that “Horror and dark fantasy stories too-often ignore this. You get vague endings where the horror goes on. You are left wondering what happens next,” and too often readers feel dissatisfied and left hanging. They “want resolution and closure.”

Okay, this is excellent advice and is right 95% of the time. But as a teacher of creative writing, including a course in how to write science fiction and fantasy, I make it a point to tell my students that sometimes writers can intelligently break the most basic rules. It is possible, for example, to write a superbly poetic, introspective story that basically tells rather than shows, or a story that abruptly and repeatedly changes viewpoint, and so on. Of course, first you should know what the rules are before you try to break them, but it can be done.

This brings me to my main point: sometimes ambiguous endings ARE best. Sometimes it is essential for the writer NOT to provide “resolution and closure” or to wrap life up in a nice neat package or indeed any package at all. One case that comes to mind is Frank Stockton’s story, “The Lady or The Tiger.” Which door does the young man open? Is it the one with the fierce tiger behind it, or the one with a beautiful girl? Ah, that depends on the princess who loves the young man. If she gives him one signal, he opens a door and finds a sexpot. The princess saves her lover’s life, but loses her beloved, who must then marry the girl. If the princess gives another signal, she will never lose her boyfriend to a rival because he will be quickly gobbled up. Which door does the princess pick?

Now, you may think that this is a one-shot “gimmick” story, but Stockton makes it plain that the “question of” the princess’s “decision is one not to be lightly considered, and it is not for me to presume to set myself up as the one person able to answer it.” So he leaves it to the reader to embark on “a study of the human heart which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is difficult to find our way.” In other words, some questions in life, like those involving the convoluted mysteries of the human heart, are difficult to unravel, and a quick, pat answer which does our thinking for us, would only do a disservice. I for one find it much more rewarding to read and reread the story, endlessly searching for a clue that will provide an answer.

To put it another way, the last thing I want from Stockton is “resolution and closure.” Providing either would gravely weaken and limit this story.

Here’s another example. Walter de la Mare wrote a short story masterpiece called “Seaton’s Aunt.” Is Seaton’s aunt an inhuman monster bent on tormenting and destroying her nephew? Or is she simply an innocent bystander? David G. Hartwell in The Dark Descent, remarks that the author is one of the masters “of dreadful uncertainty in the horror story” and that “His finest tales most often suggest the supernatural without confirming it.” Another scholar, Julia Briggs, states that “De la Mare was happy to live with uncertainties, conscious of the infinite possibilities created by the imagination but exclusively committed to none of them.” The major reason therefore that this story is so haunting and unforgettable is that the author prefers uncertainties to certainties and chooses to leave things open.

To shift gears a bit, consider John Carpenter’s 1982 take on “The Thing.” At the end of the movie, MacReady (Kurt Russell) has torched the Antarctic camp in order to destroy all vestiges of an alien, shape-shifting monster which could quickly conquer the world by replacing all life forms with its own. Is it Real or is it Memorex? In the downbeat conclusion, Childs (Keith David) shows up and we have a disturbing, chilling impasse. Has he been “taken over” and converted into a monster, or is he just a Brother with an Attitude? Some viewers hate this ending because it leaves them hanging. They are troubled by MacReady’s suggestion, “Why don’t we just wait here for a little while…see what happens?” But the ending is faithful to the spirit of John W. Campbell, Jr.’s original story, “Who Goes There?”, where paranoia and dreadful uncertainty reign.

Sometimes in life, there are no easy answers or explanations. The good guys don’t always wear white hats and the villains, black ones. And sometimes problems don’t seem to be resolved at all. A recent bestseller, Myra Goldberg’s Bee Season, ends with a profoundly dysfunctional family still battling its dysfunctions and drifting further apart than ever. And what does the little girl do on the final page to turn it around? She purposely trashes her chances to win a national spelling bee. On the one hand, we may see her deliberate loss as an exercise of her free will, as a brave protest and coming of age against her father’s false values and dominating ways. But perhaps it can also be seen as reflecting the author’s belief that even on the last page, there are no major or even minor solutions.

As I said before, Dave is basically right in urging writers to avoid ambiguity in endings and to seek resolution and closure. In general, these are sound, sensible principles for both writers and readers. They reflect human beings’ built-in need to find meaning and purpose in life or at least some semi-intelligent design. Deep down, we crave structure and fear there is no purpose or meaning at all, that life consists only of chaotic, random, pointless events. A sweet little girl gets shot or run over by a truck. Doesn’t that happen every day? Well, no sir, we can’t have that. There must be some reason for that tragedy, some higher meaning or purpose. By the same token, Ulysses must not only return home after being away for twenty years, he must kill the obnoxious suitors and reclaim both his wife and his kingdom. He can’t simply get killed or sit down like another suitor for dinner.

Sometimes, though, we not only wonder if life is random and pointless, but fear that it’s a third-rate Theater of the Absurd. As Shakespeare put it, perhaps life “is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.” I don’t think that writers can ignore that fear or always end with a message or a moral. Sometimes, indeed, we may even be trapped like the characters we create in “vague endings where the horror goes on,” apparently without end.

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